AB Level Matching JSFX V1.1

[TheFlavor]

re my previous posts, is it possible some global variable is conflicting with another plugin?

[RJHollins]

Eliminate all variables that you can.

Set up a small test session.

Put the SCR file first
Add a GAIN change plug [like FREEG]
Add the CNTRL plug last.

Put all this on a NEW track ... nothing on the MASTER.

Add GAIN + or -

Click the SYNCH or DLYComp name to calculate offset [while STOPPED].

Hit play .... anything ?

[TheFlavor]

Originally Posted by RJHollins

Eliminate all variables that you can.

Set up a small test session.

Put the SCR file first
Add a GAIN change plug [like FREEG]
Add the CNTRL plug last.

Put all this on a NEW track ... nothing on the MASTER.

Add GAIN + or -

Click the SYNCH or DLYComp name to calculate offset [while STOPPED].

Hit play .... anything ?

Did what you described, and still the same problem: When I hit Bypass, it works correctly: it plays the pre-processed sound it's reading at the SRC; but there's no compensation for the gain-change I added in between SRC and CNTRL.

If I'm supposed to do something to turn auto-gain-compensation on, I'm not doing it, as I didn't notice anything I'd have to do for that in the documentation.

[TheFlavor]

Originally Posted by RJHollins

Hit play .... anything ?

OH. When I hit Play, it works. Never mind. I was using tone / noise generators which worked even when Stopped, so I'd never bothered to hit Play until now. The second time I read your post. Not the first time though. Thanks very much. Never mind.

[TheFlavor]

and thanks to the OP for providing this. Melda's MCompare, which I'm currently demoing, offers some other features, but maybe not enough to justify the price difference.

[RJHollins]

OK .... Time to go P...L...A...Y.

[X-Raym]

Nice job!
Thank you for sharing it for free

[MotionMindz]

Put the scripts in the Effects folder, and thats it?

[rdesanti]

Originally Posted by amagalma

Thank you very much for sharing it with us!
I am going to try it and report back!

I think this would be cool, however I have no clue as to how to install it on my MAC. Any help would be appreciated!

[X-Raym]

Check on The REAPER blog, there is a recent video tutorial about loading a jfx :P

[rdesanti]

Originally Posted by amagalma

It works very nice and does an accurate analysis! Thank you very much! Great tool!

I'm new to JSFX and want to install this! I have a MAC with OSX Yosemite Reaper 64 bit 4.78 I need a link that has directions.
THANKS AHEAD!

[kindafishy]

This may be my most used plugin ever. Indispensable.

I have a very small request if it is possible. The channel id that has to be selected with every pair. Is is possible for these to get these to just be set to the the track number so they don't have to be manually set? Maybe with a checkbox override to set them to something else if that's a problem for whatever reason? Any other means to auto select a unique channel would be awesome. For my purposes, I never have more than one pair on a track, so auto setting it to the track number would be good for me.

It would just make it ever so more awesome if this didn't need to be manually selected for every track.

Seems silly to make a request of such an awesome tool that was graciously given out for free, but I figured I would throw it out there anyway.

[hopi]

Originally Posted by rdesanti

I'm new to JSFX and want to install this! I have a MAC with OSX Yosemite Reaper 64 bit 4.78 I need a link that has directions.
THANKS AHEAD!

though I'm mostly on a PC, on Mac it should still be easy...

with reaper open find the menu item that shows you the Reaper Resource path... [good idea on Mac to make a shortcut of that so you can get to it quickly]

In there should be a folder called Effects...

Put the AB Level Matching JSFX Folder into that Effects Folder

then in reaper's FX browser, look for the JS heading on the left, clk it and the AB Level Matching thing should show up...

Add the two needed to a track [src at top, and one of the cntrl's at bottom...

Now you might want to put other FX between those two and then save the whole thing as an FX Chain... or several with various other FX between the AB Level stuff...

clear enough?

[EpicSounds]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9EegrN-gF5o


Also FYI I promoted this set of plugins on the blog this week

http://reaperblog.net/2015/07/ab-level-matching-jsfx/

[TBProAudio]

Originally Posted by kindafishy

I have a very small request if it is possible. The channel id that has to be selected with every pair. Is is possible for these to get these to just be set to the the track number so they don't have to be manually set?

