even & odd audio harmonic exciter - like triode tube ?

[kylen]

I've just started tying to find some tools to experiment with so I thought some of you that have already been there could throw me some keywords, links and/or opinions.

I'm experimenting with Voxengo Warmifier, Ozone MB exciter (tube), AIPL Warm Tone and a couple of other plugs of that ilk. Running a 1KHz tone thru them and watching SPAN I can see even and odd harmonics generated to a lessor or greater degree depending on how I drive the plugin. Listening I can hear warm, sweet and brite excitement depending on the balance of the harmonics - dirt is also added which may just be a side-affect given that I am distorting the audio actually. In the end I would like a fairly clean sound - just with a specific type of harmonic
"character" - that might be a contradiction!

Is there a VST/DX tool where I can individually set the balance of even harmonics, choose the 2nd harmonic only, or choose 2nd and 6th harmonic and adjust their balance? I'm going to check my filters and exciters but I haven't tried one that gives me that flexibility yet.

Like I mentioned I'm just playing around with this and am a little ignorant about the results - in other words maybe changing the balance that would naturally occur at the output of a driven triode might not sound too good.

Thanks!

[Christian Budde]

Have a look here: http://www.musicdsp.org/showArchiveComm ... chiveID=86
Within the last comment someone made a plugin, which implements everything you need.

It would be nice, if the gains were in dB, but...

[Jafo]

Have a look here: http://www.musicdsp.org/showArchiveComm ... chiveID=86
Within the last comment someone made a plugin, which implements everything you need.

Oh, yeah! What an exquisite surprise to sweeten my music (and my return to Webland)! Life is good again...

[kylen]

Have a look here: http://www.musicdsp.org/showArchiveComm ... chiveID=86
Within the last comment someone made a plugin, which implements everything you need.

It would be nice, if the gains were in dB, but...

Thanks alot Christian - that's exactly it! That thing sure is powerful, hats off to the guys discussing it and the implementor. I'm not sure if God meant for me to have power over harmonics or not in that way ( ), we'll see after I try it out some more, I'm going to set up a multi-band - man that thing is powerful - character galore!

[kylen]

OK - this is getting interesting enough to spend some more time on. I put the Sweety VST harmonic "exciter" inside Art Teknika Console along with 3 instances of FreEQ to make a 3 band multi-band harmonic eq (I might try bugpass to make a sweepable parametric of sorts). So instead of simply increasing the fundemental in each of the bass/mid/high bands (I can do that too of course) I can pick 2nd,3rd,4th,5th harmonic and balance those. This is getting very interesting as frequency limiting the input to the exciter allows me to focus on a portion of the spectrum that needs help - the harmonics generated are not limited to within that band and can enrich the full spectrum...This sounds much better than single-band and is going to take my rebalancing up a notch I think. You always hear it said that "you can't eq something that isn't there in the first place" - well maybe not with a regular eq - but with a truely harmonic eq I'm thinking it's possible. I've already seen this with the commercial plugin by Voxengo called LFMax which has brought out missing subbass from my cassette library.

Big question - does a commercial plugin that does true multiband parametric (or crossover - not sure which is better yet) harmonic rebalancing similiar to what I've described exist? If not, why not, if so where is it - why did it take me so long to put my finger on this? What I want is an EQ where I can set the levels of the 2nd up thru 6th harmonic (or higher?) myself.

Christian, Aleksey - any interest in this? I'm sure as heck not going to be able to code anything usable. It seems there's a lot to be unlocked by re-balancing those harmonics! Maybe the person who made SweetyVST, decil, will produce something but I think they're trying to build a waveshaper - don't know if that's what I want or not for my rebalancing...

[pitchdrifter]

Seen this yet?

[kylen]

Here's what I ended up liking after experimenting on a full mix tonight. A 5 band multiband harmonic exciter using my favorite bandpass and SweetyVST to adjust 1st thru 5th harmonic balance of EACH band if it needed it, some bands don't depending on program material. Obviously this rebalances depth across bands in a way much different sounding from compression, very much more transparently. Tomorrow I think I'll try 6 bands as I need to rebalance subbass (doesn't count - still using LFMax), bass, lomid, himid, presence, lo-treble, hi-treble. If it still sounds good then I'll really be dreaming about a free or commercial plugin that does this!

[kylen]

Seen this yet?

