VST/DX Tube compressor

[Barbarossa]

I agree with Kingston.
I never could understand what is meant with "warm". I can describe a sound as harsh, or silky. Smooth or aggressive. Or cheap and expensive. Clear or distorted. But warm? Cold?
IMO it is a typical marketing word from the magazines, where they have to promote things, although they sound sh.t.
You can't use "warm" to describe a sound.

[martian]

The only small disadvantage of both Warmifier and Marquis Compressor (in 'Phasy' mode) is that they add very strong low-frequency phase coloration. Even though, this makes things sound much warmer and softer overall, in some case this may reduce punch - so it is acceptable for all kinds of acoustic music, but should be used with care for clipped club music. But when working in the 'Linear' mode Marquis Compressor overcomes these problems as well and all it offers are smooth tube-alike harmonics. You may analyze its performance with a swept-sine and you'll see how huge amount of harmonics it adds, but this still sounds good in almost all cases.

marquis phasy can sound great on the drum bus of my to be clipped club music . creates amazing glue. but on individual kick tracks, linear mode all the way for me, since the punch issue you point out.

[martian]

I agree with Kingston.
I never could understand what is meant with "warm". I can describe a sound as harsh, or silky. Smooth or aggressive. Or cheap and expensive. Clear or distorted. But warm? Cold?
IMO it is a typical marketing word from the magazines, where they have to promote things, although they sound sh.t.
You can't use "warm" to describe a sound.

warm of course means nothing in the context of audio. but i think it represents the subjective effect from the culmination of everything that makes a unanimously good sounding record to the untechnically minded. so sound quality, balance, loudness, etc.
but really i think nowadays the way 'warm' is thrown around it means no more than 'good'.

[shinken]

It's interesting reading people's thoughts on this. Maybe it's an age thing.. Some people who had Walkmans in their youth might have fond associations with - I dunno - tape hiss, for instance, which might have subtly heightened anticipation when waiting for the next track and then sort of joined up the sound when playing. Whereas if all you've known is digital music you would just consider the hiss to be some background defect. What is the actual resolution of acoustic sounds played on acoustic equipment and recorded on analog gear? Compare that to digital sampling rates.
Maybe there is a type of unidentified harmonic distortion (UHD) typical of places where the temperature is raised, in the same way as heat distorts (refracts) light when you look over a fire. After all, tube gear runs at high temp, right??

See, I would do great in the hifi retail business.

[Aleksey Vaneev]

In my opinion, the only unquestionably stable property of tube is a 'correlated' harmonic distortion with steadily falling harmonics. I call tube harmonic distortion a correlated one, because due to some of its properties it sounds almost invisible - it does not change original sound's transients in a bad way like waveshapers do.

Currently I'm not taking other aspects of tubes into account - like frequency response coloration, cutoff point saturation and feedback. So, I probably can't model a 5 stage tube power amplifyier plugged into speaker with what I have now. But that was not my goal. My goal was to get a good-sounding harmonic coloration that is *really* similar to a plain one-tube circuit.

[Synesthesiac]

Perhaps it was a synesthete who coined the term "warm".

[Killvehicle]

Here goes the android ear boy...

Go away Doug1/pinga/Johnny Mumra. We're having a reasonably civilised discussion here, no need for you to ruin the thread like you do every single time.

I have seen you ruin quite a few threads in the past, just like this one,

YOu went off about using the word "warm" to describe music!! Come on, DO you thnk anyone really needed that?

Here I'll make it easier for you.. NO!!

[Kingston]

Currently I'm not taking other aspects of tubes into account - like frequency response coloration, cutoff point saturation and feedback. So, I probably can't model a 5 stage tube power amplifyier plugged into speaker with what I have now. But that was not my goal. My goal was to get a good-sounding harmonic coloration that is *really* similar to a plain one-tube circuit.

I'm sure you've already considered this aspect, but many times when people talk of "tube warmth" they are unwittingly referring to a tube coupled transformer sound. Ideally, and in any good design the tubes will have little or almost no effect on the sound, merely working as amplifying stages, while the audio input/output transformers are actually making the most desired mark on the sound. This saturation, and the transient "ringing" artifacts are of course completely different from the tube characteristics (but usually lumped under the same ol' "tube warmth"). It's sometimes referred to as intra/intermodulation, although transformer saturation is an independent characteristic compared to that and behaves differently to tubes. It's relatively hard clipping in fact, but very unlike clipping the AD converters.

I've somewhat successfully modelled this behaviour in a forthcoming free/shareware plugin of mine, although I know I've only touched the surface of what's really happening.

[Kingston]

I have seen you ruin quite a few threads in the past, just like this one,

YOu went off about using the word "warm" to describe music!! Come on, DO you thnk anyone really needed that?

Here I'll make it easier for you.. NO!!

You're just pissed off because I had a go with you when you described analog summing as "more 3d" some time a go. I'm sorry but I see red when someone does that, it just ticks me in the wrong place.

How about a bit more analytical touch on describing the sound, eh?

Instead of the voodoohoodoo "more3d analog warmth character".

As for ruining threads, at least no one has wished anyone cancer this far, like this Doug/pinga/jarvis does every so often.

