Announcing beta-test of PKHarmonic VST plugin

[audafreak]

BTW, funny story with your plugin I had some friends come over tonight and asked them whether they preferred A or B (i.e. PKHarmonic on vs. off). All of them said that "A" was better, it sounded richer and more lush. They asked what I was doing. I said "I am adding harmonic distortion with this plugin". You should have seen their faces, a mix between shock and disgust. I said ... "well, all of you preferred it. So do I, which is why I have it on". What then followed was a fairly robust discussion about distortion inducing components in the signal chain. I told them that I am no different to any of them, in that I like the sound of a bit of distortion. Except that ... thanks to this plugin ... I can do it in a predictable, consistent, and adjustable manner, it's donationware, and I don't have to spend thousands of dollars on preamps, changing tubes, turntables, and so on. They argued that they are trying to get rid of distortion, but I have gone the opposite way of constructing a clean system and putting distortion back in.

I don't know. Maybe one day some study will show that we human listeners like a bit of distortion and our ultra-clean digital signal chains are doing us a disservice. Love your plugin, thank you.

Yes, many recordings look nicer, fuller, more dynamic. This is first sight. Most recording are let's say not ideal, many even terrible comparing what current great hardware allows. Lot of info is missing. And distortion may add part of such info for your ear/brain. It is fake info but brain still may love it.
But if you take really good recording and add PKH - result is worse.
So depends what you listen to. PKH can make both pleasure or hell. Like anything else.

 

[pkane]

I understand but...
Let see at real example. Jriver shows level in percents. Usual tracks show range between 50-95%. I expect 100% is digital maximum, maybe I am wrong but it has sense to me. More than 100 means clipping.
If I play normal track with max levels around 90% then after passing PKH Jriver shows up to 130%!!! This is bad. Probably clipping of relatively good recording. That's why there should be no automatic input gain control but better manual or both - automatic cannot avoid clipping currently.

There's no clipping as such in PKH as it always computes results in floating point, and so can represent values above and below 0dBFS. All you need to do is lower the volume in your player to make it not exceed 0dBFS in whatever bit conversion occurs after PKH.

Here's a 0dBFS sine wave recorded with PKH dialed in to about 1% THD, recorded using 24 bit device with player volume set to 100%:

Same with volume lowered by 1dB in the player:

 

[audafreak]

There's no clipping as such in PKH as it always computes results in floating point, and so can represent values above and below 0dBFS. All you need to do is lower the volume in your player to make it not exceed 0dBFS in whatever bit conversion occurs after PKH.

Here's a 0dBFS sine wave recorded with PKH dialed in to about 1% THD, recorded using 24 bit device with player volume set to 100%:
View attachment 290568

Same with volume lowered by 1dB in the player:
View attachment 290567

I don't and don't want to change volume, no other plugin needs it, playing bitperfect via ASIO to audio interface. If plugin makes output signal louder then its input and this is not its main behavior and use(some "Volume plugin", there should be possibility to lower it in the plugin so that output is in normal levels similar to input.
First picture shows that PKH makes lot of other distortion currently in default setting. That is not intended use.

 

[pkane]

I don't and don't want to change volume, no other plugin needs it, playing bitperfect via ASIO to audio interface. If plugin makes output signal louder then its input and this is not its main behavior and use(some "Volume plugin", there should be possibility to lower it in the plugin so that output is in normal levels similar to input.
First picture shows that PKH makes lot of other distortion currently in default setting. That is not intended use.

There's no such thing as bitperfect when going through PKH. The level is adjusted for relatively equal output using pink noise RMS and not peak levels by the plug-in, so peak levels can vary. For this reason, you'll need to adjust the output level to provide about 2dB headroom. The idea of doing automatic level equalization was to enable the comparison of a non-linearity applied to the signal and the signal itself in bypass mode without having to perform additional adjustments to make them sound equally loud. Maybe this is not what other plugins do, but this one wasn't designed for the same purpose.

