Dynamic Range Expander component for foobar

2016-10-19 17:09:18

Have searched the Components add-ins but haven't found anything like this.  Am posting this message to see if someone has noticed something like this that I missed or whether there is interest in this by others.

For those that might remember a product called DBX Dynamic range expander in the old analog world that restored some of the lost dynamics from pop music that is so highly compressed in terms of dynamic range both in the past and in the present (not to be confused with digital compression).   Would like to see something like this in the digital world as an add-on to Foobar that is configurable for how much DB to expand and therefore apply limits to prevent speaker damage if used to excess.  

Although normally I don't want anything to mess with a digital stream, I have a lot of music that is just too flat sounding because of aggressive dynamic range compression applied to CD's in the studio. 

Thoughts on this from others welcome.  

Re: Dynamic Range Expander component for foobar

Reply #1 – 2016-10-20 09:10:07

Automatic expansion will generally sound just as bad as automatic compression/limiting. You need a human with a brain and ears in a room adjusting the settings to make it sound good. I agree on the reality of terrible over-limiting of many releases in the last 20 years or so, but I don't think an automatic expander is the answer.

Re: Dynamic Range Expander component for foobar

Reply #2 – 2016-10-20 16:23:00

I agree with Darkflame. I have used iZotope RX 5 Advanced to reconstruct peaks of clipped material (sometimes analog clipping, sometimes digital) and it can produce some really impressive results. It is, however, an offline process and analyzing clipped peaks which are not that hard to see if you zoom in far enough (flat instead of rounded).
Expansion, rather than de-clipping, is its own thing and seems very unlikely to produce an enjoyable result. Expansion is fantastic in its intended application (pushing noise or bleed down, bringing out blunted transients) but requires careful adjustment and is ultimately a very subjective call.

When it comes down to it, your best bet is finding better masters where possible. I feel your pain. There are some modern albums where I love the content but I get fatigued or annoyed by the actual mixing or mastering choices. There is no silver bullet. I've had the most enjoyment of material from squashed albums by watching or listening to professionally recorded live versions.

Re: Dynamic Range Expander component for foobar

Reply #3 – 2016-10-21 15:31:30

While I can't disagree with anything said here, there is still a lot of desirable music both in recent years and decades ago that does not solve this problem.   I even have a fair amount of re-mastered and high-res music files downloaded, mostly of older recordings but they still don't change the dynamic range in the process and therefore still sound flat.    I still think if applied properly with proper math sampling techniques, even a 10-20 DB DNR improvement would be an improvement.

I also have many good recordings that sound much better, including some high-res studio standard music as well and enjoy that.   This is not  usually found in commercial pop music however that I still want to listen to occasionally and in a better way but still find that lacking.   Now that most music is streamed and further digitally compressed, this is even worse than it's ever been. 

Most of the time these days I look for live concerts on blu-ray discs that have higher resolution bit rates, much less processing and don't have as much compression applied.   I have some good ones of these but are few and far between even there and very few artists bother with the medium any more.  

Re: Dynamic Range Expander component for foobar

Reply #4 – 2016-10-22 11:33:40

I'm not a professional but I think that based on the destructive nature of compression it is impossible to recover the original dynamics. It is not possible to separate the waveform into different instruments with non-proportional dynamics. I haven't heard what an expander does, and while it could help shifting and rounding down clipped peaks as they say, it just can't get the original mix since every instrument is set to normalize, it could do a 'proportional expansion' I presume. I wish there were digital blueprints left in the master to be able to reconstruct it, much like in the old HDCD discs so the player could chose which 'version' to play.

Re: Dynamic Range Expander component for foobar

Reply #5 – 2016-12-06 19:08:57

I agree with Moni : IZotope RX can produce some really impressive results, especially on heavily clipped material. It's an offline process, but it's better than nothing, plus you get better control at what you're doing that way (declipping parameters can be modified, and sometimes several trials under human supervision are necessary to achieve the best possible result).