[brok landers]

well, lemme chime in here ...
i just feel this is the right time to place my opinion, maybe some dev's see it the same way:
i think that the real hard thing in tube/tape modelling is to make the added "distortion/harmonics" that occours when driving a tube/tape actually _not_ to be heard as such.
instead, the saturation must become an integrated, somehow pleasing part of the inputsignal ...
in most eq's/compressors/saturation plugs the "drive" is heard and felt as "just" a nonlinear processed clipping, thus a very audible distortion occours ...
when doing that on an amp-sim for guitar, this might be wanted, but on compressors/eq/tape saturation fx it is not ... at least to me ...
i for one allways felt the tube sound of a good analog tube eq/compressor (i.e. tubetech) to be acting the way, that the added harmonics "melt" into the signal, with the result that the signal becomes more calm in terms of level-jumps, and the hidden signal-details come up, as you can rise the signal louder a bit ...
i think that the tube/tape algorithm itself in a native tube/tape model often are lacking of modelling the high frequencies correctly ...
the really annoying thing is, that the dev's hardly can do better, as the cpu consumption makes it unusuable mostly, so it's not even their fault ... it seems to be just the sampling frequency that has to be as low as possible to use the plug actually, and highest possible to get the correct calculating results without aliasing or calculation errors ...
considering that the high frequency part signal of a tube algorithm needs very high samplerates to be calculated 100% correctly an algo like that might be just not too usable in a production mostly more and more done entirely on the computer ...
all my statements do not even include the masterpiece:
the algorithm of nonlinear tube/tape behaviour is very complex, as the reaction of a real tube/tape is allowing many multiple combinations of nonlinear processing depending on level_and_ frequency response of the material, the units that build the gear, etc ...

[Killvehicle]

I have seen you ruin quite a few threads in the past, just like this one,

YOu went off about using the word "warm" to describe music!! Come on, DO you thnk anyone really needed that?

Here I'll make it easier for you.. NO!!

You're just pissed off because I had a go with you when you described analog summing as "more 3d". I'm sorry but I see red when someone does that, like you can see in this thread.

How about a bit more analytical touch on describing the sound, eh?

Meh./... I mean, analytical or something I can grasp. I think you are overanalyzing, which is also funny when we are talking MUSIC. Which is something we hear, There are NO words that can translate into what we hear. BUt words like "warm, spacious, and god forbid 3d" open up imagination, which can easily help translate music into words.

IF I have a piece of equiptment that has a thicker sound to me, SHould I go into what components were used in it, or should I say it is has a fatter warmer sound, It gets the point across much quicker and perhaps clearer. If we really want to get in depth then we could discuss more analytically, but if a guy asks for a certain type of plug-in, we need not slag his choice of words..

[Jason Brian Merrill]

I have seen you ruin quite a few threads in the past, just like this one,

YOu went off about using the word "warm" to describe music!! Come on, DO you thnk anyone really needed that?

Here I'll make it easier for you.. NO!!

You're just pissed off because I had a go with you when you described analog summing as "more 3d" some time a go. I'm sorry but I see red when someone does that, it just ticks me in the wrong place.

How about a bit more analytical touch on describing the sound, eh?

Instead of the voodoohoodoo "more3d analog warmth character".

As for ruining threads, at least no one has wished anyone cancer this far, like this Doug/pinga/jarvis does every so often.

actually, I quite agree with kingston.

I am sick of hearing generalities -- when people really describe the sounds they are talking about, it helps my ears to hear that sound, "warm" just doesnt cover it.

[Aleksey Vaneev]

Kingston, I think transformer modelling is a bit 'deeper' thing than I would like to have. I'm thinking that transformer model can add some undesired distortion - transformer can work more like a waveshaper (due to hysteresis) with some built-in filtering.

[Kingston]

Kingston, I think transformer modelling is a bit 'deeper' thing than I would like to have. I'm thinking that transformer model can add some undesired distortion - transformer can work more like a waveshaper (due to hysteresis) with some built-in filtering.

Yes indeed even the highest quality transformers can completely destroy a sound, if driven past their working range (I only use such a thing as a special effect).

But the desirable aspect comes from a certain dynamic "ringing" effect, called intramodulation (I'm not exactly sure what the correct term here is, as there seemed to be very little research on the subject). It is very subtle. In real world an abused version this can only be found in broken equipment and it sounds harsh an nasty. When I modelled it I of course allowed this as well. I'll send you a version of it so you can have a look when I've finished it.

[pdxindy]

well, lemme chime in here ...
i just feel this is the right time to place my opinion, maybe some dev's see it the same way:
i think that the real hard thing in tube/tape modelling is to make the added "distortion/harmonics" that occours when driving a tube/tape actually _not_ to be heard as such.
instead, the saturation must become an integrated, somehow pleasing part of the inputsignal ...
in most eq's/compressors/saturation plugs the "drive" is heard and felt as "just" a nonlinear processed clipping, thus a very audible distortion occours ...

well, I am no expert or pro sound engineer, but this makes sense to me. What I like or look for is a result that does not sound like it is pasted onto the sound and is not immediately obvious that X was done, like a cheap photoshop filter.