When I make changes to it, I can add a "normalization bypass" switch that would stop the automatic level adjustment.

 

[audafreak]

There's no such thing as bitperfect when going through PKH. The level is adjusted for relatively equal output using pink noise RMS and not peak levels by the plug-in, so peak levels can vary. For this reason, you'll need to adjust the output level to provide about 2dB headroom. The idea of doing automatic level equalization was to enable the comparison of a non-linearity applied to the signal and the signal itself in bypass mode without having to perform additional adjustments to make them sound equally loud. Maybe this is not what other plugins do, but this one wasn't designed for the same purpose.

When I make changes to it, I can add a "normalization bypass" switch that would stop the automatic level adjustment.

I understand you. But at least bypass would be good.
I don't thing adding distortion on level - 95-110dB should add 3dB or maybe more to output level. I still think it is not good. In this case you can never compare SQ with/without distortion because of completely different result SPL and absolute impossibility to match it.

 

[Keith_W]

I have now had a dozen people over to listen to your plugin. I don't tell them what I am doing, I simply ask them if they prefer "A" or "B". Without exception, all of them prefer PKHarmonic. The looks on some of their faces when I tell them I am adding distortion and they prefer the distorted sound is priceless.

I have a simple explanation for this - when PKHarmonic is turned on, it is louder than the unprocessed signal by a couple of dB. I imagine that adding all those distortion products makes it sound louder.

Would you consider incorporating a simple volume control so that it is easier to level match when doing comparisons?

 

[pkane]

I have now had a dozen people over to listen to your plugin. I don't tell them what I am doing, I simply ask them if they prefer "A" or "B". Without exception, all of them prefer PKHarmonic. The looks on some of their faces when I tell them I am adding distortion and they prefer the distorted sound is priceless.

I have a simple explanation for this - when PKHarmonic is turned on, it is louder than the unprocessed signal by a couple of dB. I imagine that adding all those distortion products makes it sound louder.

Would you consider incorporating a simple volume control so that it is easier to level match when doing comparisons?

PKH automatically adjusts the level after each change to produce a similar RMS level as measured using pink noise.

 

[fpitas]

Will it come with appropriate wallpaper, like 300Bs etc?

/

 

[pkane]

Will it come with appropriate wallpaper, like 300Bs etc?

/

Not just a wallpaper! It'll let you tube roll to find which ones produce the best sound.

 

[Gruesome]

I tried a new install on a new surface pro 9 tablet, using the program as a plugin to equalizer apo. Behavior is similar to before on my surface pro 7, that is the pkharmonic plugin seems to do something, but quite erratically, with varying delays between adjusting a slider or clicking bypass and the corresponding sound change. After some number of changes (of order 10) it seems to crash, or at least not do anything anymore. For high enough distortion (>~-30dB), the output sound will also disappear completely. Decreasing the gain in equalizer does not seem to fix this.

Is this software running ok for anybody else in this type of hardware and software environment?

My environment:
Microsoft Surface Pro 9, i7 CPU, 16 GB memory
Windows 11 Home, version 22H2
Equalizer APO 1.3

I have not found an equalizer APO log file, so I assume equalizer apo itself was not affected/did not crash.

 

[Keith_W]

PKH automatically adjusts the level after each change to produce a similar RMS level as measured using pink noise.

Hmm, that is interesting. It does sound subjectively louder though. I wonder if that is some kind of psychoacoustic phenomenon from adding all those harmonics. Not that I don't believe you, but I should probably measure output at the DAC to see what is going on. I will do that later.

 

[pkane]

Hmm, that is interesting. It does sound subjectively louder though. I wonder if that is some kind of psychoacoustic phenomenon from adding all those harmonics. Not that I don't believe you, but I should probably measure output at the DAC to see what is going on. I will do that later.

