Stillwell Audio update: new site, updated plugins, Fe26 release

[bmanic]

Unfortunately it looks like PayPal is not supported via Stripe. I've enabled as many extra methods as I can readily do, so if you want to try again, maybe you can find a method that works for you. If all else fails, reach out via support ticket...I'll find a way.

Oh no, don't worry about it. I have a credit card.. I'm just not used to taking it out and trying to read the damn matte card's stupidly matte and tiny printed numbers with these aging eyes!

I use Paypal out of pure lazyness.

[sstillwell]

trying to read the damn matte card's stupidly matte and tiny printed numbers with these aging eyes!

I hear you - I just got cataract surgery done a few months ago. Everything is GREAT...except for up close. Reading glasses FTW!

[thebutler]

I've reproduced the error in Live with 1973. I'm working on it now. It seems to be specific to Live, specific to VST3 only. It doesn't do the same thing in Pro Tools (AAX) or REAPER (VST3).

Thanks for the reports!

Well, I don't know which error you've seen in Live; my issue was with 1973 under Cubase Pro 15.0.10 (VST3) - do you think it's the same.? (someone else - Songwriter101 - also confirmed it there...).

Every known issue was patched - there were two primary issues. One applied to 1973 only in Live, the other to 1973 and Vibe EQ and I don't think it was specific to any particular host. I'm not sure I was replying to you specifically in the message above, but if I accidentally did, sorry for confusion. Try the latest build - it should fix your issue.

Thanks for your attention and diligence.!

No, you weren't replying to my report specifically - apologies for being a bit heavy-handed. I just busted in and quoted you, for my own ends...

Reality check, I was reading too much into what you'd found out ('specific to Live', etc...). I was keen to draw your gaze to my post, which was about a problem with Cubase...

All good.

Will definitely try your latest update soon.! (can I install it straight over existing, or should I uninstall that first.?)

[sstillwell]

Just install over what’s already there. Double check that the version displayed in the plugin matches what you downloaded. Depending on system permissions it might be possible for it not to be able to overwrite, but it’s certainly supposed to.

[Shabdahbriah]

Great to see you are still active

... several of your plug-ins are amongst my favorites.

[jahpooh]

Trying out the Fe26 now, very hefty indeed. Link function seems broken here on VST3 OSX Catalina. Bringing the input away and back to zero produces a different output value each time. happens 100% of the time.

[bmanic]

Simple little feature request:

These kinds of effects always work extremely well when split into Mid/Side mode.. but instead of doing that, I suggest a simple linked and automatically compensated mid/side boost knob. It would work a bit similar to the input/output gain knobs but be a simple single knob that goes from an arbitrary 0 to 100% width (and it could also have a negative range). Internally it'd simply scale mid vs side gains.. so at 0% it'd be 0dB boost of mids and 0dB boost of side, aka the original signal. But once you start moving the knob it slowly reduces the gain on the Mid channel and quite quickly boosts the gain on the side channel and of course all of this is compensated on the output so to the user it's completely transparent in terms of width.

The only thing that really happens is that you get different harmonic saturation balance between mid and side, thus further separating the two and creating an illusion of extra width and depth. Naturally this would be useless and do absolutely nothing on a mono signal.

The trick is to scale that single knob in a useful and interesting way. For instance at 25% of the range it could have dipped Mid by about -1.5dB and already boosted the sides by +6dB. At 100% Mid could be down to -6dB and sides up to +12dB or even +16dB. Side channel information is almost always lower in volume so drastic differences are usually needed to create an actual obvious difference.

Naturally you could also allow the knob to go to -100% which would simply do the opposite, make Mid much more dominant compared to out of phase stuff. This could also be useful for "centering" the image.

This FR would require one more knob though. Too much?

[sstillwell]

Simple little feature request:

These kinds of effects always work extremely well when split into Mid/Side mode.. but instead of doing that, I suggest a simple linked and automatically compensated mid/side boost knob. It would work a bit similar to the input/output gain knobs but be a simple single knob that goes from an arbitrary 0 to 100% width (and it could also have a negative range). Internally it'd simply scale mid vs side gains.. so at 0% it'd be 0dB boost of mids and 0dB boost of side, aka the original signal. But once you start moving the knob it slowly reduces the gain on the Mid channel and quite quickly boosts the gain on the side channel and of course all of this is compensated on the output so to the user it's completely transparent in terms of width.

