Kotelnikov GE - manual
Contents
1. 15 UPU 16 seu zB foe a CREME mms 16 Eg al loudness estimatior m 16 AS LE AUS af SectiO PR A a inaa TE a 17 DiE E E E ee a 17 Eq al loudness bypasses ne a E EEA ee E te ce 17 EEES Le Het E E O 17 Generic settings toolbar aa 18 Preset Monade nmen E D Do oo oom 18 Ende eu A M M E 18 COR T 18 POCE dirt M C 19 Li MT 19 Help 19 atta SPENE EE ENTER a 19 ANDOU Rd OD ODD 19 MOTS 5 4 do ni 19 Appendix A Getting started with Kotelnikov sise 20 Appendix B Vladimir Aleksandrovich Kotelnikov Us 24 WAST ANON RENE EE LTD LLL 25 PrOGUCETOSISEFdEIOTI Gute qao ed E cO m 25 TECHNICA SD CCINC ATION S TED 26 dc iot Coa ten ete 26 Wu sie npe HMM CCEPIT 26 atta Thank you for choosing a Tokyo Dawn Labs product THE CONCEPT u Default Precise Stereo KOTELNIKOV THRESHOLD PEAK SOFT RATIO MAKEUP CREST KNEE Ur Gain Gentleman s Edition ea p ox L 4 Reduction i Ls gt 7 gt dB LOW FREQ RELAX E n E a E 4 E 4 8 dE 0 0 dB ic off 0 0 dB 2 0 0 0 dB 50 500 o OUTPUT EQUAL SLOPE 6 0 dB o2. READY STEREO SENSITIVITY 4 Generic settings Detection pre processing Gain control parameters Timing section Timbre and frequency dependent ratio FDR Dynamics metering Output section Monitoring section DETECTION PRE PROCESSING LOW FREQUENCY RELAXATION LOW FREQ RELAX ow frequency relaxation consists of a specialized high pass filter KOTELNIKOV purely meant to control i e correct the compressor s sensitivity to low frequency Gentleman s Edition content Or from a different perspective it allows to make the compressor s threshold LOW FREQ RELAX frequency dependent The filter s corner FREQUENCY ranges from 25Hz to 500Hz and offers a fully continuously variable filter SLOPE from OdB Oct filter off to 18dB Oct 50 500 The spectral distribution of typical music content and speech is not linear Instead it has nian the tendency to approximate a pink noise distribution pink noise has a slope falling 3dB per octave Given this fact and without additional weighting a wide band compressor will somewhat over react to low frequency content and accordingly under react to high frequency content This central problem has the potential to introduce negative side effects such as pumping and distortion as well as a severe reduction of the impact and neutrality of compression Use the LOW FREQUENCY RELAX filter to correct this behavior Given typical music content a 3dB Oct slope repre
3. and buttons appear when possible which allow increasing or decreasing the range as needed A right or left click will also increase or decrease gain reduction meter range respectively 17 GENERIC SETTINGS TOOLBAR PRESET MANAGEMENT The preset drop down list gives quick access to factory and user presets Alternatively up down buttons allow cycling through them with a single click Advanced preset management options are available from the context menu right click Reset to Original state resets the currently active preset to its original state Save As New Global User Preset opens a dialog used to create User Presets Note that these presets persist across sessions and DAWS presets are saved on your machine The total amount of user presets is limited however Copy and paste allow copying control states i e Default u T presets across plugin instances and plugin hosts Reset to Original State Additionally share state opens a dialog with save As New Global User Preset additional preset sharing options via e mail or internet forums These three options are available in the standard Copy State Ctrl C context menu as well Paste State Ctrl V Share State UNDO REDO Use the undo redo buttons to navigate previous control states The exact event is shown in a tool ms tip Note that certain controls are not tracked by this function e g Bypass as that would not
4. both typically running at higher rates than the original signal given a standard rate such as 44 1kHz or 48kHz e Sidechain The sidechain is responsible for generating a control signal for the gain cell It consists of several non linear elements such as the threshold RMS detection and timing filters To avoid aliasing in the control signal which would severely limit the accuracy of the compression the sidechain uses a bandwidth up to 20x wider than the audible bandwidth e Gain The gain cell is a central part of the compressor where the audio signal s level is adjusted by the control signal delivered by the sidechain This operation is a non linear process and potentially doubles the bandwidth To handle this bandwidth this multiplication always runs at a minimum of double the audio sample rate i e at least 88 2kHz One interesting design feature of Kotelnikov is that only the compressed portion of the signal listen via Delta switch is oversampled This leaves the original signal completely untouched as long as no gain reduction is occurring the plugin is 10096 bit transparent In both cases the resampling is done with very high quality linear phase time domain convolution Please note that these quality improvements come at a price CPU cycles but from a sonic point of view and in the context of the fast growth of computer power we think they are well worth the compromise AUDIO DYNAMICS CONTROL Beside the m
