tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-321535022024-03-13T00:08:46.960+00:00Sonalksis Development BlogDave Sonalksishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01390414057931163328noreply@blogger.comBlogger74125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32153502.post-60396539601035598172010-05-30T10:18:00.002+01:002010-05-30T10:20:09.612+01:00DMGAudioI moved <a href="http://www.dmgaudio.com/">here, to my own company, DMGAudio</a>.<br /><br />And <a href="http://blog.dmgaudio.com/">I have a new blog too</a>!<br /><br />Cheers!<br /><br />Dave.Dave Sonalksishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01390414057931163328noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32153502.post-8942843611752743812008-05-22T15:21:00.002+01:002008-05-22T15:25:20.155+01:002.04 is out!... and Mastering is going back to beta today ... after some serious reshuffling and tweakage (I'm generally skeptical of things that undergo a lot of tweakage, but it does just sound effortlessly awesome all day now. It actually pains me to admit that, bizarrely, 'cause there were some changes I wasn't initially any too keen on. But dammit they sound GREAT now.)<br /><br />I'm just tidying up the graph (ironically the same graph that was the first posting here to reveal that the Mastering plugs were on their way)... then I hit "BUILD EVERYTHING" and off it goes.<br /><br />And then it'll be back for TDM porting... :DDave Sonalksishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01390414057931163328noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32153502.post-69832734154313792742008-02-13T21:32:00.002+00:002008-02-13T21:37:58.226+00:00How to fix a psycho Mac ProHi,<br /><br />I'll just act like there hasn't been a huge gap in posting...<br /><br />I have a Mac Pro. It's been acting... well... completely broken.<br />On startup, the two DVI screens take it in turns to flick off and on for three minutes before i can log in, my SaffireLE starts up desynchronised from the firewire bus, and my USB-MIDI devices literally crash out after a half-hour of use.<br /><br />Today I fixed it.<br />If you have any symptoms like this, the following information may just save you a metric ton of grief.<br />Bit of a disappointing fix, but here it goes:<br />- Connect your DVIs through VGA adapters.<br />Rubbish, I know, but there -seems- to be some weird timing issue whereby the DVIs -spank- the data clock from the graphics card, which is messing with the bus clocks for the USB+FW. Ouch.<br />I genuinely can't believe that this could happen, but it certainly does look this way.<br /><br />Now all my devices work fine (although my macpro still takes a full minute to boot, somehow... i'm just spoiled I guess). The Saffire works perfectly, and the system is rock solid. Awesome.Dave Sonalksishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01390414057931163328noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32153502.post-25406380758563725702008-01-12T01:45:00.000+00:002008-01-12T01:58:00.350+00:00I'm going to NAMM!Wow! So I am finally going to visit the US!<br /><br />My first trip to the states!<br /><br />So, if anyone has any tips for:<br />- finding cigars in anaheim<br />- surviving as an eccentric englishman in america<br />- not going hoarse at a tradeshow<br />please let me know!!<br /><br />If you'll be at NAMM, it'd be GREAT to meet you! I will mostly be hanging around at the Toontrack stand (our new allies :D ), stand 1100 in hall E.<br /><br />As for Sonalksis activity - I've been preparing for the show, and the mastering tools are doing good in beta. Hope to launch fairly soon :D:D<br /><br />See you there!!Dave Sonalksishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01390414057931163328noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32153502.post-89498434894316530322007-12-07T00:50:00.000+00:002007-12-07T01:10:18.148+00:00Progress UpdateHi.<br /><br />It's been a tense one today. I finish work for the year tomorrow (to work on my thesis). This afternoon, I was three days behind schedule. This evening has been intense. With a good codebase you can work wonders though ;)<br />I need to wake up tomorrow, finish the DSP for Ultimate-D (just some tweaking), do final builds, do final alpha tests, and then I can ship MultiLimit, MaxLimit and Ultimate-D to beta. Wooh.<br />It's been painful, like it always is.<br />Looks like a release early next year is fairly plausible... so we're on track! :)<br />I am, however, not on track for the 80s party I am attending tomorrow evening. I should have my hair dyed by now (I am going as Hannibal from the A-Team. For the cigars, basically.).<br /><br />Weird. These plugins are actually alive. How exciting!<br />I mentioned about the Analogue Clip being pretty groovy.<br />MultiLimit imparts an almost magical bigness to things. When I finish my first pop album, it'll be mastered with that. MaxLimit (especially since I added in the delay-compensation stuff) works very nicely even on tracks/busses in a session. Very groovy.<br />Ultimate-D is probably the least exciting plugin I've ever worked on, but if you need really really really good dither, then you probably could get quite excited about it.<br /><br />However, something it's VERY easy (for me) to get excited about is that we WON AN AWARD FOR TBK3!<br />How cool is that?!? (more details to follow...)<br /><br />Yaaay!<br /><br />Dave.Dave Sonalksishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01390414057931163328noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32153502.post-68384606672496199982007-12-03T23:47:00.000+00:002007-12-03T23:56:44.574+00:00BanPiracy, Waves and iLokHi,<br /><br />I was reading this earlier:<br /><a href="http://studionebula.com/blog/2007/12/02/why-i-boycott-products-that-use-paceilok-and-why-you-should-too"><br />http://studionebula.com/blog/2007/12/02/why-i-boycott-products-that-use-paceilok-and-why-you-should-too</a><br /><br />I found myself wondering the following:<br /><br /><h3>What need is there for Banpiracy?</h3><br /><h3>Waves plugins are iLok protected, and iLok hasn't been cracked, right?