SPECWEB (Now 2.2)

[LuvMyQuad]

NO! No more hacking the car, huh?

Its been that way for some time now.

 

[mandrix]

Its been that way for some time now.

I know...it was pretty much rhetorical. He seemed to have a lot of time invested in the 350Z, though to be honest I don't remember much of it now.

 

[sjcorne]

Finally decided to give this a shot this evening. I appreciate how intuitive the program is, but I'm not overly impressed with the results. I tried a couple of cuts from Roxette's Look Sharp, AC/DC's Back In Black, and (don't judge me) Shania Twain's Come On Over.

The separation was overall pretty good. It did a great job moving the guitar intro in "Shoot To Thrill" over to right rear. I understand it's incredibly variable how well a stereo mix "separates out", depending on phase, overall density of the recording, etc, but what really disappointed me was the sound quality of the output FLACs. All tracks were sourced from CDs I ripped with EAC, and I noticed that on every track I did it put almost all the drums and bass in the center channel, leaving all the other channels sounding sort of hollow and metallic (you know how low bitrate MP3's have that "metallic" sound?). I'm not usually one to complain about fidelity (I listen to Q8s all the time), but this really bugged me.

I have a feeling my source files are to blame for the low fidelity, as it seems many members are using Hi-Rez source files (HDTracks, SACD Stereo, etc). I only have two Hi-Rez stereo discs in my collection: the Boston single-layer SACD and the HFPA Supertramp Breakfast In America (which I only bought because I found in a DVD/Blu-ray junk bin at a record store a few weeks ago). I'm not currently equipped for SACD ripping, so I'll try the Supertramp disc and see if the fidelity is improved.

I have an upmix of Radiohead's Kid A that I'm pretty sure was created using SpecWeb and it is absolutely stunning. The separation and fidelity are incredible. So I know files output from this program can sound good...

 

[JonUrban]

It's a crap shoot. I was feeling a Paul Simon vibe, so I dragged by box set of his solo CD's upstairs and ran tracks from One Trick Pony, Hearts and Bones, and Graceland into SpecWeb 1.5. What I got out was pretty much a filled center channel and "noise" in the others. It's funny these three albums produced pretty much the same results. Then just for the hell of it, I purchased the HDTracks version of one of the albums, did the same thing and got the same results. I probably should not have, as the HDTracks versions were the same remastered versions (2011) that were in my PS Box.

Sometimes it's amazing, sometimes it's not. It's pretty much the source. If there's not a lot of stuff to pull out, it can't pull it out!

 

[sjcorne]

I apologize if there's already a thread for this, but can anyone list some Spec demo tracks and/or albums?

I just tried Tom Petty's Full Moon Fever, and yeah, it's like Jon says above, all center and barely any front or rear action.

 

[JonUrban]

The first Eagles album comes to mind. I'll see if I can think of others.

 

[Snood]

Dont try any Cheap trick

Snood had goood results with a couple Crowded House early cds 2nd and 3rd album Woodface and Temple of Low men - ummm Bowie Diamond Dogs was good and Wilco Yankee Hotel Foxtrot turned up loud was fun

Was reading that Skerbeck had a great one with one of the Lindsey Buckingham's urgh can't remember which one oh it was Out of the Cradle

 

[RobJam]

Hi there, I've been using specweb for awhile now (and have also contributed through Paypal). I've been meaning to write for awhile but life has sort of gotten in the way. I noticed one major results change in 1.5 from the previous versions using standard settings is that the resulting upmix tends to lose a lot of the bottom (bass), whereas this didn't happen with past versions. Any easy way to fix this? Has anyone else noticed this? Thanks, Rob

 

[zeerround]

OK I checked the defaults for both version 1.4. and 1.5 and they didn't change. I checked the spectrum of the same song using both versions and they matched, and I checked the LFE in both versions, peak, RMS, and LUFS and they matched.

If you still have the older versions you are referring to maybe you could convert the same song in both, being careful to use the same ini file or settings, and report back?

 

[RobJam]

Thanks for troubleshooting this issue! I suppose I should have stated that the older version I had used was 1.3
I actually went looking for a download of v1.3 to reinstall and check comparisons, but couldn't find it. I never used v1.4
If you still have a DL link for v1.3 I'll be happy to check it out and do a comparison.
Thanks for the great support as always!

 

[J. PUPSTER]

OK I checked the defaults for both version 1.4. and 1.5 and they didn't change. I checked the spectrum of the same song using both versions and they matched, and I checked the LFE in both versions, peak, RMS, and LUFS and they matched.

If you still have the older versions you are referring to maybe you could convert the same song in both, being careful to use the same ini file or settings, and report back?

Maybe you could help me out zeerround. I recently loaded SpecWeb 1.5 onto my Win. 7 Pro 64 bit machine. When I try and run a song (either flac or wav) through the basic SpecWeb, I get an alert, I think from one of my virus scanners saying it had halted the action due to a program "trying to connect with an outside server" (my words, sorry don't remember the exact phrasing.) This happens right near the end of the SpecWeb processing. Is there anything in SpecWeb (basic) that tries to connect to an outside source? When I get a chance I'll Print Screen the alerts and post it. I have been wanting to try this program for awhile, but now have security concerns.

 

[GOS]

I'm not zeerround - but that sounds to me like you are using one of the "other" specweb apps. Use the one called Specweb 1.5. Don't use (unless you want to) the ones called Specweb Play or Specweb Play Remote. If you just want drop and go, use the one I mentioned. It gets straight to it with not many options (if any) to manipulate on the fly. Now, I may not have explained this correctly, but....