5. veo Gentleman s Edition LOW FREQ RELAX 50 500 SLOPE 6 0 dB oct FREQ 100 Hz STEREO SENSITIVITY Center Precise Stereo Gain Reduction x Fa ort EQUAL LOUD ESTIMATE READY EQUAL OUD EDIT Use your ears for now and make sure to read up the detailed explanation of Kotelnikov s unique timing technology fascinating and an amazingly powerful dynamics tool once you get a handle on the expert parameters To wrap things up here s a short glimpse at the remaining more advanced features just so you know where to look in case you need deeper control over certain aspects please refer to the related manual sections for specifics ut Default THRESHOLD PEAK CHEST SOFT ENEE suba i LOW FREQ RELAX 4 8 dE 0 0 dB 50 500 SLOPE 6 0 dB act RELEASE PEAK FREQ 100 Hz STEREO SENSITIVITY Y I 4 z D i LE L Lu Precise Stereo RATIO MAKEUP v Gain y ee Reduction p Fa r k L off 4 E EQUAL LOUD RELEASE RAS ESTIMATE READY EGUA D EDIT This panel on the left gives you control over what part of your signal Kotelnikov listens to the most helping you avoid common problems related to compression The top section called LOW FREQUENCY RELAX basically tells Kotelnikov to ignore low frequencies to a certain degree when adjusting its compre
6. All controls within the plugin feature acceleration Fast movements of the mouse make large changes and slow small movements allow for fine tuning of settings Alternatively it is possible to revert the knob behavior back to a linear mode Open the settings dialog to access these options Press either Alt click or double click a control to reset to its default value 19 APPENDIX A GETTING STARTED WITH KOTELNIKOV While all these advanced concepts of Kotelnikov might appear a bit intimidating at first special care has been taken to make it as easy to use as classic compressor you ll benefit from the sonic goodies right away and can learn how to fine tune details later on while already using Kotelnikov in your mixes Please load the default preset We ll focus on these three controls for now u Default Precise Stereo KOTELNIKOV THRESHOLD SOFT MAKEUP KNEE vx Gain r Reduction p dB t 7 WA LOW FREC RELAX E E E E B 0 0 dB 1 off 0 0 dB 0 0 0 dB Editian 50 500 OUTPUT EQUAL SLOPE 6 0 dB oct GAIN LOUD ATTACK RELEASE PEAK i prts UE p T ty E READY STEREO SENSITIVITY i 0 0 dB a y F x FREQ 100 Hz 6 0 ms 80 ms Play a simple signal say an acoustic drum loop Now move the THRESHOLD knob clockwise until the GAIN REDUCTION METER flashes up during loud passages Notice how the signal gets more dense stronger and punchy wit
7. Audio Unit is a Technology by Apple AAX is a Technology and Trademark by Avid All other mentioned trademarks and brands belong to their respective owners 27
8. IEEE 2000 Gold Medal of Alexander Graham Bell and the honorable IEEE Third Millennium Medal Prof Bruce Eisenstein the President of the IEEE described Kotelnikov as The outstanding hero of the present His merits are recognized all over the world In front of us is the giant of radio engineering thought who has made the most significant contribution to media communication development Extract from Wikipedia http en wikipedia org wiki Vladimir Kotelnikov A note from the developers The decision to call the new compressor Kotelnikov is primarily a tribute to a person deeply involved in the most important technological developments of the 21 century It also nicely reflects the no nonsense scientific claim of this product as well as its deep respect for sampling theorem Last but not least we hope the name is as memorable as we re supposing 24 INSTALLATION First of all make sure you download both the key file and the plugin binary All files can be downloaded from your customer area Windows installation 1 Runthe provided installer and follow the instructions Mac OS installation 1 Open the dmg archive double click 2 Double click Install TDR Kotelnikov GE to install the VST AU and AAX plugins on your system 3 Follow the instructions PRODUCT REGISTRATION Registering your product is easy After installation open your favorite audio plugin host and run the plugin Please register your copy o
9. make much sense A B CONTROL A B allows comparison of two alternative control settings gt A gt B and lt copy state over the other 18 PROCESS TARGET The audio input can be processed in Stereo Mono Left Right Sum and Diff ecise Stereo d mode Mona MAK Ga Stereo 7 Sum and Diff represents either Mid or Side processing Redu PROCESS QUALITY Kotelnikov GE offers three different quality modes Precise Stereo Eco e Eco Economic mode with an internal bandwidth 100kHz v Precise e Precise Default quality with an internal bandwidth 200kHz Insane e Insane Very high quality with an internal bandwidth 400kHz Note that this feature has been intentionally designed to be non creative The different quality modes purely result in different inter sample accuracy and amounts of aliasing by products artifacts HELP MODE The dynamic help mode offers detailed information about the various elements of the user interface Click to activate the online help and move the mouse cursor over the control of interest A small info bubble will appear Another left click closes the help mode SETTINGS LI The settings button opens a dialog which gives control over additional user interface settings such as knob slider behavior and latency information INFO ABOUT PAGE Shows information about the plug in version registration status and external links MOUSE CONTROL BEHAVIOR
10. signal To be honest Kotelnikov s RMS path doesn t use a true RMS detection in the text book sense Instead it relies on a highly advanced derivate of the regular RMS detector based on a precise Hilbert Transform detector The result is a frequency independent RMS detector practically free of any harmonic distortion Contrary to conventional RMS detectors which handle low frequencies much like peak detectors and only higher frequencies as true RMS Kotelnikov s RMS stage automatically uses the optimal RMS window size for every frequency Additionally Kotelnikov s RMS path features an advanced release gating freezing mechanism preventing noise floor build ups during programme pauses as well as other forms of pumping It activates as soon the RMS section detects a sudden pause in the input signal To summarize in contrast to the peak stage the RMS stage s own dynamic behavior has the ability to lengthen the RMS release time as required by given audio content Kotelnikov can even increase RMS release to almost infinity during certain situations The section generating the highest reduction at a specific point in time takes control of the whole compression action Technically speaking we have 2 cross linked side chains running in parallel whereby the peak section mostly controls short high amplitude events and the RMS section takes control over sections having steady state dynamics This contradiction is perhaps better explained as Sections
