KVR Audio

camsr · Post by **camsr** » Sat Mar 29, 2014 8:34 pm

This is a soft clipping plugin with (hopefully lower in the future) very low CPU hit, and very intuitive use and sound.
It is in development now as I will be adding some more features soon.

VST PLUGIN, NO MAC VERSION, SORRY.
NOW HAS PARAMETER SMOOTHING, SAFE TO AUTOMATE
STEREO ONLY

For Preview and Testing: SmoothClipper x86
SmoothClipper x64
SmoothClipper is a softer and smoother waveshaping curve.

SoftClipper
v3.1 zip Download

It uses the host's default GUI, but in it's defense, there's one knob only.
The DRIVE knob achieves clipping by boosting the signal above 0dBFS internally, and then scaling it back afterwards. The only change occurs on peaks, not average volume.
With a 0dBFS input signal, SoftClipper full drive will attain roughly -10dBFS peak on output.
SmoothClipper has a little more gain and clips a normalized signal to roughly -14dBFS

If there are any showstopper bugs or strange behaviors, crashes, please don't hesitate to report them.

camsr · Post by **camsr** » Sun Mar 30, 2014 2:23 pm

q_h · Post by **q_h** » Sun Mar 30, 2014 6:56 pm

camsr,

Also, it is optimized for Core 2 platforms, would be interesting to see AMD users results.

Pnenom II x4 @ 3.3Gz

camsr · Post by **camsr** » Sun Mar 30, 2014 9:25 pm

Ahh, but you have to drive it to the max to see the real numbers, because it only distorts above a threshold, and that distortion uses more CPU. You may notice higher CPU usage on peaks, but not much

q_h · Post by **q_h** » Sun Mar 30, 2014 10:22 pm

camsr, i tested with drive 5.5

new test - max drive (10)

do_androids_dream · Post by **do_androids_dream** » Sun Mar 30, 2014 11:44 pm

Thanks for this

Just tried it up against Signal Dust's Tsclip, which is what I've been using lately for soft clipping duties, and it stacks up nicely in my little unscientific test

(threw it on a dynamic techno track from the early 90's). With Tsclip in it's default state (saturation 'off') it actually sounds slightly cleaner with bass being slightly better maintained at the same levels of gain reduction. Will test on some snares and a few other things tomorrow. Oh, and love the fact it's latency free and it uses only 0.2% of my core 2 duo E6600.

chokehold · Post by **chokehold** » Mon Mar 31, 2014 12:05 am

I love 'em, but I prefer the kind that "lowers" the ceiling onto a signal, rather than boosting the signal "up into" the ceiling.

This just comes from the fact that I use clippers to tame the odd peak or two that DI signals from electric basses and guitars so often have. Boosting the volume of the entire signal up and then "cutting the tops off" would change the original signal too much and too obviously alter the overall perceived loudness of the DI track, and with it the result of the following software amps or reamping attempts.

Sometimes, clipping a few dB off and being able to push the entire track up a few dB is all it needs, it doesn't always have to be as close to -0.01dB as possible.

Oh, and... Mac here, so I can't try yours. Pity.

do_androids_dream · Post by **do_androids_dream** » Mon Mar 31, 2014 12:15 am

chokehold wrote:I love 'em, but I prefer the kind that "lowers" the ceiling onto a signal, rather than boosting the signal "up into" the ceiling.

This one does work that way in the little test I did earlier. Even though you are increasing a 'drive' parameter it doesn't increase any perceived loudness - it just lowers peaks.

camsr · Post by **camsr** » Mon Mar 31, 2014 9:42 am

I intend to keep it latency free, because that will allow more creative usage. It doesn't alias that bad, but it is advisable to use a 96000hz sampling rate for best sound and usage. At 96000hz, signals limited to 20000hz will not show significant aliasing in the raw or downsampled using this algorithm.
I cannot support both PC and Mac, sorry. No Mac first off, and I am still trying to work out the bugs of this version. It is very platform dependent, and it should only work on x86 and x86-64 platforms (I know Macs use Intel now, but there still are important differences)
If someone could try it out on Linux/WINE, that would also be very helpful.

DuX · Post by **DuX** » Mon Mar 31, 2014 11:12 am

It's a really nice feature that you can cut the peaks without changing the loudness so you can hear more clearly how it sounds. Interesting.

camsr · Post by **camsr** » Sun Apr 13, 2014 7:54 pm

I have updated the x64 version...
It still does not like FLv10, but in REAPER x64 it works fantastic,
and now it is 300-400% faster.
I changed the algorithm slightly, so it's not the same as before, but very similar.
It will enter hard clipping (for most purposes) above +24dbFS, the Drive only takes the gain up to +20dB for 0dB inputs.
At full drive the GR is still 9.5dB
The saturation is softer before a drive of 4.2, after that it gets steeper, in comparison to the first algorithm.

Turello · Post by **Turello** » Sun Apr 13, 2014 8:01 pm

Effective plugin... Like on rock acoustic snare for squash! Thanks

DuX · Post by **DuX** » Sun Apr 13, 2014 9:23 pm

Interesting! I'd like to give it a whirl but what happened to the V2 x86? I can't use x64 plugins.

Cheers!

camsr · Post by **camsr** » Sun Apr 13, 2014 9:43 pm

It has yet to exhibit the same speedup.
Working on it... Trying mostly to get FL10 bridging working before that.

camsr · Post by **camsr** » Mon Apr 14, 2014 1:37 am

I think bridging is just the problem, tested the new x86 build and it's much faster.

SoftClipper, and now SmoothClipper