</h3><br /><br />Any ideas anyone?Dave Sonalksishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01390414057931163328noreply@blogger.com15tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32153502.post-14975591272430083762007-12-01T00:25:00.001+00:002007-12-01T00:37:38.494+00:00Plans and RealityGosh.<br /><br />Today I got a healthy dose of how well things can turn out, when plans turn into reality.<br /><br />So, you might have seen somewhere, we said we'd have an analogue clip on MaxLimit / MultiLimit?<br /><br />Well, as of this evening, those two are now feature complete... there's polishing and optimising to do yet, but really not more than another day's worth of work, and they'll go to beta (Did I mention that StereoTools is in beta now? :D:D:D).<br /><br />Now, as you also might recall, I'm striving for a PhD in nonlinear system theory, which means when I say "analogue clip", it really does actually have to be an analogue clip.<br />Following on with my current theme of making everything sound much simpler than it really is, the only difference between an analogue and a digital clip is the aliasing. Granted, most people claim to have alias-free clipping, and I'm sure that some do, I just haven't been given a copy of them. However, we needed 16 odd orders (a clip is symmetric, so there IS no even order distortion. None. I promise.), and it had to be alias free. I have some tricks for this, so I coded it up, and WOW.<br /><br />Now, +obviously+ it's not for everything. I mean, you don't clip an acoustic recording, that would just be plain weird. But you do clip dancey stuff. And when you do, with this, BAD THINGS HAPPEN. This is, I think, almost a better reaction than I got from people with TBK3. And that was pretty silly. Perhaps I will post a clip.... of the clip ;)<br /><br />Ez.Dave Sonalksishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01390414057931163328noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32153502.post-29435487172159809952007-11-03T00:07:00.000+00:002007-11-03T00:33:34.340+00:0019" TFTs Rule My World.I just got an amazing deal on two 19" DVI TFTs. It's to "improve my productivity" and has nothing to do with giving me space to run Logic's Arrange and Mixer on separate windows at all.<br />I have been learning Cocoa because I need a quick and easy way of sketching applications. The uber-trendyness of it meant that I finally succumbed, and I spent today and much of yesterday reimplementing the UI of Apple's Installer.app, as a test. It was fun and I've learned lots. Most striking is that Objective-C is a descendent of C, not C++. The fact that you can browse header files and see how Objective-C is actually implemented is very exciting, for a geek such as myself.<br /><br />Everyone I talk to at the moment is thrilled to be fixing Leopard-specific bugs. We seem to have gotten away with ease so far. This may be related to my OCD for making auval not flag up a single warning. Or my OCD for fixing ANY warning that flags up during the compilation of our plugins (the ENTIRE codebase compiles without a single warning on either mac or pc). This might sound like good coding practice, but actually, it's just a form of procrastination. <br /><br />FogBugz6 is out (for Windows... I'm still waiting for the Unix version), and it is amazing. Joel Spolsky (who is a hero of mine, and all programmers, as it goes) is giving a talk in London next friday. I will be there bouncing up and down excitedly, and sacrificing lambs at the altar (though they do also accept credit card payments).<br /><br />I still haven't written up my PhD thesis. This is because my mastery of avoiding it has now reached such a level that my university is considering awarding me an honorary doctorate in doctorate-work-avoidance. I can't help but feel that that would be rather ironic.<br /><br />I've adopted a new habit of running MSN (actually Adium) in "Away" mode, to see if it has the psychological effect of reducing the amount that people message me. So far no change, but we'll see. <br /><br />My striking score on Wii Golf has earned me the nickname "Ironfist", which may be related to a gesture that I make after I sink an Eagle or a chip-in. I may post a photo so you can decide for yourself.<br /><br />My girlfriend is making a tune and she keeps programming these BIG RAW ANGRY noises which sound FREAKING cool. Every time I ask what she's using, it's TBK3. I have created a monster.<br /><br />Anyways... back to work...Dave Sonalksishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01390414057931163328noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32153502.post-20192723354521579432007-11-02T23:43:00.000+00:002007-11-05T00:27:40.131+00:00Waves BanPiracy thingGuess what?<br /><br />I think that Waves "BanPiracy" thing is a GREAT idea.<br /><br />Well... if you ignore all the unethical and entrapment side of it... :)<br /><br />The idea of going after *commercial studios* using pirate software is bang on the money. No 15yr-old kids suffer - just the people using stolen software so that they can spend their budget on beer and cakes. It gets the dishonest users, and leaves alone the people still trying to make it.<br /><br />Truth is, if you run a COMMERCIAL, PRO studio, and you are SELLING studio time, and you use cracked plugins, then you are a BASTARD of the first order, and you deserve whatever you get, frankly.<br /><br />To put this in the context of my earlier postings, commercial studios who use cracks are the "dishonest users" who make a mockery of us all. These are people who can afford the software, and choose to take the piss. By the time you are running a full-time business selling studio time, you have earned the responsibility of not using stolen gear. A pro-studio wouldn't use a stolen mixing desk eh?<br /><br />Now, I'm sure this strategy isn't infallible - I've heard stories of studios who have been essentially entrapped and done-over by Waves, and obviously that's not the way to go.<br /><br />But if you are a bastard, and guilty as sin, and you get caught, please, for the sake of my faith in humanity, do the decent thing. Treat it as a wake-up call.