11. without substantial dynamics This unique approach offers all of the advantages of peak compression combined with all of the advantages of RMS compression Furthermore the RMS path negates the disadvantages of the peak path and vice versa This design guarantees a very stable stereo image and low compression artifacts over a wide range of material and settings The image below roughly illustrates the general idea Input AC AMI imum MT a Input DC absolute input ll D mm M n TM TM mm TH n Th Peak section T am Pm Judi M IA M n TM M ill m nh TH TN i mn h vii l lii hie pon Tl i gt IN mm n o LM Al ul mH M jul m Mili M l ii TH VIN CONTROLS AND DISPLAYS Kotelnikov offers deep access to various musically relevant parameters Most of them will be familiar to the experienced audio engineer A few less common parameters however deserve special attention The following section addresses the purpose meaning and internal mechanisms of the user interface In order to improve UI navigation the user interface is structured in logical sections 1 Default gt Precise Stereo 2 inni 6 1 em i aduction u ntleman Edition e E vic 2 S LOW FREQ RELAX s off 50 500 EQUAL SLOPE 6 0 dB oct LOUD ATTACK ESTIMATE FREQ 100 Hz Y n t Ny 4
12. 93 dB Klirr 0 3571 Magnitude dB m T 2 9 T 5 o D z Moderate RMS compression without YIN or YANG Moderate RMS compression with YIN and YANG 13 FREQUENCY DEPENDENT RATIO Kotelnikov allows for controlling the ratio as a function of frequency In other words it offers access to FREQUENCY DEPENDENT RATIO FDR Although somewhat similar to side chain filtering the sonic effect is different and offers an additional degree of freedom to the passionate gain rider FDR basically acts like a dynamic EQ An important detail about FDR is that the audible effect grows with gain reduction Click FDR to activate disable the frequency dependent ratio Click EDIT to activate the FDR detail view This display plots ratio against frequency The lower the line the higher the ratio at that specific frequency Note that FDR is only able to reduce the value specified via RATIO the knob FREQUENCY vs RATIO YANG SHAPE offers 4 different options e Shelf A A wide shelf e Shelf B A steep shelf e Bell A A wide bell e Bell B A narrow bell FREQ defines the center cutoff frequency of the selected shape AMT controls the amount of ratio being reduced at the frequency region of interest The parameter ranges from 100 over 096 no change to 100 Magnitude dB 500 1k Frequency Hz Frequency magnitud
13. Check out the Tokyo Dawn Labs website for feedback news updates and downloads http www tokyodawn net tokyo dawn labs You can also head directly to the plugin page http www tokyodawn net kotelnikov ge Bug report page http www tokyodawn net fill a bug report Tokyo Dawn Labs is closely affiliated with Tokyo Dawn Records so be sure to check out their wonderful artists and music releases http www tokyodawn net CREDITS Original idea by Fabien Schivre and Vladislav Goncharov DSP code by Fabien Schivre with additional contributions by Vladislav Goncharov GUI design and implementation by Fabien Schivre Additional documentation by Ady Connor TRK Mastering Dax Lini re Puzzle Factory Ellen Ohlsson and Mario susiwong Evaluation and quality assurance by Ady Connor TRK Mastering Bob Ohlsson Dax Liniere Puzzle Factory Dean necromachine Diogo C Gregg Janman Hermetech Mastering Karkainen Resoundsound Ilya Orlov Jan Ohlhorst Finemastering Jeff Rippe Nonlinear Jerry Mateo Jonas Ekstr m Mastertone Laurent Sevestre Maximalsound Mario EvilDragon KruSelj Mario susiwong Miguel Marques Bender Mastering Studio Miro Pajic Murray Campbell Beatworld Niklas Silen bmanic Nil Hartman Rich Prewett Roland L hlbach Compyfox Shane Johnson and Vitaly Zolotarev Copyright Tokyo Dawn Records All rights reserved VST is a Technology and Trademark by Steinberg
14. LNIKOV THRESHOLD SOFT MAKEUP ERING PRESSI CREST KNEE ur Gain ns Gentleman s Edition Reduction pw LOW FREQ RELAX I a E 4 D k E LS Lt LA 4 8 dE 0 0 dB AA l off 50 500 2 5 EQUAL SLOPE 6 0 dB act 3 LOUD RELEASEPEAK RELEASE RMS i pues EE J 1 TP i 4 m READ Y FREQ 100 Hz STEREO SENSITIVITY 0 0 dB Center YIN YANG EDIT It is worth noting that you can save chose different processing modes for Kotelnikov The default mode Stereo works like any other stereo processor However you can force mono processing at this point Mono or even process either the Stereo Sum representing Mid in a Mid Side microphone array or the Stereo Difference equivalent to Side in Mid Side microphone array Please refer to the main section of the manual for precise in depth explanations of all the innovative features above Take your time have fun exploring this mighty tool and know that the advanced parameters are preset to sensible values by default and are simply waiting for those special situations when all you need is a little more 23 APPENDIX B VLADIMIR ALEKSANDROVICH KOTELNIKOV Vladimir Aleksandrovich Kotelnikov Russian scientific transliteration Vladimir Alexandrovic Kotelnikov 6 September 1908 in Kazan 11 February 2005 in Moscow was an information theory and radar astronomy pioneer from the Soviet Uni