 

[GOS]

 

[J. PUPSTER]

I'm not zeerround - but that sounds to me like you are using one of the "other" specweb apps. Use the one called Specweb 1.5. Don't use (unless you want to) the ones called Specweb Play or Specweb Play Remote. If you just want drop and go, use the one I mentioned. It gets straight to it with not many options (if any) to manipulate on the fly. Now, I may not have explained this correctly, but....

Yeah, thanks for the response Gene, but that's the one I'm trying SpecWeb 1.5 (basic).

 

[J. PUPSTER]

Maybe you could help me out zeerround. I recently loaded SpecWeb 1.5 onto my Win. 7 Pro 64 bit machine. When I try and run a song (either flac or wav) through the basic SpecWeb, I get an alert, I think from one of my virus scanners saying it had halted the action due to a program "trying to connect with an outside server" (my words, sorry don't remember the exact phrasing.) This happens right near the end of the SpecWeb processing. Is there anything in SpecWeb (basic) that tries to connect to an outside source? When I get a chance I'll Print Screen the alerts and post it. I have been wanting to try this program for awhile, but now have security concerns.

OK, this is what I'm getting now. I need to explain the screen shot. SpecWeb for some reason didn't install a dll file, so I copied it to the Bin folder where it was looking to, in hopes it would work (That's the lower left shot.) I believe it may have worked except now McAfee is giving me the lower right shot notice. The McAfee shot was just layered onto the first screen after copying the dll file. (All these years later, and I can't believe I'm still fucking dealing with damn dll file shit!)
Any ideas why McAfee is freaking out on this?

 

[Sonik Wiz]

Yeah, thanks for the response Gene, but that's the one I'm trying SpecWeb 1.5 (basic).

I'm gonna call this a firewall problem. In my set up I have Windows firewall turned off & use Comodo combined anti-virus and firewall instead. You may have something different or just using Win 7 firewall. You can always temporarily turn it off & see how it goes. At any rate it is SpecWeb Play that's needs access to the outside world. SpecWeb 1.5 basic does everything inside your 'puter. It only tries to reach out to check for updates. I know this as a fact since I have used it with my firewall blocking everything.

RE: variability of SpecWeb results. As others have said it's a crap shoot as to how SpecWeb will decode stereo, due to the inherent variability of stereo input. This is true of any hardware decoder as well. One of the basic approaches in QS/SQ stereo to surround is to pre-condition the input so it more closely resembles the respective matrix. In QS this is done with just simple anti-phase (or opposite polarity if you prefer) mixing between L/R input channels. SQ is more complex using 90 deg phase shifts between the stereo input.

On almost everything I send to SpecWeb I do just that: I pre-synthesize using Adobe Audition. It makes a world of improvement. I have posted a bit about this elsewhere:

Stereo Pre-Synth

 

[J. PUPSTER]

I'm gonna call this a firewall problem. In my set up I have Windows firewall turned off & use Comodo combined anti-virus and firewall instead. You may have something different or just using Win 7 firewall. You can always temporarily turn it off & see how it goes. At any rate it is SpecWeb Play that's needs access to the outside world. SpecWeb 1.5 basic does everything inside your 'puter. It only tries to reach out to check for updates. I know this as a fact since I have used it with my firewall blocking everything.

RE: variability of SpecWeb results. As others have said it's a crap shoot as to how SpecWeb will decode stereo, due to the inherent variability of stereo input. This is true of any hardware decoder as well. One of the basic approaches in QS/SQ stereo to surround is to pre-condition the input so it more closely resembles the respective matrix. In QS this is done with just simple anti-phase (or opposite polarity if you prefer) mixing between L/R input channels. SQ is more complex using 90 deg phase shifts between the stereo input.

On almost everything I send to SpecWeb I do just that: I pre-synthesize using Adobe Audition. It makes a world of improvement. I have posted a bit about this elsewhere:

Stereo Pre-Synth

That may all be true, but I don't like unknown shit like McAfee is telling me (and yes that's running through SpecWeb basic.)

 

[GOS]

That may all be true, but I don't like unknown shit like McAfee is telling me (and yes that's running through SpecWeb basic.)

I also have McAfee and I've never had it tell me that using Specweb basic. So, who knows...must be something else I guess.
Now, back to listening to Neil Diamond - Serenade in Q8 Quad. Whoopee!!

 

[zeerround]

Link to SpecWeb old 1.3 (current released version is 1.5):

http://www.surroundbyus.com/sbu/download/SpecWeb 1.3 Release.zip

 

[zeerround]

OK wow, whole bunch of posts after months/years of crickets...

To answer some of the questions posted today, SpecWeb does reach out over the internet when you run it (though if I recall you can turn this off) for a version check. In the interest of GDPR, etc. there are some metrics collected as part of that process, which is disclosed in the documentation.

The "Web" part of SpecWeb (SpecWeb Play) starts up a local Web Server and your browser talks to it, but that wasn't the part of SpecWeb that was being discussed.

I got lost when the post switched from a firewall notification to a missing DLL. but the dll mentioned is the 5.1 MasterLimiter. Possible that one is no longer available so that installs are failing, but if you already had it I would think you should be fine.

Oh, I see, your antivirus removed it. I didn't build that dll, it came from here:

https://sonic.supermaailma.net/plugins

but it certainly never triggered any AV on any of my systems. I use Windows Defender, MalewareBytes, and Symantec, on various systems.

Re: preconditioning Stereo files for Spec/SpecWeb, interesting, I will carefully read the other posts, but FYI SpecWeb (at least pre-ambiance extraction) doesn't have anything to do with phase/matrix. It's purely magnitude based (in the spectral, vs. time domain). Phase information is ignored (just passed on to the output). I am exploiting phase information in newer tools I working on for immersive upmix for 5.1.2/4 7.1/2/2/4, ambisonics for headphones and VR, etc.