What does the Quality setting do in MSpectralDynamics?

[bbaggins]

Although the Quality setting does seem to alter the sound of the plugin, I don't hear "better" with High versus Low or Medium. I've just learned not to change it mid-project.

So my question is: what is the Quality setting actually doing?

[MeldaProduction]

Basically the Quality controls the "spectral resolution" - it's impossible to split a sound into all frequency components, because there may be an infinite number of them (and there usually is). Simply put, this controls how many frequencies the plugin can accept, the rest of them are then kind of "generated using the others" (hard to describe it simply). So yes, it sounds different.

[bbaggins]

Thanks, Vojtech.

Is there any correlation between Quality and Smoothness?

It seems that if you had Smoothness set to a high value, say 5%, then you're painting with very broad strokes, in which case the Quality setting might be irrelevant. IOW, does Quality matter only with the sharpest Smoothness settings?

I'm trying to understand why the Quality setting even exists. Obviously, it's a CPU-saving option, but is there any other circumstance where I'd set Quality to something other than "High"?

Sorry to be a pest. If your answer is "leave it on High Quality and forget about it" I'll accept that answer.

[MeldaProduction]

Ok, so leave it on High Quality and forget about it!!

Well, there definitely is a correlation between the 2 parameters, as well as with any other pair of parameters... well, I wouldn't rather get into the technical stuff

[bbaggins]

OK, then. High Quality it is.

Thanks again for your patience with us geeks who ask too many questions. Just remember that techno-geeks and nerds make up a significant fraction of your fanbase. Everybody else can be happy with their Waves one-knob plugins. We like knobs.

[MeldaProduction]

Yeah no problem