15. S BYPASS Bypasses the equal loudness processor Latency is accurately compensated and the actual EQUAL processing is never interrupted gapless to enable better comparisons In addition Kotelnikov ERE GE automatically compensates loudness differences between output and bypass signals As such it is not a true bypass in the strictest sense but adds no coloration whatsoever The loudness estimation automatically freezes during bypass which is indicated by a white equal loudness state LED This means that the bypass signal is not subject to any changes in gain Note that the accuracy of the internal equal loudness calculation directly depends on the current estimation state as indicated by the EQUAL LOUDNESS ESTIMATION LED Before pressing EQUAL LOUDNESS BYPASS make sure the LED is either showing a green ready or blue equal color GAIN CONTROL METERING The GAIN CONTROL METER supports two distinct modes Click the meter title to switch between both modes Gain Reduction e Gain Reduction dB Shows the amount of gain reduction in dB taking place in 0 the gain cell Note that this does not reflect the effect of DRY MIX and FDR e Total Gain Shows the total amount of gain applied to the signal Note that this mode also does not reflect the effect of FDR doing so would ask for an unreasonable amount of computing power The scale automatically grows with the amount of gain reduction Rolling over the display makes two
16. TOKYO DAWN LABS Kotelnikov GE Manual Product version 1 0 0 Revision 38 last update September 9 2015 Editor Fabien Schivre Dax Lini re Mario Susiwong and Ady Connor TASC ONG OU EE T om 5 Precision aliasing and the solution nnne nnne nennen nnne nnns seats annees 6 A do dynamics OMEN OV E ETT 7 Controls and displays aan ee en DE HUE 9 NE ETE E EEEE E EO TOSS 10 Low trequency P CIS Eme 10 D L O D SONO EMI der T E T a de a ao a de a a ne Eu 10 CON TOR a o LR 11 TAF nn te 11 d 49 M M o 11 SOIT Ke nius a ee UNE 11 icio S 11 UNE SCOR 12 T 12 W 12 E PE nine 12 m E 12 ue 13 Timbre and frequency dependent ratio nn nenne tree rese enean enne 13 T 13 Frequency dependent 14 sleeve TRE 15 note NoD 15 15 TEE
17. clicky material This behavior prevents the over compression typically appearing after short dynamic events The value specified by the user only describes the average case The release section s automatism speeds up release where suitable As always and with every parameter tune this by ear RELEASE RMS FH EASE BRE RELEASE RMS defines how fast gain recovers after sustained gain reduction Similarly to the peak sections the effective RMS release is subject to several elaborate automatisms The true RMS release depends on signal frequency and dynamics Kotelnikov s RMS stage automatically slows down release where applicable and in rare situations even up to almost infinity 17 MORE ON THE TIMING SECTION Dual release paths offer a wide range of musically useful options For example single drum peaks can be allowed to recover quickly to avoid dulling and breathing side effects At the same time sustained content like bass lines or synth pads can recover more slowly and thus strongly reduce typical side effects like pumping and distortion For complex material such as full mixes we recommend a RELEASE PEAK value between 25 100ms and RELEASE RMS values above 150ms Faster settings are useful for particularly dynamic material like solo drums percussion and acapellas Use PEAK CREST to control the overall aggressiveness of the process Input characteristics and the selected PEAK CREST setting have a substantial effect on th
18. compensation and support for equal loudness workflows as well as monitoring helpers such as the unique EQUAL LOUDNESS BYPASS and the purely informative DELTA function We Default Precise Stereo THRESHOLD PEAK SOFT RATIO MAKEUP KOTELNIKOV CREST KNEE Gain A 4 Reduction ILLU LIT TL Tig x P E d Cr E D qon m z z 5 a Li F Ly iii ELI ALL Ty E m Lig u j fy a L3 Ed Flapuit LUN FREC RELAX x ax LITTLE F 7 4 8 dB 0 0 dB 0 0 dB 2 0 0 0 dB 50 500 L OUTPUT EQUAL SLOPE 6 0 dB act GAIN LOUD RELEASE PEAK RELEASE RAGS A ooops ESTIMATE FREQ 100 Hz HALLE Wt 8 MW ts E L READY S l STEREO SENSITIVITY 0 0 dB RTE TT 22 Last but certainly not least the FDR section is worth some attention This is a totally unique way of getting different ratios depending on the signal s frequency FREQUENCY vs RATIO SHAPE Bell 4 FREQ TANG The mysterious Yin and Yang buttons add subtle compression dependent saturation to low and high frequencies respectively That leaves the top bar a common feature in all TDR plugins since Slick EQ here s where you find the convenience functions to make your life easier like AB comparison undo and preset management Default gt Precise Stereo KOTE
19. ct GAIN LOUD mmm ATTACK RELEASEPEAK RELEASE RMS y prts EE FREQ 100 Hz e k Ea 4 E amp READY STEREO SENSITIVITY 0 0 dB a E E P 7 6 0 ms 80 ms TDR Kotelnikov is a wideband dynamics processor combining high fidelity dynamic range control with deep musical flexibility As a descendant of the venerable TDR Feedback Compressor product family Kotelnikov has directly inherited several unique features such as a proven control scheme individual release control for peak and RMS content an intuitive user interface and powerful state of the art high precision algorithms With a sonic signature best described as stealthy Kotelnikov has the ability to manipulate the dynamic range by dramatic amounts while carefully preserving the original tone timbre and punch of a musical signal As such it is perfectly suited to stereo bus compression as well as other critical applications The Gentleman s Edition GE adds several improvements to the standard edition s feature set The most obvious being an intuitive access to various equal loudness workflows the ability to specify ratio in a frequency dependent manner as well as a powerful sidechain high pass filter allowing continuously variable access over slope and frequency The Yin Yang functions allow manipulating the harmonic pattern produced during compression and a new insane quality mode increases processing fidelity even further Kotelnikov does n