Very nice idea, but to my knowledge JS does not know the channel attached to.
Currently AB Level Matching JSFX works with (REAPER) global mem buffer.
If there would be a channel global mem buffer autolink could be implemented :-)

Regards
TBProAudio

[kindafishy]

Originally Posted by TBProAudio

Very nice idea, but to my knowledge JS does not know the channel attached to.
Currently AB Level Matching JSFX works with (REAPER) global mem buffer.
If there would be a channel global mem buffer autolink could be implemented :-)

Regards
TBProAudio

Thanks for your consideration. It's still my favourite tool in my toolbox .

If you are interested in taking this plugin further, I am sure that you could commercialize this as a VST/etc plugin pair. You would be able to get into some more advanced options that way, I would think.

Another set of fields that I have often thought would be interesting to observe is actual source, final and diff gain, in addition to the RMS values.

[TBProAudio]

Originally Posted by kindafishy

Another set of fields that I have often thought would be interesting to observe is actual source, final and diff gain, in addition to the RMS values.

Well, i did some experiments with shorter RMS times (1ms or shorter is very close to actual gain) but then diff gain jumps to much :-(

regards
TBProAudio

[rdesanti]

Originally Posted by rdesanti

I'm new to JSFX and want to install this! I have a MAC with OSX Yosemite Reaper 64 bit 4.78 I need a link that has directions.
THANKS AHEAD!

UPDATE: Thanks for the VIDEO! Works GREAT! Now in my favorites folder :-)

[TBProAudio]

New version V2.7

[IXix]

Originally Posted by TBProAudio

New version V2.7

Thanks!

[kindafishy]

Nice. Still one of my most used audio tools.

What's new in this version?

[TBProAudio]

Not much, just aligned with latest inc files and tested under R5 :-)

[casrya]

Thanks TB, this and the gain stager are really useful

[donchilcott]

WHERE DO YOU INSTALL IT ? lots of comments and even an instructional video - with no instructions on where to copy files. in one place it says install to JSFX folder... I have no JSFX folder... PLEASE Help

[mschnell]

Originally Posted by donchilcott

I have no JSFX folder... PLEASE Help

In Windows the "JSFX Folder" is ....\<Application Data>\REAPER\Effects\

Here Reaper finds a JSFX in any subfolder.

-Michael

[donchilcott]

I nearly lost my mind trying to install the JSFX level Matching.
I had to place it in user\appdata\roaming... Works Great

[uglijimus]

I ended up getting Perception and have never looked back. I love it. by the way, I love your avatar guitarded (^_^)

[zedug]

Originally Posted by TBProAudio

New version V2.7

Thanks Thomas, this is an amazing piece of work !!
Just on thing, where can I get the v2.7 ? Your download page (http://www.tb-software.com/TBProAudio/download.html) still points to 2.5

-z

[David Else]

Hello. I am planning on adding instructions on how to use this plugin to my new "The Best Free VST Plugins Explained" Udemy course:

http://www.learndigitalaudio.com/the...gins-explained

Many of the students will be using other DAWs, but I understand that the plugin runs well using ReaPlugs ReaJS?

http://www.reaper.fm/reaplugs/index.php

Please could anyone who has used this plugin in another DAW using ReaJS quickly confirm here which DAW they used and if there were problems, or if it worked 100% OK?

THANKS!

[TBProAudio]

100% Cubase 7.x, 8.x

[David Else]

Originally Posted by TBProAudio

100% Cubase 7.x, 8.x

Cheers! Anyone else?

[PitchSlap]

Interesting to see this evolve into a plugin for other DAWs. Aside from the nice GUI, any big differences/improvements in the VST version? It looks like it supports 16 pairs vs 32 for the JS...



Also, I'm dreaming of the day when something like this is seamlessly integrated right in the DAW. I think it would be a game changing feature for sure and make an enormous difference in mixing.

It's probably already possible to get close with some clever LUA/python scripting, but native support would be the simplest which is the key for most people to use it.


Perhaps I'll make a FR and hope Justin or Schwa can see the potential.

[TBProAudio]

I think the native plugin is easier to use. Beside this it adds:
- gain staging (so 2 plugs in 1)
- snapshots
- reference level matching

[PitchSlap]

Originally Posted by TBProAudio

I think the native plugin is easier to use. Beside this it adds:
- gain staging (so 2 plugs in 1)
- snapshots
- reference level matching

I'll give it a shot!