The only thing that really happens is that you get different harmonic saturation balance between mid and side, thus further separating the two and creating an illusion of extra width and depth. Naturally this would be useless and do absolutely nothing on a mono signal.

The trick is to scale that single knob in a useful and interesting way. For instance at 25% of the range it could have dipped Mid by about -1.5dB and already boosted the sides by +6dB. At 100% Mid could be down to -6dB and sides up to +12dB or even +16dB. Side channel information is almost always lower in volume so drastic differences are usually needed to create an actual obvious difference.

Naturally you could also allow the knob to go to -100% which would simply do the opposite, make Mid much more dominant compared to out of phase stuff. This could also be useful for "centering" the image.

This FR would require one more knob though. Too much?

I think it's a useful feature...but I'm not sure it's a useful feature for THIS plugin...I'm kinda laser-focused on keeping this as a transformer model...and transformers, as transformers, simply don't do what you're describing. The first iterations of this plugin were not as strictly modeled...it sounded AWESOME...but was not accurate at all as a transformer. Also wouldn't have stacked anywhere as nicely.

That said...I'll sure ponder upon it. The above is just my gut reaction.

[sstillwell]

Trying out the Fe26 now, very hefty indeed. Link function seems broken here on VST3 OSX Catalina. Bringing the input away and back to zero produces a different output value each time. happens 100% of the time.

Can you post a screenshot (movie, really) of the behavior you're seeing? I haven't had any other reports of that kind of behavior, so if you have an actual case of it, I want to know.

If you'd rather not post it here, create a support ticket and put it there.

[bmanic]

Good point. Yeah if you want to keep it just as a transformer emulation then I can understand it. It's no real difficulty setting this up with something like Voxengo MSED with FE26 sandwiched between two instances. It would just give the plugin a little more immediate sonic depth to explore.

If you are really pedantic about it, then you really shouldn't have an input and output gain knob, nor a Drive either. My suggestion is no different from those in terms of functionality. Nothing is changed within the transformer.. these are just outward processes feeding the model (as I assume all existing knobs on the plugin are as well).

[sstillwell]

Good point. Yeah if you want to keep it just as a transformer emulation then I can understand it. It's no real difficulty setting this up with something like Voxengo MSED with FE26 sandwiched between two instances. It would just give the plugin a little more immediate sonic depth to explore.

If you are really pedantic about it, then you really shouldn't have an input and output gain knob, nor a Drive either. My suggestion is no different from those in terms of functionality. Nothing is changed within the transformer.. these are just outward processes feeding the model (as I assume all existing knobs on the plugin are as well).

Hah...good point! As I said, those were just my initial reactions...I AM thinking about it.

[Amon1973]

So happy to see Stillwell back with updates and new plugins! Hope life has been treating you well, Scott.
Being the updates free, thanks for that, I guess the way to support your work is to buy the new one

[sstillwell]

So happy to see Stillwell back with updates and new plugins! Hope life has been treating you well, Scott.
Being the updates free, thanks for that, I guess the way to support your work is to buy the new one

I'm happy to BE back...and certainly I wouldn't say "No" to people buying a plugin or two.

[kernaudioio]

the framing helps. "transformer in the path" is its own category and it's underused as a label.

what i keep hitting: most plugin classes are named for what they do at extreme settings (compressor, saturator, eq), but the useful zone is often the sub-threshold one where they barely act. fe26 at low input is the obvious case. same for an 1176 in unity-gain mode, a pultec with the boost-and-cut trick, a tape plugin at 0 vu.

the buyers' question "is this a saturator?" is really "what does the wet/dry feel like at 30%". harder to put on a product page, easier to demo.

[sstillwell]

Hey, just a heads-up. We updated a number of our plugins to address an issue on some (only two reported so far) Windows installs where some frames of our knobs (mostly at the end of the travel of the knob) would go invisible. It seems to be tied to specific video cards and/or drivers, but we haven't nailed down specifically what yet. The fix does seem to resolve it, though.

Details here:

https://www.stillwellaudio.com/news/win ... y-updates/

If you're not on Windows, and you're not affected by the issue, just ignore it if you wish. If you ARE impacted...go get 'em. Please open a support ticket if you encounter issues.