20. e internal peak RMS release path switching Because the peak path is much more sensitive than the RMS path setting the RELEASE PEAK to a higher value than RELEASE RMS while keeping the PEAK CREST low effectively disables the RMS part of the compressor TIMBRE AND FREQUENCY DEPENDENT RATIO YIN YANG Yin and Yang change the type of harmonics generated during compression Normally a precise compressor algorithm generates purely odd order partials These YIN YANG options change the timbre naturally generated by the gain detection and reduction mechanisms but without affecting the overall precision and values of the various parameters Yin and Yang allow the compressor to generate even ordered partials as well whereby YIN affects the low amp low mid content and YANG the mid amp high frequency content The strength of the effect directly depends on the aggressiveness of compression This means that the sonic impact can be very subtle with slow compression settings in particular Note that YIN and YANG s effects are set up to cancel each other out over the vocal frequency range that is activating both YIN and YANG does not create more harmonics than only pressing say YIN r r VST Plugin Analyser E ee pere Tine occum MN Plot Domain Cursor Interpolation Plot Domain Cursor Interpolation THD 120 1 dB THD N 113 9 dB Klirr 0 09969 TITI THD 97 89 dB THD N 93
21. e resulting from the FDR curve above at 6dB gain reduction va 14 OUTPUT SECTION A NOTE ON AUTO GAIN Several attempts have been made to solve the problem of auto gain in compressors Most of them rely on rather simplistic approaches These types of threshold ratio based auto gain calculations typically ignore implications given by the timing parameters This leads to severe mismatches between the estimated auto gain and the truly required make up gain We think that such approaches create more problems than they solve However another closely related problem is equal loudness monitoring which is seen as essential for an audio engineer to be able qualify a compressor s action A higher loudness of only 1dB usually seems to sound better even if it contains weird saturation or pumping Kotelnikov uses an elaborate equal loudness detection system which supports two separate equal loudness oriented workflows 1 Equalloudness trim button semi automatic explicit Semi automatic trimming of output gain according to in out loudness difference 2 Equal loudness bypass automatic implicit Automatic adjustment of the bypass signal according to in out loudness difference whereby loudness estimation freezes during active bypass state We found these two workflows to be the least obtrusive and most effective solution without restricting more traditional manual makeup gain workflows The equal loudness detection system needs some t
22. eases the threshold of the peak path in order to compress fast events transients only for higher levels A negative peak crest on the other hand reduces the peak stage s threshold even further which in turn results in a very aggressive compression sound Be aware that the peak level and RMS level can differ greatly depending on the material A sinewave input of OdBFS for example has a peak level of approximately OdB and an RMS level of approximately 3dB However it is generally recommend to tune peak crest in such a manner that a sine wave always triggers slightly more RMS compression than peak compression Increase the peak above 3dB to guarantee virtually distortion free handling of tonal content Kotelnikov reaches its optimal state with peak crest settings between 3dB and 8dB depending on the material Higher peak crest values increase the smoothness of compression lower values result in more aggressive compression Turning PEAK CREST full left disables the RMS sections completely Full right disables the Peak section SOFT KNEE SOFT KNEE adjusts the threshold transition softness Small knee values create a sharp transition at the threshold point while higher knee values will compress more gradually but also e reduce the effective threshold the knee extends below threshold 0 0 dB RATIO defines the strength at which the signal will be compressed as it exceeds the threshold The range is fully continuous between 1 1 1 a
23. en ready or blue equal color EQUAL LOUDNESS ESTIMATION LED cS The EQUAL LOUDNESS ESTIMATION LED indicates the current quality or error of the internal NE equal loudness calculation The process needs some time to settle and can be disturbed as soon as either control parameters signal content changes dramatically In this case the LED amp READY Will flash up in red until the loudness estimation settles back to a reliable value green or blue This state directly affects the reliability of both EQUAL LOUDNESS TRIM and EQUAL LOUDNESS BYPASS A flashing red light means that the Equal Loudness estimation module is currently learning It indicates that the current loudness estimation is most probably not correct i e Equal Loudness Trim and Equal Loudness Bypass will not work as expected e Agreen light indicates a stable loudness estimation Equal Loudness Trim and Equal Loudness Bypass now work as expected e A blue light indicates that the input loudness now closely matches the output loudness e Awhite color indicates a frozen state active only during EQUAL LOUDNESS BYPASS 16 MONITORING SECTION DELTA This allows the user to listen to the difference between the original and compressed signals This is best described as what the compressor actually does and is very useful to get a better understanding of how different settings affect the original signal EQUAL LOUDNES