<br /><br />When I first heard about the BanPiracy scheme, I felt a wave of general outrage, as I generally do whenever someone does anything like this, and that whoever it was would be saying goodbye to the idea of having customers pretty quick. However, once I realised that it was EXPLICITLY targeting people who have NO excuse AT ALL for using cracks, I calmed down. BanPiracy (so i'm told) targets the MAJOR studios - ones that major labels pay a few $1000s per hour to. There's just no excuse for ripping off developers for them. Now, even if BanPiracy is getting "the wrong" people, it's always going after people who are actually selling studio time to clients. If that's you, and you use cracked software, then I DARE you to try and construct an ethically defensible position that doesn't make you sound like a crack dealer.<br />Anyone starting with "I'll let my paying customers use legitimate copies of the software when my business is running well enough" will result in me sending the rozzers down to their yard, if only because of how stupid it made them sound, and how annoying it is that anyone can actually be that stupid.<br /><br />Now, I'm not saying that /I'd/ ever want to be involved with anything like this - there just IS WAY too much span for accidental entrapment and such, but at least Waves have enough of a clue to target the right people.Dave Sonalksishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01390414057931163328noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32153502.post-77710479344027942592007-10-24T11:31:00.000+01:002007-10-24T11:33:53.647+01:00Where are the Sonalksis TDM plugins?They're coming! Have some patience, eh?<br />I've NEARLY finished this mastering kit, just a few more pixels to poke and samples to mash.<br /><br />But probably not too late next year.Dave Sonalksishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01390414057931163328noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32153502.post-52199117144252156972007-10-24T10:53:00.000+01:002007-10-24T10:54:05.895+01:00Dedicated DSP VS Native PlugIn ProcessingThere is a difference - there are several differences. But they may well not be what<br />you expect them to be.<br /><br />CPU Performance. Native processors have left all but the most high-end DSPs standing.<br />A deep-pipelined microcoded CPU like an Intel Core chip is at least an order of magnitude<br />faster than, say, a Motorola 56000 class DSP. It's a brutish and inelegant figure with<br />which to make the comparison, but the clock rate of a Core2 can be set at 3GHz,<br />whereas one would expect to see a 56000 DSP running at around 200MHz.<br /><br />Of course, that comparison is entirely unfair- the DSP can do things that the Core2<br />cannot. The DSP can fetch two items from memory AND perform a multiply-accumulate in ONE<br />cycle (when coded correctly). That choice of instruction is not arbitrary - the most<br />common DSP task is to multiply-accumulate and fetch two - it's the heart of FIRs, IIRs<br />and all manner of other lovely algorithms. That's either three or four instructions<br />on the Core2, but as for how many clock cycles that would take, it's anyone's guess<br />- somewhere between 1 and 10 seems likely. Anyone care to correct me?<br /><br />The Core2 is harder to predict the performance because it depends on many things<br />- whether the numbers to be loaded are in cache or need to be fetched from RAM<br />- whether the code is in cache or is being fetched from RAM<br />- what the Core was doing previously <br />- what the Core is doing next. <br /><br />Core processors employ what's known as a pipeline. Different parts of the chip<br />handle different types of task, and they do so in parallel as far as is possible.<br />When you write an algorithm for a DSP, at the end, you count the number of lines of<br />assembly, and can state that the code will use N clock cycles. If you have a list of<br />algorithms to run, with a list of how long they will take, it's very easy to schedule<br />them and to know exactly how much processing capacity you need. And it is ENTIRELY reliable<br />and predictable to do so.<br /><br />Conversely, it's very easy when writing DSP code to know when you have been inefficient.<br />You are going to use too many clock cycles. Working with external DSPs, you always end<br />up optimising to minimise your cycle count - that means using tricks and shortcuts to<br />get the best approximation to what you want, with as few instructions as possible.<br />That's great fun, in a nerdy way. For instance, a lot of dynamics processing requires<br />you to evaluate the mathematical functions log() and exp(). A Motorola DSP doesn't have<br />a log or exp function - though it does have some instructions that can help approximate it.<br />So when you code a compressor for that DSP, one of the fun things you have to do is<br />build a fast log and exp approximator. There are endless tricks. With work, you can<br />get close to the precision of a standard Native implementation - which are, as near as<br />is meaningful, exact. You'll spend a lot of clock cycles doing that on a DSP though,<br />and somewhere you'll find that you can trade off a bit of accuracy for extra speed.<br /><br />The biggest difference between Motorola DSPs and Native processors is the fixed-point<br />vs floating-point difference. To make clear the difference, a floating point number<br />CONTAINS a 24bit fixed-point number, PLUS a scale that it can use to increase range.<br />A floating point number = fixed point number * 2^scale - that is, a floating point<br />number is a fixed point number, with a scale that can double or halve it many times.<br /><br />So how can fixed-point sound better than floating, when floating can do more, is far<br />more accurate, and we have more processing power to throw at it? My controvertial answer<br />is - BECAUSE it doesn't have the range. Open up one of your sessions, right now.<br />Insert a clipper at 0dB after EVERY plugin. What happened? Well, it depends on how hot you<br />run your session - but if in general just a /little/ bit hot, you just got an overall shine<br />added to your mix - a noisefloor of digital clip distortion and aliasing that boosted up<br />your high-frequency energy and made everything a touch noisier. And you did it native!