Using FL Studio. There is a mixer track to preview any audio that is selected in the browser.
Some audio is loud and some is soft, so I put Waves MV2 (MaxxVolume) on that channel and it is really great simple way to even out loudness.
It makes it easier to hear what audio clips or samples I want to add while the song is playing, but with extreme setting I must use, the loud stuff sounds really squashed..

So i'd like to process only the audio that is below a certain level with the rest passing through (or split out) unprocessed. Suggestions?

 

Hi man,

Maybe this can interest you

http://www.rs-met.com/freebies.html

Crossover
Key Features

• Splits signal in up to 4 frequency bands
• separation between bands up to 96 dB/oct
• flat sum due to Linkwitz/Riley filters

 

This one is very good, too.



https://www.bluecataudio.com/Products/Product_MB7Mixer/

 

Or you can, do two identical track, put two linear phase eq, one low pass, and one hipass set at the same frequency, then process the one you want to process

 

Hmm - These all seem to be able to split by frequency.
What I want to do is to split by level.
It may be a weird thing to want to do, but when i am mixing my latest TechnoMetalTrance and browsing for a harp sample to insert...

[edit] OH! I see @Riot7 replied.
Yes you are right. Using 2 instances of MV2 works well and easy enough to switch between them if something is really low.
It was something i wondered about in general, too, for treating audio, but it seemed like it wold need to be summed and phase issues and ...well that is what dynamics plugins do internally and MV2 is a good handy one for this, but I will try others, too.
I first was using the built-in comp and limiter and it was good practice. i have some good presets for later stuff
Thanks!
Poorly worded title = changed

 

Last edited: Oct 31, 2018

Have you checked the Image-Line user forum? There may something there (srcipt/macro).
Maybe a conditional if statement or something similar in programming language.

Personally don't use FL Studio but, I do know that you can load & write custom macros/scripts using Basic, Pascal or Javascript.

 

i dont think it exists. it would be fairly easy to make, but i dont see the point. your loudest peaks would still be the same level and your low level signal would have to be compressed to the threshold of the "split", leaving the result the same as the input, any lower and you would have a blank space in the middle of the dynamic range, resulting in audio quickly jumping in and out, almost like a gater kind of effect. there would also be no point in compressing the low part of the signal, since it would already have a consistent peak at the level that the split was set to, all you could do from there is lower the level, which brings us back to the gater effect result.

what exactly are you trying to achieve? maybe you could get there with parallel compression? that way you can find a happy medium between the extreme settings and the dry signal (or subtly compressed signal). i feel like this is probably the kind of thing you are looking for.

 

Short answer: upward compression
https://www.soundonsound.com/techniques/parallel-compression

 

OK. So you have a master signal that gets split into a low-level signal (the cold) and a high-level signal (the hot).

What happens to the cool signal when the master signal goes over the split threshold? So, you have say a brass swell with a long attack, which is split into the cool chain, that suddenly cuts off and gets switched to the hot chain. You can’t have any temporal FX on the cool side or the trailing edge of the cut off from switching to the hot is going to scream.

I don’t think this kind of processing exists. You can gate out the low-level from high level. So one way of achieving the low-level split would be to use a very fast plugin delay gate, phase invert the result from the gate, and null out the high-level signal from the low-level on a copy of the master. I don’t think it would sound very good, but hey, maybe that’s what you want.

 

As said before by Zikk, try MB-7 by Blue Cats Audio, it can host 2 vst FX within each band. I think it will suit your needs perfectly.

 

upward compression is expansion, meaning the signal above the threshold is increased in volume.
your link is related to parallel compression though, which i think is what you meant?

 

it would be easy to do in something like reaktor, PD, max, etc but i agree the results would be weird. that said, i like weird and i might play with the idea in reaktor. once you have split the signal into two paths, determined by amplitude, you can do whatever you like with them. im picturing far more than just compression, although compression on the "cold" signal would create some interesting waveshaping results.

 

Unfiltered audio g8!
It's main function is a gate, but it has additional functionality that does the exact thing your asking!

The plugin has 4 outputs. Everything above the threshold goes to the main outputs (like a normal gate) but everything below the output that is being gated is also being sent outputs 3 and 4. If your daw has a way of routing the secondary outputs of the plugin to a new track you can effect the two parts of the audio however you want.

It's a really awesome plugin and is actually on sale today for 19 bucks!

Your idea is cool, I really love mv2, but it's hard for surgical stuff because you can't set a "threshold" it just sorta does its thing.
Tone boosters bus compressor allows more surgical upwards compressions it's also really cheap. In the toneboosters bus tools bundle.

 

I was fuc+¨¨% out topic huf...

 

No. Upward expansion is expansion (over threshold).


I meant upward compression, as in parallel compression, which seems to be what the OP is asking for.

 

Last edited: Oct 31, 2018

Interesting ... I'll check FL Forums again (this search is hard to get good results because it is an odd thing to want)

Well in FL Studio you can preview audio from the browser with a simple click, so this is only for previewing sounds.
That's usually good enough when working with a normal channel because the level is down to fit into the full mix.
Adding a maximizer with typical settings to the preview channel works well to bring up samples that are low in volume.

But when browsing for a sample to add to the full mix it gets hard to hear previews.
So far, using 2 instances of a maximizer, each with different settings gets the softest samples up to the level i can hear in the mix.
But those still boost the louder inputs, so I have to lower the overall output or move the limiting/compressing slider down.

Optimally, it would be a single plugin that internally detects input levels.
It would scales boost so that higher inputs are untouched, and yet the lower the signal the more it gets boosted.

I see some suggestions coming in that look like they may do exactly this job!

 

I had not thought of gating.. I will check that out for sure, not just for this but to keep in mind for other things later
I'd like to forget about splitting if i find a single expander or booster I can set to not touch the loudest signals.
My inexperience (and the plugins i was trying) led me think of splitting, but a scaled treatment is best.
Loudest input signals untouched, with increasing boost the lower the input signal is.
There has to be a limitation on low signals or it would attempt boost silence infinitely, and it has to know what is "loud enough" to not touch.
So, a "lowest" threshold and a "highest" threshold with a boost curve in between.

 

my bad. complete misunderstanding on my part. thanks for the info. although i still think parallel compression is a different thing? as far as i am aware parallel compression is just a compressor with a wet/dry control, aka new york compression.

 

oh ok i see. sounds like you are looking for compression that acts under the threshold, as described in baxters post as upward compression?