24. f TDR Kotelnikov GE Click here for details x KOTELNIKOV THRESHOLD PEAK MAKEUP CREST Tree Gain m Gentleman s Edition n Im Reduction bh ut 1 dB Click the yellow banner at the top to access the registration dialog and follow the instructions REGISTRATION Registering your software is easy 1 Download the key from your customer profile 2 Press import button below and select your key 3 Registration status appears in the i dialog In case you haven t acquired a key yet we kindly ask you to click the purchase button below After import you can safely re move the original key file Import key Purchase key Go to profile Click Import key and select the key file you ve already downloaded You can now safely delete or move key file after import Successful registration is indicated in the info dialog i Note that the copy protection will never affect the integrity of your music No matter the registration status 25 TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS Available binaries 32bit and 64bit VST AU Input Output resolution 32bit floating point Internal resolution 64bit floating point Latency 184 samples at 48kHz or below 8 samples for higher sample rates Supported sample rates From 44 1kHz to 192kHz Supported channel configuration Mono Stereo Sum Difference Left Right GET IN TOUCH We want to hear your feedback You can easily reach us via one of the websites below
25. gnal is only reconstructed by the anti alias filter inside the D A converter However if one wants to control the amplitude of music accurately it is absolutely essential to know the actual waveform i e it needs to know about the values between samples as well Another huge problem in digital dynamics control is a phenomenon called aliasing or Moir images Aliasing appears in all discrete i e digital systems as soon the frequency of a signal exceeds the Nyquist rate half the sample rate The evil detail here is that contrary to analogue systems signals exceeding the bandwidth aren t gradually faded out instead they mirror at the Nyquist frequency and overlap into the audible range at full energy and in this process lose any harmonic relation to the original signal Compressors are non linear systems All non linear systems add harmonic or non harmonic content to the processed signal and thus have the potential to extend the bandwidth significantly The more aggressive the non linearity the stronger and higher the newly generated partials harmonics If the sample rate is too low to handle the extended bandwidth these harmonics will alias and lose their harmonic relation to the fundamental resulting in inaccurate unwanted behavior which in turn directly produces an unpleasant sound Kotelnikov s algorithm was carefully designed to avoid these issues To achieve this in an efficient manner the algorithm is split in two parts
26. h effective and transparent manner it is essential that the processor has the ability to analyze the signal in a musically sensible manner It s no wonder that dynamics control systems purely based on A R models are much better suited to relatively simple signals such as monophonic instruments or other sources already having predictable dynamics and typically do more harm than good once they face more complex material and or processing tasks Kotelnikov uses an elaborate control system based on two specialized parallel paths each handling specific signal phases independently with high technical effectivity and musical grace The compressor runs two distinct and separate detection and compression algorithms in parallel A Peak Path The peak detection compression path primarily follows the rectified version of the true audio waveform with great precision The peak path s release phase can be tuned via the PEAK RELEASE control but also automatically accelerates the release time in certain high dynamic range situations This avoids over compression of small crispy transient events This form of over compression is highly audible as it dulls the original signal substantially and can creates a nervous pumping side effect B RMS Path The RMS path reacts to overall energy levels similar to human hearing and ignores short transients It can be seen as a very slow and smooth compressor that handles the constant or steady state parts of the
27. hout actually getting louder In simple terms you can think of THRESHOLD as the level at which of compression starts working RATIO controls the strength of compression a RATIO of 1 0 1 means there is no compression at all The range between 1 5 1 and 3 0 1 is a good universal starting point The GAIN REDUCTION METER will give you visual feedback of the processing and you can use the MAKEUP knob to recover the level lost during the compression process After compensating the level via MAKEUP you should be hearing a satisfying increase in density Next we ll look at the ATTACK parameter it controls how fast the compressor reacts to content surpassing the THRESHOLD Short attack times mean that compressor will respond very quickly which in turn help to tame fast events such as drums percussion and similar This however is not always beneficial Longer attack times on the other hand tend to accentuate the attack phase of your signal often adding a sweet snappy character to the original signal The release knobs work similar way to other compressors at first glance with the main difference being that Kotelnikov offers separate control over fast peaky effects often described as transients and the average RMS body of the signal 20 Now try Kotelnikov on various signals channels as well as groups or the stereo bus and get familiar with these 6 central controls highlighted in the image below 3 Default KOTELNIKOV
