KVR Audio

bduffy · Post by **bduffy** » Mon May 30, 2005 11:46 pm

Yeah, I always found BBE a little cold-sounding.

rpc9943 · Post by **rpc9943** » Tue May 31, 2005 1:55 am

okay dude do some posts like lets hear some of this in action. dry/wet/bbe etc

RonC

Noox · Post by **Noox** » Tue May 31, 2005 2:20 am

Are you sure it is made with Synthedit ?

There's no folder created with .SEP or .SEM files inside.

This would explain why it takes that much CPU to process sound. It is still an great toy to play with, though. What a sound !

msorrels · Post by **msorrels** » Tue May 31, 2005 5:31 am

The binary contains the string Synthedit and the URL to www.synthedit.com a couple of times. Pretty sure that makes it at least somewhat a Synthedit plugin.

I picked it up in the group buy. It seems to add a nice bit to tracks and full mixes. I have had some issues with Sonar crashing when adding it to bus tracks and trying to play, but that certainly could be the adapter or Sonar, doesn't seem to crash if I use DirectiXer rather than the Cakewalk adapter. Also didn't seem to crash if I added it, but turned if off and then did a play of the tracks and then turned it on. Like it had some initialization problem or something maybe.

Their method of not telling what any of the settings do or mean is a bit annoying, personally I don't like black boxes much. But it's clearly not a bad little tool, though the crashes are sort of worrisome to me. But since no one else has said anything I'm guessing it's just me.

kevvvvv · Post by **kevvvvv** » Tue May 31, 2005 7:39 am

msorrels

Their method of not telling what any of the settings do or mean is a bit annoying, personally I don't like black boxes much. But it's clearly not a bad little tool,

I'd like to know more about what the numbers and letters mean too

krushing · Post by **krushing** » Tue May 31, 2005 7:57 am

Me too. The low price and keeping up the image it does something "magical" just seems to me it does some really simple adjustments and people hear what they want to hear. So I'm cynical about this, but then again, as an extreme example, would any of you buy a highend audio-enhancing device - let's say a Thermionic Culture Phoenix, if the manufacturer just said "it makes shit sound good"?

It's not the same thing here, but does the low price justify that we don't know what it does?

*waits for "just buy it, cheapskate" comments*

sghoughton · Post by **sghoughton** » Tue May 31, 2005 11:58 am

I'm not really familiar with synthedit, but it sounds like if this really was easy to produce, someone would have done so by now just to prove it was. Or at least come up with some sort of formula for an exact sound comprised of compressors, eqs or whatever. Why doesn't someone just do that (i'm certainly not up to the task)? Personally, i liked the sound enough to join the group buy. I'm lazy and really know nothing about mastering yet so it was a quick and cheap way to a better sound until i can get into that stuff.

steve

msorrels · Post by **msorrels** » Tue May 31, 2005 1:17 pm

Given they have a working demo version it's pretty simple to try it and see if you think it does something you want. I thought it sounded good enough for the lowered group buy price. But it's not exactly an all purpose mastering tool. It's not even a compressor or other well known tool. It seems to do a few different things, including adding additional harmonics(can see this if you run it on a generated sine wave) as well as some stereo separation. It doesn't appear to be a loudness maximizer, but may have some limiter like features(coupled with a output volume control). The manual gives some clues to what it does but I don't think you can get the manual without purchasing it first (didn't remember seeing it in the demo version I downloaded). Their license has issues with talking about what's in the manual, so clearly they think the manual is "important", personally I thought it wasn't that good a manual and could use some work.

In the end though it doesn't really matter to me. I thought it was worth the group buy price. That said, its effect hasn't been so amazingly useful to me, it does add a bit of sparkle and space, but by the time I then take that signal and do other more traditional mastering steps (with Ozone 3) I'm finding that I'm just not hearing much of it. It also doesn't seem to work too well with a fully compressed, maximized and eq'ed mix. It seems to work much better earlier in the signal chain. But then doesn't survive well in the end. Of course I've barely used it and I'm not exactly a mastering expert.

kevvvvv · Post by **kevvvvv** » Tue May 31, 2005 2:00 pm

msorrels

It seems to work much better earlier in the signal chain.

That's what it says in the manual

Personally I'm liking it more and more.

I put a few old mixes through it yesterday and loved the crisp spacious sound it gave.

The Gain control gives a lot of freedom too. Gain can be added in Sprectralive, or later on with a comp and limiter.

The Gain is also useful for setting the level for true on / off comparisons.

sgh

I'm lazy and really know nothing about mastering yet so it was a quick and cheap way to a better sound

Hats off to an honest man

Why should finding an acceptably good sound be a hard thing?