<br /><br />This is the magic of dedicated DSPs - when your channel goes INTO a DSP plugin, and it's<br />pretty warm but not clipping, and you then add a few dBs of EQ, you clip that band on<br />the EQ's output. Clipping means high frequency energy, plus a touch of aliasing noise.<br />The aliasing noise is likely to be very quiet, but the brain doesn't mind /small/ amounts<br />because within a mix, it's just noise, and we, as humans, like a bit of noise. Boosting<br />the high frequency energy is great though - more "warmth" from the clipped bass,<br />more "openness" from the clipped mid and more "air" from the clipped top.<br />As far as I can tell, and I must state that it is only a theory, this is what lies beneath<br />the "bigger mixdowns" sound from using dedicated DSPs. But this is certainly not the ONLY thing.<br /><br />Developing for dedicated DSP requires an investment cost - it's a filter. The kind of users<br />who have dedicated DSP systems are those who spend more on software. By developing exclusively<br />for dedicated DSP, you enter a part of the market where piracy is small (no 16yr-old kids cry<br />themselves to sleep wishing they could get some new cracks for their pro-DSP rig...),<br />and where customers are wealthy. It's also a filter in that only developers who are serious<br />about their algorithms will bother to afford the buy-in cost for development.<br />Since it's easier to develop for native, everyone and anyone can, and do.<br />People with deep knowledge of how to write good sounding algorithms, however, will go that<br />step further and develop for DSP, paying that buy-in cost in the sure knowledge that the<br />market will receive them.<br /><br />DSP plugins cost more because the developers need to recover that cost of developing for the<br />DSP - nowadays people generally write code for Native and then port it to the DSP. Recovering<br />the cost of the Native version will spread across many many users, whereas the developer needs<br />the far fewer DSP users to help recover the DSP cost, which would be ill-advisedly passed on to<br />the Native customers. It's also a question of standing. Selling £20 DSP plugins would just seem<br />ridiculous to the market. It would not be likely be taken seriously.<br /><br />If you want to add in a Motorola style clip to your plugin, the rough code is:<br />if (x>1) x=1;<br />if (x<-1) x=-1;Dave Sonalksishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01390414057931163328noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32153502.post-1968237981611403792007-10-12T00:44:00.000+01:002007-10-12T00:46:19.666+01:00Blogging QuestionHi,<br /><br />I've not been posting much recently. A big part of this is... well... I'm just deep in development work, and I'm pretty sure you're not too interested in how I refactored my UI component class (although, it's a great story... but perhaps not one for parties)... Any requests for info on anything? I miss blogging, and I'm feeling out of ideas for stuff to tell y'all...Dave Sonalksishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01390414057931163328noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32153502.post-41709320852186022732007-10-12T00:05:00.000+01:002007-10-12T00:41:29.221+01:00The ongoing development processHi,<br /><br />Here's a heads-up for interested parties.<br /><br />All the plugin UIs are pretty much finished, names are decided, and so forth, so now all that remains is final tweakage of the DSP, presets, gluing extra features in, and tidying up (optimising). Then a month of beta, during which time I'll be making 2.04 more shiny ready for release... with luck you'll be tweaking by xmas.<br />You also get a free app to download your license files off the server too, because lots of people have trouble with the registration process, and it's not rocket science to write an app to do it for you :)<br />We could even put a check for updates in there (and not automatically run on startup, which is just damned annoying)..<br /><br />It's been lots of fun to see the new UIs come together. I'm adding in the last touches for K-metering tomorrow, and I'll probably spend a while making the graphs even sexier.<br /><br />More to follow :)Dave Sonalksishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01390414057931163328noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32153502.post-49868655588504859242007-10-11T23:54:00.000+01:002007-10-11T23:58:18.623+01:00Why Chris Randall is the coolest.In case you didn't know, you better get to know:<br /><br /><a href="http://www.analogindustries.com/blog/entry.jsp?msgid=1192130114442"><br />http://www.analogindustries.com/blog/entry.jsp?msgid=1192130114442</a><br /><br />'cause it's like that, and that's the way it is...Dave Sonalksishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01390414057931163328noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32153502.post-60295659175355866802007-09-29T20:17:00.000+01:002007-09-29T20:19:37.993+01:00Ultimax Force - Ninja CommandosI got this DVD:<br /><br /><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0092127/">Ultimax Force (imdb: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0092127/)</a><br /><br />It looks GREAT. I can't WAIT to watch it.Dave Sonalksishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01390414057931163328noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32153502.post-82820595753113588042007-09-29T00:17:00.000+01:002007-09-29T00:18:26.647+01:00*cough*<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhB_ldLJrBDGOUM5nLOjhl2AXjl_U0FihnAM5PRh3hNvrKKXGPJtEd6Y0ib_YqXnkxQAfhILdBMriJ76heHnxTh0LfbYz3H_eyiLAIGd3-fuO6ndxlrjGf-gZd_4ztk1ENprV3VKg/s1600-h/one.jpg"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhB_ldLJrBDGOUM5nLOjhl2AXjl_U0FihnAM5PRh3hNvrKKXGPJtEd6Y0ib_YqXnkxQAfhILdBMriJ76heHnxTh0LfbYz3H_eyiLAIGd3-fuO6ndxlrjGf-gZd_4ztk1ENprV3VKg/s400/one.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5115398213608560354" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFSGkGTh9Xv7XSsSg97wH7Pta9yS21fbg6Q0zizMNQzzo9NvH4bKu8IwdIIZuve0qyN60mP6VAkvi8hgrHIxEGYgqmjC4chGbs1I-9r8otMG6wsEuEKbf7FHF04ctsunNZ1IlaIg/s1600-h/two.jpg"><img style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFSGkGTh9Xv7XSsSg97wH7Pta9yS21fbg6Q0zizMNQzzo9NvH4bKu8IwdIIZuve0qyN60mP6VAkvi8hgrHIxEGYgqmjC4chGbs1I-9r8otMG6wsEuEKbf7FHF04ctsunNZ1IlaIg/s400/two.