28. ime to analyze the current situation which is indicated by the EQUAL LOUDNESS LED See below for more details MAKEUP MAKEUP is meant to compensate the gain reduction introduced by the compressor MAKEUP 4 The makeup control can also attenuate the compressed signal by up to 60dB which is useful for parallel compression techniques e g by setting DRY MIX to O dB and using MAKEUP to 0 0 dB add subtle amounts of compression DRY MIX Dry Mix blends the original signal into the processed i e compressed part It enables the use of parallel compression techniques upward compression NY compression without complicated routings or DAW latency compensation issues Dry Mix and Make up Gain form a 2 channel mixer Dry mix is not a 0 100 Dry Wet control 15 OUTPUT GAIN er Output Gain controls the compressor s output gain without affecting the balance between ins compressed and dry mix signals ul 0 0 dB EQUAL LOUDNESS TRIM DERE EQUAL Pressing the TRIM button automatically adapts OUTPUT GAIN to in order to GAIN LOUD i Mem match the estimated input loudness with the output loudness fy Roll the mouse over the TRIM button to show the target output gain 0 0 dB Note that the accuracy of the internal equal loudness calculation directly depends on the current estimation state as indicated by the EQUAL LOUDNESS ESTIMATION LED Before pressing TRIM make sure the LED is either showing a gre
29. ing the sidechain pay attention to one side more than the other Full left means that the compressor purely follows the left channel s dynamics and accordingly ignores the right channel s content This mode is particularly useful when compressing hard panned stereo content as typically found on early stereo productions or certain recordings Imagine a mix having crispy bongos panned full left and a smooth violin full right the gain reduction triggered by the bongos will potentially modulate the violin and probably become audible in a negative way This could be reduced by shifting L lt gt R towards the right channel For typical modern material you ll probably want to leave L lt gt R centered 10 GAIN CONTROL THRESHOLD SS THRESHOLD defines the RMS level above which the compressor begins to compress the signal SH OL The lower the threshold the deeper the grab and the more compression Keep in mind that the RMS level of a typical music signal is much lower than the peak level sometimes up to 10dB or more in the case of very dry drums and percussions In the case of a sine wave the RMS value will be about 3dB lower than the detected peak value 0 0 dB The more dynamic the signal is the lower the detected RMS level will be PEAK CREST PEAK CREST adjusts the threshold of the peak path relative to the main RMS Threshold A Peak Crest of zero sets both paths to equal thresholds a positive Peak Crest incr
30. nd 7 1 Note that the FDR function offers additional means of shaping ratio in a frequency dependent manner 11 TIMING SECTION ATTACK The ATTACK time controls how long the compressor takes to reach full gain reduction Fast attack times respond quickly to level changes in the sidechain Slow attack times on the other hand respond more slowly and smoothly letting short events transients pass through the compressor without much gain reduction ATTACK Note that the indicated value is just a rough reference point To be accurate it specifies the attack time of the peak path The attack time for RMS content is substantially slower than the indicated value The effective attack time greatly depends on the signal s characteristics and peak crest setting Kotelnikov offers particularly fast reaction times much smaller than a single sample Attack times that are too fast can easily distort low frequency content so be careful with its use RELEASE LEDS Kotelnikov dynamically chooses the most suitable release path depending on the program material Two virtual LEDs indicate the currently active release path RELEASE PEAK RELEASE RAS RELEASE PEAK REI EARE PERI RELEASE PEAK defines how quickly gain recovers after short overloads i e fast transients Note that the release peak section automatically accelerates release time substantially in cases of high dynamic range content such as drum percussions or similar
31. on He was elected a member of the Russian Academy of Science in the Department of Technical Science radio technology in 1953 From 30 July 1973 to 25 March 1980 Kotelnikov served as Chairman of the RSFSR Supreme Soviet He is mostly known for having discovered the sampling theorem in 1933 independently of others e g Edmund Whittaker Harry Nyquist Claude Shannon This result of Fourier Analysis was known in harmonic analysis since the end of the 19th century and circulated in the 1920s and 1930s in the engineering community He was the first to write down a precise statement of this theorem in relation to signal transmission He was also a pioneer in the use of signal theory in modulation and communications He is also a creator of the theory of optimum noise immunity He obtained several scientific prizes for his work in radio astronomy and signal theory In 1961 he oversaw one of the first efforts to probe the planet Venus with radar In June 1962 he led the first probe of the planet Mercury with radar Kotelnikov was also involved in cryptography proving the absolute security of the one time pad his results were delivered in 1941 the time of Nazi Germany s invasion of the Soviet Union in a report that apparently remains classified to today In this as with the above mentioned sampling theorem he and Claude Shannon in the US reached the same conclusions independently of each other For his achievements Kotelnikov was awarded the