Remember that large nonlinearity introduces large inharmonic IMD components that are distributed throughout the audible range. The distribution of such components among the more audible frequencies can easily add to the perceived energy of the sound. In fact, a simple compression is a form of a nonlinear transfer function that PKH can simulate. If you want to see more specific examples, check out DISTORT app and some of the examples of compressor functions that are built in.

 

[pkane]

I tried a new install on a new surface pro 9 tablet, using the program as a plugin to equalizer apo. Behavior is similar to before on my surface pro 7, that is the pkharmonic plugin seems to do something, but quite erratically, with varying delays between adjusting a slider or clicking bypass and the corresponding sound change. After some number of changes (of order 10) it seems to crash, or at least not do anything anymore. For high enough distortion (>~-30dB), the output sound will also disappear completely. Decreasing the gain in equalizer does not seem to fix this.

Is this software running ok for anybody else in this type of hardware and software environment?

My environment:
Microsoft Surface Pro 9, i7 CPU, 16 GB memory
Windows 11 Home, version 22H2
Equalizer APO 1.3

I have not found an equalizer APO log file, so I assume equalizer apo itself was not affected/did not crash.

I’ve tested this recently on an I9 computer with EQ APO. I had no problems. What sample rate are you using for playback?

 

[Keith_W]

Thanks @pkane. On another note, would you be interested in working on a dynamic range expander VST? There are a number of these on the market already, but none of them sound natural. You could get it to work by lowering the overall amplitude of the sound by (say) 3dB, and then expanding the peaks by 3dB and the troughs by 3dB. Or you could make it asymmetrical (peaks only, leave troughs alone).

 

[pkane]

Thanks @pkane. On another note, would you be interested in working on a dynamic range expander VST? There are a number of these on the market already, but none of them sound natural. You could get it to work by lowering the overall amplitude of the sound by (say) 3dB, and then expanding the peaks by 3dB and the troughs by 3dB. Or you could make it asymmetrical (peaks only, leave troughs alone).

My interest with these tools and plugins is exploring measurements and the audibility of various distortions and non-linearities. I'll leave the pro plugin business to the pros

 

[somebodyelse]

https://www.sonible.com/blog/transfer-functions-and-compression/ has some examples for expansion if you want to try it.

 

[Keith_W]

https://www.sonible.com/blog/transfer-functions-and-compression/ has some examples for expansion if you want to try it.

I had a look. I do not see any plugins that support expansion. I only see reverb plugins, limit plugins, EQ, and compressors. Also, those look like DAW plugins, not sure if they would work real time in JRiver.

 

[somebodyelse]

I had a look. I do not see any plugins that support expansion. I only see reverb plugins, limit plugins, EQ, and compressors. Also, those look like DAW plugins, not sure if they would work real time in JRiver.

Sorry, didn't explain very well. The link shows examples of transfer functions for compression and expansion, including both in different parts of the range. Given what was said in post #152 about PKH being able to simulate nonlinear transfer functions the idea was to use an expansion transfer function in PKH similar to one of the examples in the link.

 

[audafreak]

Remember that large nonlinearity introduces large inharmonic IMD components that are distributed throughout the audible range. The distribution of such components among the more audible frequencies can easily add to the perceived energy of the sound. In fact, a simple compression is a form of a nonlinear transfer function that PKH can simulate. If you want to see more specific examples, check out DISTORT app and some of the examples of compressor functions that are built in.

Is setting -95,-105,-115,-125 dB or even lower "large nonlinearity" which "introduces large inharmonic IMD components"? Because result is louder. A lot louder.

I think it is because "PKH automatically adjusts the level after each change". Even if it is not needed. And this is probably also one of the reasons why many like it. It is louder.

 

[Sokel]

Not just a wallpaper! It'll let you tube roll to find which ones produce the best sound.

I would photograph my gramophone to use it but that thing is the definition of wire (needle to be correct) with gain,I always wondered what kind of distortion it may have.