KVR Audio

Lorenz @ XARC Mastering · Wed Jan 12, 2005 6:46 pm

I totally agree dvdvelde.

I think what might even work better is to go back to the mixing stage once you see the EQ changes your program suggest are over 2dB at any given point.
Then one could deliver a lot better mixes to the mastering house or to himself in case he does the mastering on his own, because what goes in comes out (very often at least).

So your product can perfectly co-exist and for this price-tag it can´t be wrong to have it (once the bugs are gone).

dvdvelde · Post by **dvdvelde** » Wed Jan 12, 2005 6:49 pm

To furthermore come across this subject, i rejected some of my mixes while i was mastering it with AAMS, and i would agree if some users would do the same.

I just kicked my mixes though AAMS to see what the results would be, sometimes the vocals would be pretty nasty and i would reconsider my mixing job as well.

What AAMS cannot do is change your mix (different tracks drums,base,vocals,etc) but if i had a crappy master i would listen to it and change the vocals to be less present or not. Then i would remaster it and it would sound much much better.

What AAMS can do is make a good mix , sound better and make a bad mix stand out. You will hear what instruments stand out and what instruments stay behind. Change your mix and try again. You will see and learn from this.. you will make a better mix like me... If AAMS gives way to much Equalization (like +10db on some frequencies), you might reconsider doing a better job on the original mix!
Then remaster it!

dvdvelde · Post by **dvdvelde** » Wed Jan 12, 2005 6:50 pm

Hey man , we agree ! THX keep up the good postings over here...

_niko_ · Post by **_niko_** » Wed Jan 12, 2005 6:51 pm

I am sorry about my reaction, but an AMD machine can be quite confusing on programs. Specially realtime programs like Cubase and alikes...

First of all an AMD machine will be much slower because the AMD is not as fast on calculation big floating point calculations... You can read the differences between a real pentium and AMD and Celerons alike, their just a lot slower in calculations. Maybe more than halve the time or doubled, i dont know...

Wow, this statement is so grossly wrong it's almost funny. Since the athlon came out AMD cpus have a very fast fpu, actually a lot faster than P4s.
I also find it strange that you advise users not to change settings, why they are there in the first place then?
I think the idea of your program is interesting, but it looks like you released it a little early.

anyway best of luck,

Niko

dvdvelde · Post by **dvdvelde** » Wed Jan 12, 2005 6:57 pm

Hi niko , i think you should check number crunching in floating point (yes, xxxxxx numbers behind the comma), an AMD is still 30% slower on floating point number crunching.. I am pretty sure, i just checked some sites on that one.

Check this one out. and see if i am wrong...

http://www.passmark.com/cpureview/fp_maths.htm

dvdvelde · Post by **dvdvelde** » Wed Jan 12, 2005 6:59 pm

On releasing my program, i was using 3 computers to check errors, and i did not have them.
Since i released it, users wil email me about their probs and i come much further. I am happy i released it, cause user input is the best there is.

Keep it up...!

dvdvelde · Post by **dvdvelde** » Wed Jan 12, 2005 7:03 pm

Well , niko you can change settings to BEST if you want, i dont care , but be sure to have some supper, dinner and ten cups of coffee before returning to your computer!

_niko_ · Post by **_niko_** » Wed Jan 12, 2005 7:44 pm

well, the benchmark shows the old athlon to be faster than an equal speed pIII and the P4 3200 to be the fastest, but there is a lot of info missing like what version of the P4 scores best and I bet it's the one running on the faster bus, also there is no mentioning wether sse/sse2 was used or not. I'd guess so, otherwise the P4's score would look worse. Anyway moot point.
I Shouldn't have posted in the first place

Niko

dvdvelde · Post by **dvdvelde** » Wed Jan 12, 2005 8:01 pm

Niko , there is quite a lot discussion about speeds and processors, it does not mean a P4 is faster then AMD. Its the processor you choose on your budget. But if you compare the same speeds ( is difficult to do) the AMD is a bit slower. But then again i believe the AMD is cheaper then a P. So if you invest the same money , it might be a different outcome. We are both not right about this difficult subject... Thumbs UP!

kylen · Post by **kylen** » Wed Jan 12, 2005 9:18 pm

Well - we have some of the discussion from earlier when Har-Bal first came out and got everyone jumpin. It can do this - NO it can't - someone who doesn't know anything can benefit from it - it will teach beginners something. If you have the right equipment and know how to work it then all you need is your God given talent...God gave me more talent than you...and so forth

Well I'm glad we got all that out of the way so soon!

dvdvelde - I think you can see you've stepped into the quicksand with the AMD comment. I did some similiar testing with P3 and AMD and found the floating point calc time of the P3 to be roughly half. I don't believe this is the case any more and that some AMD machines can probably kick my P4 out the window! Times change but reputations linger.

