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gluethegiant / gtg-rack

Glue the Giant Rack Modules for VCV Rack
GNU General Public License v3.0
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Soft/Hard Clip master outputs #4

Open blackearth2014 opened 4 years ago

blackearth2014 commented 4 years ago

Is it possible to implement or develop a Soft/Hard clip master output on the Bus Depot module, hipass/lopass on the input strips?

gluethegiant commented 4 years ago

Thanks for the feature requests. I might eventually split this issue into two, depending on the plan for each of the requests. I have a couple of brief development cycles already in the works that need to be completed before I can address them fully.

First, about the soft clipping/saturating/or limiting on Bus Depot. That was in the original plan for Bus Depot. However, I quickly decided it was a bad idea. I don't think quick (single sample) soft clipping sounds good at all for most sound sources. Yes, it often sounds better than hard clipping, but that's not saying much. A decent lookahead limiter (or saturator) can sound pretty good to my ears on most sources, but those add latency (or more color). I don't think it would be good to add latency to a mixer module in a modular environment either. So basically I'm still thinking that it is best to leave full control of the audio mastering up to the end user. If soft clipping or similar is ever implemented on Bus Depot, I will probably have it turned off by default (unless I can make it sound better than I think I can). That way if anyone needs this quick, not-so-great-sounding feature, they can consciously choose it.

There are already a good handful of simple ways to clip (or limit) your audio after a mix, but you can choose from among some different plugins and methods and decide the best sounding option for your intentions. Or, as I prefer, you can mix more carefully and master more carefully and avoid what you normally get with quick and dirty clipping.

Second, having simple hipass/lopass filters on the input strips could be a brilliant addition to the mixer strips. I did not envision ever doing something like that when I started. It's not in the next two development phases that are underway. But it might feel natural to add this feature or something similar to these modules after those next two phases are complete (which should only be a matter of a couple of weeks).

Thanks again for using the modules. You have been using them regularly and posting your tracks and I really appreciate following your work! If anyone else wants to comment on these feature requests, I would be very interested in your thoughts.

blackearth2014 commented 4 years ago

Cool Breeze!