Can you help me find this VST plugin?

A few months ago I saved a bookmark to a particular VST plugin. Alas, it got deleted at some point. Can you help?

I wish I had a more technical/articulate/informed description, but the basic function of this plugin was to allow someone to monitor a mix with headphones and, using some crazy-mathy-physics-y process, create a reasonable approximation of actual stereo speakers.

The idea is you could mix audio with headphones and have a rough idea of what it would sound like "in the wild" (home stereo, car stereo, etc.) Among other things, it lessens that super-stereo-separation you get from having a can over each ear.

Does that make sense? Or ring a bell? It seemed like a very useful tool and I'd like to find it again...

posted by scottandrew (9 comments total)

I've never used it but your description rang this bell.

http://www.jeroenbreebaart.com/audio_vst_isone_pro.htm

I recall there being a free one but couldn't track it down.
posted by dagosto at 7:25 PM on July 18, 2010

You can do this without a special plug-in. All you need is a reverb plugin that can load an impulse response (eg Logic's Space Designer). You can either load in a canned Impulse Response or create your own simulation of your own signal chain and space (as described here).

An Impulse Response (IR) is basically a kind of recording of the way a space responds to sound. By using this in a plugin which can load it, you recreate the way the signal would sound if it were played in that space.

Very useful thing to get to know. Has all sorts of unusual uses, including high-quality guitar cab simulation using the excellent Recabinet, and so on.
posted by unSane at 8:15 PM on July 18, 2010

OK, here are a few more links for you. I am interested in this too, especially the fact that when you monitor with phones you tend to mix the center signals (eg voice) too loud.

A PDF describing the process in detail (geeky but maybe interesting)
http://smyth-research.com/articles_files/SVSAES.pdf

It turns out the other thing that needs to be modelled is the Head Related Transfer Function, ie the change in the sound as it passes from the air to your brain via two ears.

Here are some plugins I found:
Anechoic Room Simulator-- free
WaveSurround (demo available -- not meant for this purpose but might well work as it has binaural simulation and HRTC modeling)
SoundHack -- another binaural simulator -- demo available
Isone Pro -- yet another binaural room simulator, demo available
posted by unSane at 5:50 AM on July 19, 2010

And another one, this time free and with both AudioUnit and VST versions:

Canz3D

I'll give this one a try in Logic and report back.
posted by unSane at 6:15 AM on July 19, 2010

The Anechoic Room Simulator is actually a hoax. The programmer (Bram) admits it at the bottom of the first page of that thread. I used it a few times and couldn't figure out what it was supposed to do.

Interesting idea about using an impulse response for room simulation but I would fear that an impulse reverb plug-in might be a bit to simple for this application. I' no expert but I would guess there would need to be multiple impulses running at once through different DSP to localize them throughout the simulated room. One could build a bank of plugs to create this I suppose.
posted by dagosto at 6:15 AM on July 19, 2010

I just tried it out and to my surprise the Canz3D plugin is really good. (It's not free, though, costs $10). It did the two things I wanted it to: made the center signals stand out more and reduced the apparent stereo separation (ie introduced crosstalk). It doesn't sound exactly like my speakers but it is a heck of a lot closer than a straight headphone feed.
posted by unSane at 6:28 AM on July 19, 2010

So... have any of you tried Isone? Any thoughts?
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane at 7:49 PM on July 23, 2010

Thanks for all the suggestions!
posted by scottandrew at 5:05 PM on July 25, 2010

sounds like redline monitor
posted by pyramid termite at 10:23 AM on July 30, 2010