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5115398213608560370" /></a><br />Me? Leak images of things I've been working on? That would never happen.Dave Sonalksishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01390414057931163328noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32153502.post-15165159566111103902007-09-28T23:55:00.000+01:002007-09-29T00:16:40.902+01:00Dave Gamble, Acting Manager, Absenteeism Department, SonalksisWhere did I go?<br /><br />I'm a little embarassed by having disappeared for so long. Truth is, I disappeared to Cuba for a few months, with a huge bag full of cash (with SWAG on the side), to smoke VERY fat cigars, and get a suntan. (Chris Randall sussed me out!)<br /><br />Ok, no, that's actually not the truth. That's what I /wish/ was the truth. I moved house.<br />Moving house proves two unique problems for me: 1) I have studio kit and 2) I'm a hoarder.<br />The new studio is set up now, and I've treated the room to be within 7dB at 1/3rd octave measurement at the sweet spot. I chucked out LOTS of junk, but still managed to fill a 6'x6' bookcase with the excess. And another 6'x2' bookcase. One day, I promise I'll throw out all my old papers, but I just don't have the heart to right now. My thesis draws ever-closer to completion, and, frankly, the idea of throwing away anything I've printed out terrifies me. I bought a laser printer some years ago. Best investment I have ever made. I print things out a lot. I'm not good with screens and understanding what's going on - which is why I'm such a moron to talk to on MSN.<br />Unless it's code. That's not an invitation for people to MSN me in C++.<br /><br />The new place is a LOT nicer. My girlfriend and I got a place together, which is a little scary (first time for me!), but it does mean we can have a REALLY nice home! (she's a graphics designer... did I mention that? Flukey or what eh?) I may even post some photos.<br /><br />So, to the interesting (and less rambling-idiot-stylee) news...<br />2.04 is in beta at the moment. Lots of fixes and improvements for all sorts of obscure cases.<br />Improvements across the board for: 315Mk1, 517Mk1, 315Mk2, 517Mk2, 719, FreeG, CQ1, DQ1...<br /><br />As you may have gathered, there is to be a range of Sonalksis Mastering plugins. There's been a LOT of work on that. They're not quite in beta yet, I'm still making some alpha adjustments, and incorporating a few last features. They'll be in test within a month tho, and you can rely on the beta group (who just go from strength to strength. I fear them) to make em lovely.<br />There will be (I can officially announce) StereoTools (TM), MaxLimit (TM), MultiLimit (TM), and Ultimate-D (TM).<br /><br />Hopefully the names are reasonably self-explanatory. Ultimate-D (TM) is, obviously, a Tenacious-D (TM, but not ours!) tribute plugin, and makes you feel like Jack Black (TM, his own).<br /><br />I'm going to stop talking about those now... comments guessing what they do are invited :)<br /><br />I'll post more shortly :)<br /><br />Dave.Dave Sonalksishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01390414057931163328noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32153502.post-25695010278296992332007-07-07T02:09:00.000+01:002007-07-07T02:44:54.914+01:00I spent nearly the entire week dithering...If you'll pardon the horrific pun...<br /><br />Obviously a mastering limiter has dithering. Right?<br />So, naturally we wanted to provide the best dithering in the world, because that's just what we do.<br /><br />This is really interesting, go do this:<br /><a href="http://www.24-96.net/dither/">http://www.24-96.net/dither/</a><br /><br />It's very cool. However PLEASE DO HEED THE WARNING ABOUT LISTENING TO IT QUIETLY! :)<br />As many people have pointed out, the psychoacoustics behind dither rely on your hearing perception spectrum changing with volume, so unless you try it nice and quiet, you won't learn much from it.<br /><br />That said, I tried it out at a higher volume... and I gotta say, things didn't change TOO much! The order of "goodness" remained -roughly- the same for me, the best stayed the best, at least... and that's MegaBitMax. The Waves IDR(/POW-R, for that is what it appears to be) comes a good second... but MBM definitely has it.<br /><br />I stumbled onto (literally found by accident) the coefficients for the POW-R3 dither (yeah, they're on the net in some sourcecode! Weird!).<br /><br />I spent the start of the week figuring out how dither works. Today, the maths all made sense, arranged itself in my brain, and fell into place. I now have all the dither you want... :)<br /><br />So, first up, I ought to start with the background... why do we dither things, how does it work, why, etc.<br /><br />Well, we're going to reduce bit-depth to fit it onto a CD, and whatever we do to get rid of those excess bits is going to generate some form of distortion. That distortion sounds bad. We want to get rid of it.<br /><br />Step1: Add some noise. If the noises is louder than the distortion (which is actually quite quiet), you won't hear the distortion.<br /><br />Good one. A little noise, and the distortion is gone.<br /><br />Now we have this extra noise that we don't want... so..<br /><br />Step2: Maybe, with some feedback, we can filter the noise and make it less audible.<br /><br />Bingo! now, we've hidden the distortion under some noise... and then we hid the noise! ACE! :D<br />Does it get any better than that?? This is the magical thing about noise... you can bend it - so we fold it out of the way to places we can't hear!<br /><br />"How is this all psycho-acoustic?"<br /><br />Easy! We want to get rid of the noise where you can't hear it. Psychoacoustics tells me about where your hearing isn't very sensitive... so... I EQ it away from where you CAN hear, and towards where you CAN'T hear... there are curves for this sort of thing, and all you need to do is invert that curve and you're home and dry... maybe...<br /><br />"Really?"