Compression/Effects for Dynamic Music

[AuralMoon]

I hope someone can help me...

Like many shoutcasters, I have mp3s that, even though their normalized, still come through at different volume levels.

The music I play is quite dynamic - akin to classical music. I've tried things like Tom Steady, and although it work for about 60% of my songs, it butchers the other 40% that have quiet parts next to loud parts, and sharp dynamics throughout the song. I've tried a few different settings inside Tom Steady to no avail.

I was wondering if someone who ran a classical station, or has similar dynamic music, could recommend a program/setting that works with this type of music. I'm also interested in any EQ programs that might offer a little compression or sweetening, but the main thing is making song to song levels consistent.

TIA,

Avian

[Shirow]

Not sure if you'll acheive the affect you're looking for with software - you might have to grab some hardware to do it. Garak knows some cheap places to get some good hardware though, if he's reading this..

[Sawg]

TSGH (http://forums.winamp.com/forumdisplay.php?s=&forumid=15) > Where did those plug-ins go? (http://forums.winamp.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=35627)

AudioStocker (volume normalizer plug-in), by Leif "Liket" Claesson:
http://users.one.se/liket/mp3stock/audiostocker.htm

RockSteady (compressor/normalizer) http://luna.spaceports.com/~pesho/

And other DSP plugs

[Shirow]

yeah, I think those pieces of software all cause the problem he's trying to avoid though.

[funmaster]

Have you given SoundForge by sonic foundry a shot.

[Shirow]

I don't think Soundforge has a DSP plugin.. you'd still have to modify each mp3 one by one..

[leo_c]

If you have cash, check out Otsjuke -

http://www.otsjuke.com

it has excellent dynamics processing built in.


Leo

[AuralMoon]

I just noticed that OTSJuke requires Win 98 or Win 95. Shoutcast no likey!

Avian

[Shirow]

Damn, that sucks.. who would want to run broadcasting software in 9x only? I doubt there are many "professional" (i use the word a little loosely ;)) broadcasters running in 9x..

[leo_c]

Hmm..
I have OtsJuke running on 2k - I believe it also works well in XP.
I think the point is that it only works with well with WDM sound drivers, so it won't work in NT.

Anyway, I don't want to sound like a salesman =)
There is a users forum for Otsjuke elsewhere - Here (http://pub84.ezboard.com/botsjukefanclub) in fact.

Leo

[Shirow]

is OTSJuke worth buying? (i'm running win2k pro, stacking dsp crossfader and rocksteady..)

I'm not against spending money on good software..

maybe I'll download the demo and try it out.

[leo_c]

Depends....
You do need to convert all your MP3's to OTS files (fairly quick), and it is still quite new software. However, for the price you could not purchase a similar sounding hardware audio limiter/compressor.

It works very well as a SHOUTCast (or Icecast!) source and the latency on processing live input is not too bad.

You'd be hard pushed to find something better for the price, but please don't just take my word for it.

Leo

[Shirow]

what about doing mic input over shoutcast? is it 'clunky' or does it work well? (i'm using a monster mx300 soundcard, if you've ever tried one..)

I know I certainly have issues with the live input in shoutcast.

i am running win2k though, which it seems to have soundcard issues with.. maybe I need to switch to an sblive, as they seem to recommend that.

are there any tutorials on the web as to how to set it up to work well w/ shoutcast? will it connect to a shoutcast server, or do you have to run winamp/shoutcast in the background?