Plug-in Idea I'd like to have developed

[Jordan F.]

I've got a patent-pending on lucrative plug-in idea that I'd like to have someone develop. A rep from Digidesign says he thinks it would be a hot prospect. Essentially the idea is an audiosuite plug-in that allows you to highlight an area of audio and specify a mathematically precise new dynamic range for it. It would also have the capability to specify a percentage that you want each appropriate waveform to be increased or decreased accordingly, to bring them closer to the average [AKA "leveling"]. This works on any track where the waveforms have silence in between them.

It's kind of like an intelligent "Gain" plug-in that would allow you to quickly smooth out the dynamic range. Imagine a snare track, where you have 150 snare hits that range from 4 dB to 12 dB. Average is 8 dB. For the "leveling" aspect of the program, if you specified a 30% movement to the average, this plug-in would take all waveforms below 8 dB and increase them 30%, and decrease all waveforms above 8 dB by 30%. It could also take a decibel value, instead of just a percentage. For the peak adjustment aspect of the program, if the current dynamic range of the selection is 8 dB [for example, from 3 dB to 11 dB] and you want it to be 6 dB, it would simply decrease all peaks above 9 dB down to 9 dB. And it doesn't use any time constants like a compressor -- so no release/attack estimations by ear/eye. It just simply re-processes the necessary waveforms.

It's a mathematical "fader riding" software in a way. No chances for artififacts, overshoots, distortion, etc. It's a huge time saving plug-in. This identifies individual waveforms similarly to the way Strip Silence works, and alters the waveforms according to 2 different algorithms.

Any skilled programmer could implement this with existing SDK functions in probably 48 hours.

Any ideas, pointers?

Jordan

[Kenny Gioia]

It's a good idea but won't the leakage on said Snare track be moving up & down in an Un-natural way.

I think your idea is really cool but it would require an analyze process (much like beat detective - to see each hit as (indeed) a seperate hit) which would be sketchy at best.

You might be forced to working in small sections which might defeat the point.

I think what might be even cooler is to make this plugin spit out Volume automation which could then be changed manualy later.

Just my $.02

[Jordan F.]

Originally posted by Produceher:
It's a good idea but won't the leakage on said Snare track be moving up & down in an Un-natural way.

I think your idea is really cool but it would require an analyze process (much like beat detective - to see each hit as (indeed) a seperate hit) which would be sketchy at best.

You might be forced to working in small sections which might defeat the point.

I think what might be even cooler is to make this plugin spit out Volume automation which could then be changed manualy later.

Just my $.02

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Hmm.. don't quite see where that would be an issue. Ever use Strip Silence? The core functionality of Strip Silence is able to identify and highlight waveforms based on a minimum gain level. It would use that type of approach.

As for the automation data, that's definitely a cool take on it... I think that could be another option along with it!

Jordan

[Rail Jon Rogut]

Maybe I'm mistaken.. but can't you get that functionality using strip silence and the AS normalize?

Rail

[Jordan F.]

Originally posted by Rail Jon Rogut:
Maybe I'm mistaken.. but can't you get that functionality using strip silence and the AS normalize?

Rail

<font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">I don't think so? Strip Silence just strips out audio or "silence," no? And Normalize just gains up all the audio to a given peak. This idea is about changing each applicable waveform individually to fall within particular gain specifications. Either leveling them by bringing them up or down closer to the average, or lowering peaks by a specific amount.