I'm curious about the 16/32 link IDs, is there a reason for these limits? As someone that can easily have 100+ tracks in a project, it seems a bit on the low side. Especially with the built in gain staging its something I'd likely want to use on a lot of tracks.

Also the manual only mentions RMS and not EBU 128, do the plugin and JSFX version calculate loudness the same?

[TBProAudio]

At the moment there is no demand for more than 16 links, it could be any number

Well, for AB comparison and gain staging EBU measurement does not really matter, just CPU costs.

[PitchSlap]

I've been playing with the plugin and it's extremely useful. Makes me regret not taking advantage of the JSFX more than I have!

It's really making a huge difference in actually making things "better", rather than just louder. And also helped me realize that things I'd already done had actually made things worse.


For me the biggest downside is definitely the initial setup and linking workflow.
-Load plugin, set mode, set link, load next plugin, set mode, set link etc...

It would be far more user friendly if it could be simplified into just loading the plugins.

By keeping track of the number of instances I think it should be pretty easy to auto-set the link ID.

For example the first instance in a project defaults to sender #1, the second instance to receiver #1 and so on. There's a number of different ways to do it.

The current manual setup could still exist for those who need it for advanced routing, but if the plugin did the cumbersome work automatically it would be a major improvement and eliminate 90% of the hassle.

I also strongly feel the only limitation on the number of linked pairs should be how many the user wants, and what their system can handle. 16 is barely enough for a mic'd drum kit, let alone complex productions that could be hundreds of channels.

Even when performance becomes a bottlekneck, the plugins could just be bypassed until they're needed, so the number of plugin pairs could be very large including ones that aren't active.

With an arbitrary limit on link IDs the plugins would need to be removed to free up IDs, then re-added to make more changes to a track. Sure it's possible to bypass plugins and reuse their IDs for other plugins, but it would quickly become a mess of conflicting IDs and remembering which ones are which etc.

Any thoughts?

[TBProAudio]

thanks for this extensive review. Very good!

1) Number of channels: no problem to extend
2) Auto setup: very nice idea, i have to check if this is possible with whole plug-in parameter stuff

[Sju]

I usually have just one pair active at a time, then I remove them after I've set up the plugin that needed gain compensation.

Save source&control to an fx chain; very quick to insert.

Also, huge props to TBProAudio for still willing to support the JSFX plugin after releasing the commercial version

[PitchSlap]

Originally Posted by TBProAudio

thanks for this extensive review. Very good!

1) Number of channels: no problem to extend
2) Auto setup: very nice idea, i have to check if this is possible with whole plug-in parameter stuff

I don't know what's happening under the hood, and my programming knowledge is very limited, but maybe it could be something as simple as a config file that all instances read/write to keep track of whether they should be a sender or receiver.

Even with a few instances I often forget which link IDs I've already used, so an auto-mode would also help with that.

If you get something worked out and need any testers I'd be happy to help.



A few other ideas/suggestions.

-It would be great if we could auto-gain stage and level match with the same plugin pair. That would ensure the optimal level at the start of the chain while still keeping loudness out of the equation when making mix decisions. That would take care of the two most important factors when working with plugins in a single shot. Maybe something to consider for the future.


-The sender plugin is mostly empty GUI space, all relevant controls could easily fit in the small black portion at the top. Having the GUI resize based on if it's a sender or receiver. Not sure if all DAWs handle that elegantly, and it's a minor issue, but just a thought.



Thanks again for the great tools and your generosity sharing them with the Reaper community.

[TBProAudio]

Originally Posted by PitchSlap

If you get something worked out and need any testers I'd be happy to help

I will consider your offer

Originally Posted by PitchSlap

It would be great if we could auto-gain stage and level match with the same plugin pair. That would ensure the optimal level at the start of the chain while still keeping loudness out of the equation when making mix decisions. That would take care of the two most important factors when working with plugins in a single shot. Maybe something to consider for the future.

Well, this uses case was the driver to introduce the first gain stage (reference level matching):
lets say your plugin works best at -18dBFS:set the reference level to -18, run your audio and match Pre FX gain.

Originally Posted by PitchSlap

The sender plugin is mostly empty GUI space, all relevant controls could easily fit in the small black portion at the top. Having the GUI resize based on if it's a sender or receiver. Not sure if all DAWs handle that elegantly, and it's a minor issue, but just a thought.

UI resizing seems not working properly in all supported DAWs. Still on our agenda