I don't belong to the difficult-equals-better school of thought

kritikon · Post by **kritikon** » Tue May 31, 2005 2:58 pm

I don't know, Ron ... I don't think they could have paid off both Kev and kritikon and still have enough left over for a summer vacation (or maybe it would be a winter vacation) -- edit: and I don't mean to suggest that either of them would accept payola

I'm more than happy to accept payment from anyone should they care to donate

Me too. The low price and keeping up the image it does something "magical" just seems to me it does some really simple adjustments and people hear what they want to hear. So I'm cynical about this, but then again, as an extreme example, would any of you buy a highend audio-enhancing device - let's say a Thermionic Culture Phoenix, if the manufacturer just said "it makes shit sound good"?

It's not the same thing here, but does the low price justify that we don't know what it does?

That's just not an issue for me most of the time. I take it in context...many years ago there was not that much choice when buying an enhancer (hardware only) of any kind. Indeed most of the manufacturers were very cagey about what precise methods they employed in their enhancers. BBE were one of the few who gave any info at all - and they only admitted to band splitting and delays (I was always fairly convinced it is more than that method only). Aural Exciters and C3 Big Bottoms etc - you couldn't get any details from them - it was generally assumed it was a mix of band compression, phase correction and harmonics - probably Eq as well. None of those companies would tell you. You basically bought an enhancer on how it sounded, not based on the technical data. So I have no qualms about that with s/w either. It all boils down to how it sounds.
It really was marketing along the lines of "this black box makes shit sound better" - hard to believe, but true.

To be prefectly honest, I had no idea it was anything to do with Synthedit. Generally I have a dim view of most synthedit synths (with the odd exception), and most of the FX I hear are average. But if somebody releases something with Synthedit that sounds better than the competition, I simply don't care what it's coded with. I bought the Otium compressor because at the time there was almost no other comp with a sidechain and inbuilt filters, and it happened to sound very good on drums because it is tailored specifically to drums. I very nearly bought Superwave - it's easy, it's obvious (I could even patch it up myself no doubt if I could be arsed) but it sounds good.

Now I know Spectralive is Synthedit, it doesn't change my view of it - it sounds, to me, better than hardware I bought a few years back for 30 times the price. That's all that matters to me...I can now enhance my mixes without having to patch externally and all that entails...and the enhancer sounds better than my equivalent hardware, and it does more.

As for how it works - yeah, sure I'd like to know a little more about it (by the way, the manual is the same as on the demo, so they don't tell us any more when we buy it), but I won't stop using it because I don't know. I have my opinions - e.g. I'm pretty sure they use some liberal Eq - I don't think it's strong boosting, as I haven't heard a Synthedit Eq that I like that much, but I reckon there's Eq going on - some of the algorithms make the mids and lower mids stand out too much for it not to be. But all other h/w enhancers used Eq somewhere in the chain too (as far as I know).
Personally I also don't think they use harmonic addition - I always found the h/w adders to be very harsh, especially on hats and snares - some of them used to make me wince when I heard them. Spectralive sounds too clean to me to be harmonics.
Crysonic make much mention of phase correction - yep, there'll be lots of that going on - that is a bona fide, well known trick to psychoaccoustic enhancement. It's even possible they might do a minor bit of the BBE trick of band delays - possibly by a smaller amount - I'm not convinced of that though. I strongly suspect it does some band compression.
I've not really played around with the bass controls yet...I suspect there's a bit of bass compression going on too, but I need to check further to be sure of that...anyway, I'll probably leave the bass controls alone - I want my mixes to be bass neutral - I only want the mids and highs to be fiddled with.

But it doesn't matter - they're all tricks that have been used by well known h/w manufacturers, and this happens to be the only enhancer I know of in s/w that truly competes with the established h/w. I'm not kidding when I say I'll most likely pack away my BBE - it cost me almost 300 quid when I bought it way back when - equivalent to maybe NZ$750 now.

Spectralive cost me $23.

So it's certainly not my own head doing my head in, trying to convince me it sounds good simply because I bought it. (I know that can happen). If I was to convince myself of anything, it would be that my expensive h/w sounds better...but unfortunately, it just doesn't.

At least this topic has solved my mystery - I really did wonder why they were selling it so cheap to start with - I didn't know it was Synthedit. Buying it blind, not knowing it was Synthedit, I would have easily paid more for it. Still would. But I guess Crysonic figured many would balk at paying over the odds for Synthedit.