<br /><br />Well, actually no! You're not! If that WAS completely true, POW-R3 would sound better than MegaBitMax. But it doesnt, does it? How strange! So... there's a little bit more going on than psychoacoustics wants us to know about... but hey we can experiment and get it right.<br /><br />"The way you're describing all this, it makes it sound like this is just about some EQ settings"<br />Well... that's the magic, it really is. Go find Alexey Lukin's page on dither, grab the pdf<br />(here: <a href="http://audio.rightmark.org/lukin/dither/dither.pdf">http://audio.rightmark.org/lukin/dither/dither.pdf</a>)<br /><br />see... curves! Magic.<br /><br /><br />"Is this really the only way to do it?"<br />No, but it is the best way.<br />We have a number of other options that we could explore, which I shall detail here:<br /><br />1) We could not add dither noise.<br />Sure, and then the distortion comes back- that's the only reason we're doing this.<br /><br />2) We could just shape the noise but not the quantize error<br />Sure, and then you'll have noise which isn't masking the error in the most sensitive part of your hearing.<br /><br />3) We could just shape the quantize error but not the noise<br />Sure, but if you just want to add loud noise, why not record onto an old tape?<br /><br />4) We could change the EQ to follow the shape of the music, and hide the noise in places that are loud so it's masked!<br />Good idea, but there are some real problems here that you must pay attention to: First and foremost, we add noise because it is specifically uncorrelated to the signal - if it WAS correlated, it would be harmonic distortion (that's the definition). Now, if you're planning to change the filter coefficients depending on the signal, then not only is that a time-variant filter (where you'll either be changing the curve too slowly to be useful or too quick, and making bad noises - it's a fine line and not a fun game) you would actually be adding in a correlated change - so you'd actually be adding in more distortion. It's possible that a strategy based on this might one day find the balance with the time-variant filter and allow you to blend between distortion and noise, but it's a very complicated task, and you really wouldn't be gaining anything. (Although it would make for a very interesting paper.)<br /><br />So, with these decisions fixed, made and justified, my task was reduced to finding a way to generate the perfect dither response. The literature hints at it, but the answer is obviously an optimised Levinson-Durbin recursion since the problem can be resolved to solving a set of<br />simultaneous equations with a symmetric Toeplitz matrix. I can do it in realtime now :)<br />I've been A/Bing with the POW-R3 and MegaBitMax, and what I have here sounds at least as good;<br />I've reduced the problem down to calibrating one number, which is mad really. I think the final<br />answer will be about 2.2. ;)<br /><br />I'll get some samples up sometime :)<br /><br />[I will concede that finding the one number that tweaks it just right was a stroke of luck.. I've seen no reference to it in the literature.]Dave Sonalksishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01390414057931163328noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32153502.post-91258969349271012392007-06-29T04:55:00.000+01:002007-06-29T04:57:11.001+01:00What's that?<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpOxleSXnWQfypS-qiFuGGswnhYqo2eGlLgrLg1VyHNZkykufLt-3F0hLTnBX-pou5k3CDhbPWgqlwZgkINBB-uz8mit4uEVmtZmtyYMus7qNcPhFs_7LFLL1hkm8USmykr9sktg/s1600-h/wassat.png"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgpOxleSXnWQfypS-qiFuGGswnhYqo2eGlLgrLg1VyHNZkykufLt-3F0hLTnBX-pou5k3CDhbPWgqlwZgkINBB-uz8mit4uEVmtZmtyYMus7qNcPhFs_7LFLL1hkm8USmykr9sktg/s320/wassat.png" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5081330139626807986" /></a><br />.... more evil deeds are afoot....Dave Sonalksishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01390414057931163328noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32153502.post-12083535443334691282007-06-15T20:18:00.002+01:002007-06-15T20:22:00.102+01:00Celebrating the launch of TBK3<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFA0cOBwtagMIICcLzeKgOCZqsq8gN6mLkcm08tXb664jD7fdUFdG8t5hURe0DHHHfRFzCuLYE9KMONVLSsw-K9kEH743cbg5OFtGlFC6ZwoSHdfXsURwVtHvOOIeqLx7KnEYVUg/s1600-h/me.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgFA0cOBwtagMIICcLzeKgOCZqsq8gN6mLkcm08tXb664jD7fdUFdG8t5hURe0DHHHfRFzCuLYE9KMONVLSsw-K9kEH743cbg5OFtGlFC6ZwoSHdfXsURwVtHvOOIeqLx7KnEYVUg/s320/me.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5076372871521414786" /></a><br />... and just when I'd convinced you I wasn't a cigar-smoking fat-cat...<br /><br />We're all very excited and pleased about the TBK3 launch! :D<br /><br />[and for those of you who care, it's a Carlos Torano Reserva Selecta torpedo, and it is delicious!]Dave Sonalksishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01390414057931163328noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32153502.post-91279268904293216012007-06-14T22:22:00.000+01:002007-06-14T22:41:56.522+01:00Can you guess what I just uploaded?... Can you?<br /><br />Ship dates are always very emotional for me.<br />There's something really significant about declaring something ready.<br />Well, it's had two months of beta and it's rocksolid. And nasty.<br /><br />Anyone who reads about marketing will discover Zipfs law soon enough... #1 gets 90%, #2 gets 9%, #3 0.9% and so on... I have a feeling about TBK3.. this really could be the plugin that becomes the #1 compressor... I wonder...<br />There's been a long phase of people wanting accurate models of analogue compressors, but I dont think i'm being controvertial in suggesting that it's more due to wanting a compressor that really does the job than there being some bizarre magic to a particular piece of kit - it's always you that decides what sound you take from it, after all. And here we are sitting on TBK3, which REALLY DOES get the job done and is quicker to use than any other comp I know of...<br /><br />It could just happen...