L'S.A.M.P Program answers!

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Hobbyist musician,pro recorder
Member Since: May 15, 2007

In the alt.comp.freeware newsgroup the author of the LSAMP program just happened upon my plea for info on his set up...he didn't exactly answer my question (re: his dials setup) he furnished the following info:
==
The windows version is no longer supported (I don't go near Windows
> anymore
> and, moreover, have not coded audio-related apps for quite a few years
> now --
> no time at all). So please consider the website (and the donation
> page, etc.)
> as inactive/defunct (i.e. do not use either of those).
>
> Now to your questions...
>
> 1st compressor: idea to even out the slow-changing, soft dynamic
> envelope of
> the song (i.e. does not react to peaks). To do this:
>
> set low threshold
>
> set slowish attack reaction; whilst release may be a bit faster (to
> prevent 'pumping' effect)
>
> set low ratio (don't compress too much) -- remembering that the idea
> is to
> even-out the loudness values between 'large' time sections of the song
> (so that
> overly soft parts of the song are more 'equal' in their loudness
> w.r.t. some of
> the louder parts of the song).
>
> when looking at the 'red gain reduction bar' -- you want to see a slow
> moving behavior.
>
> given that 'auto_gain' is automatically calculated without taking into
> account
> the fact that compression may not catch up in time with the song's
> volume
> envelope (the very real situation when slow attack reaction is used)
> -- you
> will need to reduce the 'gain' value (do this until you can't hear the
> distortion -- yes use your ears... in all too many tools people rely
> on
> 'visual' things, whilst it is one's ears that ought to be used as much
> as possible).
>
> 2nd compressor: even-out peaks (e.g. snares, etc.) -- this one may
> even allow
> some distortion (e.g. on some snare sounds it is acutally able to give
> more
> character to the sound)...
>
> do not have low threshold (depending on the mix, may be -8 dB -- would
> depend
> *heavily* on the mix)
>
> have fast attack reaction and reasonably fast release reaction (adjust
> to your
> 'flavor' -- may be a bit slower than attack).
>
> have high compression ratio (may allow to squeeze quite a bit)
>
> given that any attack reaction time which is not infinitely fast will
> still
> exhibit some 'latency' -- you may still reduce the 'gain' wheel to
> prevent
> audible distortion (to you taste, of course).
>
> Now -- attack/release reactions are opposite to the traditional
> compressors --
> low values mean slow, high values mean fast (AFAIK)-- just think of
> them as
> 'reaction ' indicators -- high value implies faster adaptation/sensing
> of
> sounds volume changes.
>
> About 'pdl' -- peak distortion limiters -- from memory they are in-
> between eq
> and each of the compressors -- those are just very fast reaction
> compressors
> that may be used to 'limit' sharp peaks that seat close to clipping
> range of
> the audio signal. Usually help to squeeze the mix more (if needed) and
> at the
> same time reduce any overly-audible distortion effects (once again if
> so needed).
>
> Leon.
>
> PS -- AFAIR, the WAV format that is used to read the sounds may not be
> 100%
> tolerant of non-canonical wav files, so if you have some of those
> generic
> 'wav' cleaner utils (which strip metadata like irrelevant chunks,
> etc.) -- use
> them on the sound.
>
> Also, and once again AFAIR, the sounds must be 16 bit, stereo, 44.1KHz
> format.

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Veni, MIDI, Vici
Member
Since: Jul 02, 2008


Sep 16, 2008 02:30 pm

What a coincidence running into Leon! This sheds some light on how to get the most out of LSAMP. We'll have to experiment more. Thanks for posting this.

Hobbyist musician,pro recorder
Member
Since: May 15, 2007


Sep 16, 2008 04:51 pm

Absolutely. Unfortunately my questions all had to do with how did he use the dials to SET those specif ratios, on mine it seems a bit backwards (for instance, there are two numbered dials, if you go up the 1 remains on the left side while the numbers increase on the right. Normally a ratio is described the opposite way, i.e., 4:1 not 1:4. But then maybe I am just overthinking this.

Czar of Midi
Administrator
Since: Apr 04, 2002


Sep 16, 2008 10:15 pm

One thing I did notice is that his dials do NOT correspond to to any ratio value at all it would appear. I am starting to think they are only there as a reference to mark were you are at to recall a setting.

Although it is possible he may have reversed things as it sound by his writing that he might be of foreign origin.

As time permits I am going to try and pari it next to another very basic VST comp I used to use and see what the results are.

Hobbyist musician,pro recorder
Member
Since: May 15, 2007


Sep 17, 2008 01:00 am

Yeah, that was my big problem, figuring out what the dials represented...but you'll notice the number on the left will only go as high as 1 on one of the compressors, which would seem to indicate half of the ratio formula...I don't know why it wouldn't go higher or lower otherwise (most of the other knobs do).

Yes, you may be right, it may simply be a different way of thinking of it in his country (like Europen dates might be 22 Sept 08 rather than the US 8/22/08).

Either way I guess playing with it more and using the ears to judge what the effects are is the only and probably best way to get a handle on settings. And taking a few notes.

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