In fact this and the Otium compressor are making me think that maybe Synthedit's strength could be in FX. I've only ever heard one Synthedit synth that I would have considered paying for (maybe 2 - Synth 1 isn't too bad either), but ultimately I didn't buy. Whereas the proof of the pudding is that I now have paid for 2 Synthedit FX that are way ahead of most of the competition. And in hardware, I already own a standard comp/gate/limiter and a 4-channel frequency conscious comp with band split - but I still bought a Synthedit comp. I already own a h/w enhancer, but I bought a Synthedit one.

If Synthedit can make me get my wallet out, nobody else should worry too much - I'm amongst the biggest Synthedit skeptics.

And as for comments about trickery with Spectralive - yes...that is exactly what psychoaccoustic enhancement is all about. Audio mangling tricks that make everyone's brain hear a song better. Bollocks to it being in the digital domain and all that mythical crap - there are tricks you can do to even the best professional mix that will make it sound better.

bduffy · Post by **bduffy** » Tue May 31, 2005 5:44 pm

Well said, kritikon.

kevvvvv · Post by **kevvvvv** » Tue May 31, 2005 10:40 pm

kritikon

this and the Otium compressor are making me think that maybe Synthedit's strength could be in FX.

Food for thought.

What other SE fx of note have there been?

Elogoxa delay was a promising start, but it never became a finished musical effect.

(and ... nice post, kritikon ... v readable stuff

)

snooky · Post by **snooky** » Tue May 31, 2005 11:05 pm

I'm still suspicous..

Frippertronix · Post by **Frippertronix** » Wed Jun 01, 2005 1:01 am

I've got to give it some more time. I really didn't like the first go around putting it last in the master bus on a mix. It made everything sound like it was playing inside a 2L pop bottle. I tried all the presets. I'll have to try it in different situations and tweak it more.

So far it really hasn't reminded me of BBE at all.

kritikon · Post by **kritikon** » Wed Jun 01, 2005 1:58 am

I've got to give it some more time. I really didn't like the first go around putting it last in the master bus on a mix. It made everything sound like it was playing inside a 2L pop bottle. I tried all the presets. I'll have to try it in different situations and tweak it more.

As Kevvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvv mentioned...they recommend you put it before compressors. You have to really, as the peaks can be a little unpredictable...if it was last in the chain, you'd have clips all over the place. Personally I like to have a comp before Spectralive, and then another one after it.

So far it really hasn't reminded me of BBE at all.

Me neither...which is why I bought it.

I had another good play with it this a.m. after work; I'm pretty sure with some of the algorithms there is an Eq cut around 500Hz or thereabouts (with algo E and F ...which seem to be more tailored to mastering rather than tracking) - but that makes perfect sense.
I strapped in a couple of analysers, and it didn't look to me like there was any additional harmonics added - if there are, then they're really faint. But that's another reason I bought it - I don't like harmonic enhancers mostly. There might have been some top end Eq boost with a very wide Q. Certainly the high frequencies lift up from 10KHz onwards.

But I didn't really see much evidence of mid band compression - all the peaks etc stayed pretty much the same shape - I'd imagine the phase correction is mostly responsible for the clarity.

It's encouraging to see with an analyser that it's definitely not just a smiley face Eq curve.
I've still to mess with the bass end yet, but I'll believe the manual when it says it's a simple shelving Eq (I still think it just might have some compression though).

The thing is, it's very difficult to see and hear what each part does - you turn off the process, and there's still things going on - matching gain is tricky precisely because of that though. All that does is encourage me that it's not just one process - it's fairly plain to me it's a set of processes - that's a good thing.

What other SE fx of note have there been?

Hmmmmm...initially I couldn't think of any others I'd pay for, but then it dawned on me that Retrodelay was originally Synthedit wasn't it? (I can't remember if ePhonic later coded it from scratch though) - Retrodelay is good competition to the commercial delays.
I think the benefit with Synthedit for FX is its modular nature (it's not a benefit with the synths really, as to my ears it's usually quirky filters and funny oscillators that make or break a synth, and Synthedit doesn't really have any outstanding filters that I've heard yet). But with FX, it's the mixing and matching - things like being able to put in a bit of subtle overdrive anywhere in the signal path, being able to change the position of filters rather than doing the standard chain, the ability to dynamically modulate almost any parameter (which h/w FX units tend not to do).

I'm going to start paying alot more attention to Synthedit FX now...it also makes me think I really should delve alot deeper into QuantumFX - I bought that, played around a bit, then dwindled away from patching my own FX. But if Synthedit can make these nice plugins, I begin to see the potential with pristine FX modules such as those in QFX! If I can find a spare 6 months, I just might get to work on making an enhancer with QFX - hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm....

cryosonics spectralive