<br /><br />What's even more nuts is the realization that the people who read this blog could make it happen. The biggest problem at Sonalksis is that no-one knows who we are... we've really struggled for magazine inches, and without big advertising capital you're stuck... Everyone's always telling us about how good the plugins sound... perhaps people like to keep them as secret weapons? ;)<br /><br />But I've got this long list of things people tell us they really want, from ring modulators to spring-reverbs, pitch-shifters to new even-more-pro eqs, some really pro mastering gear, etc etc (i might post the list sometime...) and I really do like shipping products... with your support in spreading the word, we could afford to take on more people and get these things done.<br />Can you help? What could we do to make spreading the word easier? Will TBK3 just make it happen?<br /><br />You can either stay tuned... or start writing the script...Dave Sonalksishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01390414057931163328noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32153502.post-35670888990481888792007-06-12T13:26:00.001+01:002007-06-12T13:39:59.456+01:00TBK3... Mind your speakers....Before:<br /><br /><embed src="http://www.sonalksis.com/dls/clips/nonTBK3Loop.mp3" height=20 autostart="false" loop="FALSE"> <br /></embed><br /><br />And after:<br /><embed src="http://www.sonalksis.com/dls/clips/tbk3loop.mp3" height=20 autostart="false" loop="FALSE"> <br /></embed><br /><br />[If that doesn't work, click <a href="http://www.sonalksis.com/dls/clips/nonTBK3Loop.mp3">Before</a> and <a href="http://www.sonalksis.com/dls/clips/tbk3loop.mp3">After</a>]Dave Sonalksishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01390414057931163328noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32153502.post-19863616320761348402007-06-05T15:53:00.001+01:002007-06-05T15:53:37.343+01:00It's that time again....Something wicked this way comes....Dave Sonalksishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01390414057931163328noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32153502.post-86132855930266353732007-05-03T19:53:00.000+01:002007-05-03T19:57:17.210+01:00Again More Hackers...I haven't edited the comments to my last post. Nor replied to them. It's a heated issue, and I'd rather get involved by making a clear statement than by making short replies that could get misunderstood.<br /><br />I had the opportunity to speak to someone who actually knows some crackers, and I learnt a lot about how it works. And to explain what I learnt, we need to start with ethics.<br /><br />In my last post I talked about how it is unethical to use cracked software. I also referred (perhaps not as clearly as I should have) to the critical distinction between a lost sale and a non-potential sale. Let me restate this: a 14-yr old who wants to learn about making music the way that professionals do it and uses cracked software is not a potential sale. 14-yr olds do not have £3500 to spend on studio equipment to get started. There is an argument that they could learn by using free software - and many do, but the point is that free software is not what the professionals use- if it was, there would be NO music software market.<br />A lost sale is a producer who is making his money by selling records, or perhaps renting studio time, who gets a cracked piece of software and decides that there's no point in buying it, because he has it now.<br /><br />No-one in this market suffers from non-potential sales. Ever. In fact, the reverse is completely true. If you work in this industry, you DO know people who started out with cracked software and now have spent thousands and thousands of pounds on their studios. If you don't know anyone like this, then you either know less than two people, or you don't work in the industry. This is a fact. If there was no crack of Photoshop, there would be FEWER legitimate Photoshop users. The fact that businesses HAVE to buy Photoshop for their employees forces this to be the case, but it's equally true in music just because musicians are (with almost no exceptions) GOOD people.<br /><br />Now, suppose we naively believe that people who can afford to buy software will do so. We believe this, because it's true for us, and we don't really think anyone would be that different to us.<br /><br />Well then, ON THAT ASSUMPTION, it becomes an ethically justifiable case to crack software and make it available to people who need it but can't afford it, safe in the knowledge that as soon as they CAN afford it, they will, of course, buy it! This, so I am informed, is the ethical foundation for the cracking community. And clearly, this will develop into an ethically driven and ethically justified community of people working together for a common good.<br /><br />Effectively, cracking is aggressive marketing to people who can't YET form part of your customerbase, done for you, the developer, by a 3rd party.<br /><br />The crackers feel ethically justified in what they are doing, because their foundations show that they can't harm you. Hey, they've probably paid for the copy that they use themselves.<br /><br />So there's this lovely symbiotic relationship going on, where the crackers provide new software to people who /can't/ buy it, so that one day they will. Great.<br /><br /><br />Except that the assumption is, apparently, wrong. Not enormously wrong, but wrong enough to show up some nasty statistics. Y'see, people who /can/ afford to buy the software are also getting their hands on the cracks. That's not what the developers want - because these people ARE potential sales. That's not what the crackers want either - these people are mocking the crackers by using the cracks commercially.<br /><br />Go find some cracks and read the files that the hackers include with them. The more respected the cracking group, the heavier the emphasis on "try before you buy", and "if you use it, pay for it". This is universally true.<br /><br />So, it's not the crackers that hurt the developers, it's dishonest users. Of course, there's an easy argument that if the crackers didn't distribute the cracks to /anyone/, then there'd be no problem with dishonest users. There'd also be fewer users, and less publicity for products. Swings and roundabouts - statistics you can never gather, because it's a clear example of the uncertainty principle; if you try to measure it, you'll change it.