Yes I have that one - it's a very nice EQ but doesn't allow me to go in and jimmy with the harmonic balance. The harmonic balances seem preset - without knowing the internals that's my guess. Thanks for the idea - I'll take another look at it - the name is right anyway...

[pitchdrifter]

Well the harmonics being raised or attenuated in a fixed manner keeps the sound natural, thats the purpose of the plugin anyway. What you can do is add or pad characteristics of any given sound without making it sound unnatural, i.e. the plugin doesn't let you tinker with the balance of the harmonics in a surgical enough manner to end up with an unnatural sound.

Or do you want to entirely change the character of a sound (thats not what harmonieq does9 like in resynthesis, by boosting harmonics out of context?

[kylen]

xRAVENx - I would have made the same comments you just made before playing around with the multi-band SweetyVST I made. I thought rebalancing the relationship between fundemental and harmonics would sound un-natural. Instead I seem to be able to dig stuff out of the mix in a pleasant sounding way - big surprise for me! I don't want to change the character of the sound as in the resynthesis you mentioned - just rebalance bad rock & blues mixes from the archives.

[pitchdrifter]

(...)just rebalance bad rock & blues mixes from the archives.

Well that's a different story of course. Different application entirely than what I use the harmonieq for (I did get sweetyvst, too, not played with it yet, though).

[daverich]

Kylen -

Curve EQ has a vintage mode which adds various different types of harmonics to the equalisation.

Might be worth a look - although the harmonics are not controllable to any extent other than changing the presets.

Kind regards

Dave Rich

[kylen]

Kylen -
Curve EQ has a vintage mode which adds various different types of harmonics to the equalisation.

Thanks Dave, I forgot about vintage mode in CurveEQ. The manual discusses even and odd harmonics and after trying it out again it is far too suble for what I'm testing. Running a 1KHz tone thru it and looking for traces of harmonics I just don't see any (is that the right technique?) - in addition the sound on a full mix is very subtle. Running the 1KHz tone thru SweetyVST and Aipl Warmtone for example shows obvious control of 2nd, 3rd, 4th harmonics. CurveEQ is one of my favorites for other uses though!

[kylen]

Recently I got all fired up about harmonic balancing after reading this Steve Hoffman interview, he's a remastering engineer and besides using minimal parametric EQ actually takes advantage of various tube characteristics (read: harmonics) to warm, brighten and rebalance original masters:
http://www.stevehoffman.tv/forums/showt ... hp?t=59070

Here's an excerpt from the interview:
"...And if I'm not going to use any EQ, I'll just plug the tape machine right into the A/D converter and if I have to do any minor EQ, if it's a vacuum tube tape machine, I'll just EQ by switching out the input tubes in the tape recorder, from Mullards to [Amperex] Bugle Boys to Telefunkens. They change the sound just enough. That's one of my little tricks. Unplug everything, and if you need to do any EQ, just change your tubes, and you can get more high end, or less high end, or a more linear bass response, or a little more luscious bass response, just by changing the tubes."

So for me, the non-pro, non-commercial guy who just wants the best sound I'm trying to emulate the same thing when appropriate. I'll never own an ATR100 or an expensive set of tube mono blocks - but I think certain elements can be emulated in a plugin. Besides the obvious tube and tape saturation thing everybody wants these days - for me the other missing variable in my box of tools is control over harmonics. IMO a much cleaner approach to rebalancing in certain cases...

This is my business case of sorts for a multiband variable Nth harmonic multiple harmonic exciter!

[kylen]

...Or do you want to entirely change the character of a sound...like in resynthesis, by boosting harmonics out of context?

I mentioned earlier I was pretty ignorant about this kind of stuff...

I think that's exactly what I'm doing with SweetyVST, except the sound I'm getting doesn't sound unnatural to me or out of context - just more balanced, especially when I band-limit or run in multi-band mode so the proper harmonic correction gets applied to the proper freq bands.

I do a lot of rebalancing on some of the worst mixes on the planet - so by definition I'm trying to improve on whatever meager audio is there, and add what is missing. Unlike most people who have fine mixes already and a normal eq and compressor suits them just fine. I seem to need a more exciting method of eq to stimulate the dead mixes. Harmonic rebalnce might do it!

Maybe this is waveshaping after all - I'm still learning. I see in the synth world we have all kings of plugs that stimulate harmonics and partials - like Pluggo Harmonic Dreamz (?) for example...I just need to do that in the audio stream.