The thing I want to try with AAMS is one thing you've mentioned earlier:

Testing Equipment Behavior;

Another nice trick is to test your mastering plugins or equipment. I learned that using a loudness maximiser can make the mids kinda harsh sounding.
If youd like to know what behavior your equipment has, you can import audio material without the loudness maximiser as a source preset. Then use the loudness maximiser on your audio material and import it as a reference , now you will see there is an equalization difference (even though you'd only wanted to boost gain). Specially a loudness maximiser would boost some frequencies you might not expect it to do... You can test your equipment and learn from its behavior to do even a better mastering job.

I do that all the time with tools in the DAW and external hardware. It will be fun to see how your tool can run my plugins thru their paces and characterize what different controls and settings actually change.

I also think AAMS will be pretty useful in the mixing stage prior to mastering. And another use not mentioned is just for me personally. Every year during the late fall and winter seasons my middle ear usually develops some extra pressure for whatever reason and this throws off my internal feedback loop so to speak when I do my own curve matching in my mind - it kills about 3 months every year where my hearing changes enough to make a big difference...

dvdvelde · Post by **dvdvelde** » Wed Jan 12, 2005 11:01 pm

Hello Kylen,
Yes, the speed of processors is quicksand and to me absolute wasted time. I never worried about it in the first place but some users did. I will not mess with quicksand anymore.

As for mixing single tracks, there are allmost no style presets in AAMS except for the Acapella Vocals.
I did not setup presets for Base,drums, or instrumental tracks. Cause i could not find any audio material that could represent this.
I simply dont have great single audio tracks going on, maybe somebody will supplement this over time.
But however if users do have good mixed single tracks, they could make a preset for it.
So yes, for single audiotracks it could be a benefit if there was a preset style made for it.

I do worry about my ears all the time when listening to mastered tracks or mixes. The main reason i made AAMS was my hearing is the same as you, sometimes i hear right, sometimes i hear wrong.

I quess some installation problems must be resolved, cause i dont see a lot of them posts anymore.
But i might be wrong, there is still a problem i think with DLL versions and OCX versions around windows, but i dont know how to solve this, because AAMS comes with the newest files possible.
Its only on systems when the files needs to be overwritten the installation might fail.

I do wish to thank WP for emailing me about the Overflow bug ( yes, i divided to zero, something slipped into the programming code when my left brain was sleeping and my right brain to active), i could never have found it without his prior posted email. THX!

Thank you for your posting, and users keep sending in your comments.

I rest my head now...

SYA

marcelvandoorn · Post by **marcelvandoorn** » Thu Jan 13, 2005 12:07 pm

Just downloaded AAMS.
I am busy with mastering my tracks, seems AAMS is a quite good program for me. Installation was good had no prob. Just need to work with it more, but at first sight. OK

Shamanix · Post by **Shamanix** » Thu Jan 13, 2005 5:16 pm

to dvdvelde:
It just ****in' won't start and I tried EVERYTHING

In Task manager it says its running but no ****in' window no Alt+Tab NOTHING you here, NOTHING

BTW FYI I istalled everything in the Default Path !

My specs are
English Windows XP SP2
AMD 2500+ (Barton)
Gigabyte Motherboard with nForce2 chipset
GeForce 5600 graphics card (Non Ultra 256 megs ram)
512 MB DDR in Dual Channel Mode
On board Realtek Crap !
Maxtor 80 giga HDD (7200 rpm, 2mb cache)
LG DVD drive, LiteON CD writer, Pioneer DVD writer

I don't know if this helps anything?

PSYPOX · Post by **PSYPOX** » Thu Jan 13, 2005 5:58 pm

i cant installl it...

it keeps saying i need to reboot... and when i have rebooted it says the same

One · Post by **One** » Thu Jan 13, 2005 6:24 pm

Hello

I was going to try your program last nite but it wants to update my system files. I am very nervous about this after reading some of the initial posts on this forum.

What system file are you updating! I currently am running XP without the 2nd sevice pack I'm leary of installing that as well.

Thanks

BTW this program sounds cool I hope I am able to try it out.

AAMS Auto Audio Mastering System V3 - www.curioza.com