KVR Audio

Eric Sundance · Post by **Eric Sundance** » Tue Jan 24, 2006 9:24 pm

Alexey, thanks for giving us so much of your time. The reason I said that it is not transparent is because I heard some changes it injected into a track and some of the changes were spectral. When I opened the file in Har-Bal I could see that it did bump low mids and some of the bass but it was long time ago (two months or so) it was probably one of your vintage Elephants (2.3)

. I’d really appreciate if you could explain what did you intend with all the different modes that you mentioned in your post.

Aleksey Vaneev · Post by **Aleksey Vaneev** » Tue Jan 24, 2006 9:35 pm

bmanic, if PL sounds softer it's not transparent.

Transparent is when it sounds the same as the RAW file.

You know, some people DO like SIR better than Pristine Space, but SIR is not transparent in a similar sense - it adds 'sparkle' of a very questionable nature, especially noticable when using 100% wet hardware impulses.

Aleksey Vaneev · Post by **Aleksey Vaneev** » Tue Jan 24, 2006 9:40 pm

Eric, bump you've noticed is a standard bump you may see when compressing with almost any compressor. Compression causes some lower-power frequencies to be 'ducked' by higher-power frequencies. Hence such bump appears. It is not a flaw of Elephant - any compressor/limiter does that if it has no compensational algorithm against that.

As for the different modes (algorithms) in Elephant, I suggested to try at least some of them before saying 'Elephant is not transparent'. One of its modes may not be transparent for a particular job, but I'm pretty sure it's possible to find a more appropriate mode. For Jazz and Folk I would suggest using 'Slower' or 'Min' Lim Speed modes as they shift coloration towards lower ('warmer') regions.

Eric Sundance · Post by **Eric Sundance** » Tue Jan 24, 2006 10:00 pm

Aleksey, thanks for your response.

bump you've noticed is a standard bump you may see when compressing with almost any compressor. Compression causes some lower-power frequencies to be 'ducked' by higher-power frequencies. Hence such bump appears.

What about Requisite?: "Corrective EQ following this limiter is simply not required as with most limiters. Your work stays intact just as you need it to. There is no loss of high-end or undulating bottom, even while in the heaviest of limiting situations" (quote from Requisite Audio)

Aleksey Vaneev · Post by **Aleksey Vaneev** » Tue Jan 24, 2006 10:45 pm

Eric, that does not mean they are actually using some sort of EQ compensation. It may be a hype after all.

I've experimented with auto-compensation myself and at least in my case it did not work like a full compensation - it was some effect you would simply like to keep there, but its not what can be called transparent. It works like 'if we have just compressed some bass, all following high frequencies should be compressed as well, even if they do not touch the threshold'. A kind of dynamic side-chain filtering.

Well, I'm unleashing secrets here.

mark4man · Post by **mark4man** » Tue Jan 24, 2006 11:10 pm

Aleksey...

OK...so you're saying to disable upsampling, which means that the signal will only be affected when it's working (limiting.)

Fair enough...I'll try it & get back.

mark4man

Aleksey Vaneev · Post by **Aleksey Vaneev** » Tue Jan 24, 2006 11:11 pm

mark4man, yes, this is right.

electro · Post by **electro** » Wed Jan 25, 2006 2:22 am

Is Elephants upsampling a polyphase filter implementation?

Aleksey Vaneev · Post by **Aleksey Vaneev** » Wed Jan 25, 2006 2:59 am

electro, it is a linear-phase design. It should be pretty much 'invisible'. I mean, it IS invisible to my knowledge.

electro · Post by **electro** » Wed Jan 25, 2006 5:38 am

It is invisible to my ears.

bmanic · Post by **bmanic** » Wed Jan 25, 2006 10:08 am

Aleksey Vaneev wrote:bmanic, if PL sounds softer it's not transparent. Transparent is when it sounds the same as the RAW file.

You know, some people DO like SIR better than Pristine Space, but SIR is not transparent in a similar sense - it adds 'sparkle' of a very questionable nature, especially noticable when using 100% wet hardware impulses.

Totally agree with this. However, I never said it's more transparent. I just said which out of the files I liked more.

Tools for most people are not math, they use their ears (or more often than not, eyes!

) . In this case, what the user may think is more transparent is actually not but might be more pleasant sounding and thus creating the illusion. Same kind of description for compressors exist.

I've heard plenty of people call certain compressors "transparent" when in fact they are not but they smooth out the transients and the overall sound in a pleasant, musical way. The opposite to this would be the Weiss DS-1 compressor/de-esser which to my untrained ears a few years ago sounded very sterile and uninteresting only to later learn that it was truly transparent.

.. umm, I lost the plot. I don't really know what I wanted to say. Bah! It's too early in the morning damn it!

Cheers!
bManic

Aleksey Vaneev · Post by **Aleksey Vaneev** » Wed Jan 25, 2006 1:06 pm

So, what kind of a conclusion I (and probably you) should draw?

I think the conclusion is that PL does color your audio, even in such a transparent process like 'no limiting' state in a limiter.

To sum up, I can't and won't do anything about that. It's like trying to imitate distortion of SIR in Pristine Space. I won't simply do that because I do not think it is right for Voxengo plug-ins.

Aleksey Vaneev · Post by **Aleksey Vaneev** » Wed Jan 25, 2006 1:09 pm

bmanic, in the case of PL, there is no smoothing of transients or anything like that happens. It is a plain effect of low-precision calculations. I have tried to model that in LF-Max plug-in - it has a similar coloration, but not as powerful, because it does not use as many calculations as brickwall limiters usually have.

bmanic · Post by **bmanic** » Wed Jan 25, 2006 2:12 pm

Very interesting. Thanks for the heads up Aleksey!

Btw. this brings me back to what I was raving about here on KvR like 2 years ago. Noise = Good, why not emulate it all over the place? Especially when it comes to analogue modelled VSTi plugins. One of the most important things in a real analogue synth is the noise. Take away the noise and you take away a big part of the magic. Same goes for tape emulation I think. The noise on high quality tape is quite low but if one creates an emulation of tape without any noise at all it will not sound correct (for newbies and inexperienced people: Noise = very subtle noise, NOT noise as in white noise or pink noise at -6dBFS!).

Probably this is true for all things with sound. The more you have random glitches/noise/scratches in the background the more 'interesting' and organic the sound. Dead quiet spaces, like anechoic chambers, freak people out. It's un-natural, hence the reaction.

Food for thought?

Cheers!
bManic

PS. I agree that you shouldn't try to make Elephant yet another 'analogue' emulation or make it add anything. I like it perfectly well as it is. In some cases it is superior to everything else. In some, it isn't but that doesn't mean you have to change it to be the be-all, end-all plugin.

Lazlo Minimart · Post by **Lazlo Minimart** » Wed Jan 25, 2006 2:18 pm

Seems like this thread is backing me up -- PL is slightly "rounder," "smoother," "warmer," and Elephant is slightly "crispier" with more pronounced transients (such as the kick drum example).

This is why I own and use both -- I don't think either is the perfect limiter for *every* job. Really glad I have both!

Aleksey -- I've been wondering if you would ever consider offering the dither in Elephant as a freebie. I really, really like it, but feel like loading Elephant just to get it (when I don't need the limiting) is a bit awkward.

Elephant vs. PL...Is PL more transparent ???