<br /><br />I personally believe that this wraps up the story with the crackers. They have an ethical standpoint that is naively defensible. However, they're being exploited in the same way as developers. It was not for nothing that I urged anyone seeking to hack the Sonalksis plugins to customise the UIs to show that they were cracks. I really will release the installer files upon request to any crackers who want them in order to repackage the plugs.<br /><br />Do legitimate users care if 14-yr-old kids have a copy of the software that they've paid for to play around with? I consider that pretty unlikely. If you've gotten far enough in this industry to be able to afford pro plugins, then you already have a pretty good idea of how all this works. Better than I do, most likely. And EVERYONE can get hold of the 30-day demo anytime - they're just using the "infinite demo", because that's their culture.<br /><br />But users who could easily afford to buy plugins but don't... what to do? Users who'll happily pay out a few grand on hardware, but not even a few pounds on software...<br /><br />...will be discussed in a future posting.<br /><br />Dave.Dave Sonalksishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01390414057931163328noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-32153502.post-46560875335343411052007-04-20T03:08:00.000+01:002007-04-20T03:28:37.818+01:00What goes on at Castle Sonalksis?Hello,<br /><br />I feel I ought to give a quick update as to what's going on behind the scenes.<br /><br />TBK3 finished its first beta phase.<br />A few minor things to tidy up... and a decision that it should go even nastier.<br />So, it's just ridiculous now. Totally ridiculous.<br />Set to extreme settings I can't make any sense of what's going on at all. :D<br />I think the testers like it. Audio perverts.<br />So, now it's just polishing and making sure all the bugs are closed and buried.<br />With luck and good weather (which we've been having a lot of in the UK recently!), it should be a few more weeks to release.<br /><br />I guess it's time to read some books on writing about high-energy action adventures, so I can write the manual... ;)<br /><br />In other news.<br />I finished the DSP and plugin-y-ness for another new plugin... a useful utility-type thing. It still needs a UI, so it hasn't gone to beta yet; so that'll be out after TBK3<br />Specs are confirmed for another two plugins, which I intend to start veeeerrry soon ;) NO DETAILS FOR YOU! :P<br /><br />In other other news.<br />I bought a copy of FogBUGZ. I used to use it at Focusrite/Novation, and it was one of the best things ever. It still is one of the best things ever.<br />It's frankly astonishing that a piece of software can turn bug tracking into an enjoyable experience. I've no clue how it's done, but if you have bugs to track, throw out whatever you're using and get FogBUGZ now.<br /><br />I bought a copy for my mac. It's all working now, but pheww... it took some time...<br />To get it to work I had to:<br />1) Install the latest PHP ('cause the one that ships with macos is lame)<br />2) FIGHT this thing called PEAR (which seems to be some kind of package manager); I say FIGHT because there were two versions installed that were fighting. If you get into the same trouble, the answer is: sudo pear config-set bin_dir /usr/bin, THEN do all the sudo pear upgrade PEAR stuff. and use sudo pear -V LOTS. You need it to say that the version number is 1.5ish, or better. 1.3.6 is right out.<br />3) Use PEAR to install some PHP modules (i think thats what it did)<br />4) Install MySQL off the 'net<br />5) Learn the bare minimum to get MySQL working (install all 3 things in the dmg, open system preferences, click start. know that by default db passwords are blank)<br />6) Poke around 3 or 4 setup screens for FogBUGZ<br />7) Configure my php.ini... but which one?!!? The one HIDDEN in /usr/local/php5/ of course!<br />8) Reboot apache lots. Thank goodness apple have a button for this in system prefs.<br />9) Configure my my.cnf file. It doesnt exist yet. It goes in /etc/. It needs to contain about 2 lines of text.<br />10) ENJOY!<br /><br />Now, as you can see, had I installed it on a Linux machine, I could have skipped stages 1->9. Let this be a lesson to us all! :D :D :D<br /><br />Now I've moved the buglist from Excel into FogBUGZ which is working just lovely on my machine. It's very exciting. Admittedly there aren't THAT many bugs to enter, but the joy is, I can assign myself new tasks as feature requests for building new things! YAY! :)<br />FogBUGZ is so wonderful because:<br />1) Things that live in databases that you can't see feel much more safe and secure than .xls files on your desktop<br />2) It forces you to work in a formal way, and this in turn makes you feel much better and safer about things<br />3) It remembers all these things for you! You can even leave messages to yourself! What more could you ask for?<br />4) It is so simple that anyone ever could learn to use it in less than 3 minutes, without a manual.<br />5) There is a strange and magical process inside my brain that works like this: if something is in a place where I know it is safe, and other people can see it, then I don't have to burn braincycles on worrying about it. In this way, FogBUGZ makes me feel better about my life in general. Weird huh? It just destresses me. I'm sure the same thing will work for you too if you have bugs to track, or features to implement :)<br /><br />So, that's my exciting news. I have some bug tracking software which is so good I want to write pages of blog about it. Oh, and lots of new plugins on the way.<br /><br />I'm planning to take a holiday at the start of next month. I'm considering Palma/Majorca or Barcelona... or maybe Paris. Any suggestions?<br />I'm just thinking that with the weather being this good over here at this time of year, it's nuts to go away, but a nice holiday away somewhere would be just the ticket.<br /><br />Bye for now,<br /><br />Dave.Dave Sonalksishttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01390414057931163328noreply@blogger.com2