32. ore or less obvious technical issues illustrated in the previous chapter generations of audio engineers suffered from the fact that the dynamic behavior of music signals can be very complex Controlling these dynamics be it overload protection loudness balancing or creative shaping is hard to achieve without introducing negative side effects audible collateral damage The central problem being the processor s unawareness of musical criteria which in turn enforces its own sound and intellectual restrictions onto the signal In the best case this common phenomenon is referred to as a compressor s color and sometimes can be of great creative use However it also means that the processor alters the original fidelity in one way or another There are times when the audio engineer faces a dynamic challenge an error that needs correction but doesn t want to accept any additional color being brushed all over the entire signal This is particularly important to the mastering engineer especially in the case of high quality mixes but also during creative shaping of natural instruments in a mix Most offers on the market are based on rather crude attack release timing concepts sometimes combined with more or less intelligent automatisms In fact they aren t much more elaborate than simple thermostats However dynamics in music usually do not only consist of attack and decay phases they are far more complicated In order to control dynamics in a bot
33. ot try to emulate any previously available device The concept is a proud digital processor it is the original Notable features e 64bit floating point precision for all relevant calculations e Multi rate processing structure for highest accuracy e Delta oversampled signal path bit transparent at OdB gain reduction e Super fast yet natural sounding compression e Control scheme based on Crest factor offering independent release controls for peak and RMS events e Frequency dependent ratio e Flexible sidechain highpass filter offering continuously variable control over slope and frequency e Advanced stereo linking options optimized for the stereo bus e Delta preview mode to preview the difference between compressed and original signal e Equal loudness latency compensated bypass processing doesn t interrupt e Extensive documentation PRECISION ALIASING AND THE SOLUTION Controlling the dynamic range of an audio signal in the digital domain is not as easy as it looks A whole array of problems makes it very difficult to build a truly effective and musically attractive compressor in the digital domain The most significant restrictions are due to the discrete i e stepped nature of digital signal storage Without delving too deep into the mathematics it is essential to understand that the data stored in audio files is not the actual analogue audio signal It is a very economic intermediate format The true analogue si
34. sents the theoretically most reasonable compromise for preservation of the original frequency balance Stronger slopes will typically emphasize low frequency events more shallow slopes tend to reduce their impact and potentially provoke audible side effects STEREO SENSITIVITY STEREO SENSITIVITY defines how the compressor reacts to stereo content Technically ermal speaking it controls how the detection links both channels Note that Kotelnikov is never allowed to change gain of the L and R channels independently dual mono as this would directly result in an uncontrollable blurring of the stereo image and the stereo center in particular would start to move around erratically 096 DIFF stereo difference means that the compressor completely ignores anti phase content or in other words the compressor is allowed to dynamically boost difference content stereo width if existent This is equivalent to a sum link 10096 DIFF tells the compressor to follow the channel having the highest amplitude This mode has the advantage of being able to preserve the original stereo position and width and offer effective overload protection However the downside are potential stereo cross modulation products which is to say left channel produces distortion in the right channel The best results are typically achieved somewhere between these two extremes L lt gt R allows you to give preference to one channel over the other mak
35. ssion you don t want the big bad kick to duck that fragile little flute 21 Likewise the bottom section named STEREO SENSITITVITY helps you focus Kotelnikov s attention on certain parts of the stereo panorama Setting DIFF to 096 has the tendency to widen stereo content during compression The deeper the gain reduction the wider the sound becomes Important These two specialized sidechain pre processors do not change your signal directly they only fine tune the compression character u Default Stereo KOTELNIKOV THRESHOLD PEAK RATIO MAKEUP i RES KNI ain ETE MET Me z Reduction 5 8 AES dB LUV FREC RELAX z grad M n Gentleman s Editian M A 0 0 dB 500 OUTPUT EQUAL GAIN LOUD ATTACK RELEASEPEAK RELEASE RMS mn E FREQ 100 Hz 4 wile Pay TULLUT FULL i 2 gt rs v i o F READY ty s i 2 Li TRIM SLOPE 6 0 dB act STEREO SENSITIVITY PEAK CREST adjusts the relationship between peak and RMS average compression favoring one or the other This parameter allows manipulating the compression behavior in a dramatic manner A SOFT KNEE of zero means the compression kicks in immediately once a signal passes the threshold like flicking a switch as opposed to a higher value which gives you gradual onset of compression The right hand section offers various means of level
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