UNDERSTANDING HARMONICS & ALIASING || How to visualise plugin harmonics & how to test audio aliasing 

Hi Paul, maybe a bit off topic but you mentioned in a previous video how many pink strips you could run in one project with your i9. I'm am very interested how Lowe core count would effect the performance. Cores could be turned off to simulate a i3, i5 or i7 and by putting you'd system in power saving power scheme your cores would downclock or in your bios to simulate older generations with a lower IPC. I'm very interested in your findings. In my opinion it's very valuable information in modern music making and info on the net is old. And it's geeky so yeah... Could ya pls?

I'd need to ask guys in the know. When it comes to computer tech I have very limited knowledge. Suppose I can ask stefan who built my pc

@@PaulThird That would be awesome ❤️

The different ways to do oversampling. More specifically what type of (lowpass) filters they use internally. Some plugins use standard minimum phase filters, some use linear phase FIR filters and there's even linear phase IIR filters (although probably impossible to tell the linear phase ones apart without seeing the code). You could check if oversampling causes lots of phase shift or maybe some pre-ringing. See what that does to the sound

@@mathyoooo2 ooh +1

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Took a long time to edit and set up so always thankful for the appreciation 🤓

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I have a list of ideas and that's definitely one of them 🤓 possibly take a dev at a time and get their worst aliasing plugins and oversample them if possible

I started my own list, for plugins that I use (and some that I want to use): Eventide doesn't do a lot of harmonics, but seems clean: living up to their name. (Omnipressor, H910 Harmonizer, InstantFlanger, InstantPhaser) Klanghelm: MJUC aliases like an absolute betch. SDRR aliases too. Given their reputation that's a shame. To me personally it felt good to see this, because it kind of "reassured" me that my ears are not crap, since I consistently put them up against other plugins for a while and they always lost. I thought it was because of taste.. now I suspect it might be aliasing. Plugin Alliance: townhouse compressor aliases, but below 100db, so I guess it's okay. mpressor has harmonics, but seems clean. alpha has no harmonics. maag4 has no harmonics (don't use it anymore, still tested it). Blackbox you've (Paul) shown. SPL-Transient Designer: It's a funny funny thing.. absolutely clean if you gainstage.. but don't you dare come in hot, because it will start aliasing like you haven't seen before - and I think that's not good for a transient designer. Sonimus Britson: Channel aliases like a betch, if you drive it.. which is the whole point of the plugin. Am disappointed about that. Because here is my secret: I can't be bothered to use additional plugins in order to oversample a plugin. That means: EQs that cramp, can't do high boosts for me and all plugins with harmonic content simply sound how they sound. Waves: MV2 is clean, RBass has harmonics, but doesn't alias, Scheps Parallel Particles Air aliases a lot (never use it, never liked it), Thick doesn't, Bite aliases reasonably. Softube: I wish I knew. (So if anyone has tests on the Weiss DS1-MK3, Tube-Tech CL 1 B mk II, Chandler Limited Germanium or Mutronics Mutator: I am all ears and eyes!) IKMultimedia fairs a lot better than many people give them credit for... and you don't even need to engage oversampling-buttons. I've seen different approaches. The Clipper and Stealthlimiter seem to be oversampling on their own, the VC670 simply cuts off higher order harmonics, as does their Pultec emulation... and that's their old plugins. Note: If you thoroughly abuse Clipper and Stealthlimiter (drive harder than sounds good) they start aliasing, but newer Plugins like the Comprexxor (Distressor emu) actually solved that problem.. you can abuse it all you want, you won't get aliasing. On the other hand their Space-Delay (which I love) aliases. I wish they would implement the Comprexxor-anti-aliasing-code to all their plugins (and plenty that I don't use will probably aliase like a betch..). Also I wonder what exactly it is that their Tape-Echo (old but gold imo) does.. Harmonics are there, but if the fundamental is 10 k there's like a wide "noisebell" or something through the whole spectrum. Wouldn't call it aliasing by the looks and sound of it, but then again I'm new to this analysing stuff.

Btw, there's a thread on Gearspace called "Testing Aliasing of Plugins (meassurements)" which has quite a few plugins tested, if you're interested.

Glad I can help 🤓

Same here. I immediately removed it from my setup.

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The sweep / rx7 method was a big thing for me to really see how much aliasing is in the actual printed file but I'm definitely going to start listening more to test tones to evaluate how much it masks. I think that's what will get quite a few skeptics. When your 10k tone turns into an ambulance.. You got a problem 😂

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It's like anything else. The more you understand your tools, the more you'll get out them. Understand the limitations and be the dog wagging the tail 🤓

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Hmmm.. Maybe should have used the longer sweep for the UAD then? Tim Petherick gave me a fast sweep and a long sweep. I used the fast sweep

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I very much doubt you'll get a reply. If you do it will most likely be a cop out blaming doctor or going on about cpu balance and how this is something that doesn't get brought to their attention and they have lots of big engineers who have never complained about it etc etc

@@PaulThird I agree, but there are a couple of things that can be done and you have already started with the 1st one, making people aware that this is a problem.. and this will get people like me to start to get active in pushing for developers to build better codes as soon as the demos become available for testing. Anywho, I do personally thank you because your videos have answered so many questions I had and I really appreciate that. All the best to you and your fam!

Tbh Ive got a list as long as my arm haha maybe one day but they have been done to death on YT

And there I go asking him about Softube-Plugins every other video.

The more knowledge we have the more we can influence change. That's how I see it 🤓

@@PaulThird I agree, thank you for your work and inspiration. I tweak in a better way my software knobs since I met you [even if I tweak knobs before you born :)].

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Sorry haha

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Already got videos showing the difference in waves plugins being oversampled from 48 to 96k. I could pick the differences out in blind tests 🤓 There is going to be another video showcasing what waves plugins should sound like as they seem to be the worst for it. Only way it'll work is on the plugins that have a relatively flat linear response as oversampling frequencies past their supported sample rate will cause multiplying of frequencies so I need a relatively flat response for it to work but there are enough there. Did one yesterday on Puigtec over a mix and it was actually shocking now much masking the aliasing added. Muddyness, harshness, lack of punch. Night and day when you remove all the aliasing it adds

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I did try to make it as simplified as possible as it really bent my head at the beginning so glad that it helped. In regards to guitar amp sims. It's actually a future video idea as I found the exact same. It's actually led me to the point where I'm thinking that all amp sims are a bit of a lie. Ive not tried it yet but I was going to stick an amp sim though a DI and see if it affected the tuning due to all the unmusical frequencies being added. If that's the case then all amp sims are actually making our records less musical as opposed to recording them through amps and mics. Was Contemplating running a few drive pedals as a hardware insert to compare the difference between the sims aliasing and the pedals true harmonics. Honestly I don't know why everybody isnt talking about it tbh

@@PaulThird, you and Dan Worrall have a way of telling me things that I already know but in a way that makes me finally understand what they actually mean. I've only found your channel recently but you're doing a great job - keep going. I thought I must be doing something wrong with the amp sims because I just couldn't believe what I was seeing in terms of the aliasing. I'd be really interested to hear what you uncover because I've drawn a blank (in technical terms) and just can't understand why the aliasing is so .... egregious! I'm sure you're way ahead of me but in case it's useful I tried out presonus ampire, audio assault blacksun, mercuriall spark, neural dsp fortin nameless and scuffham s-gear. For those that did have optional oversampling I turned it up to full (that's allegedly 16x on the blacksun) and still got horrible aliasing at anything much more than 4k and, as I said, often in the inbetween frequencies. So even when 4k was fine, 3.99k often wasn't. Even more bizarrely, moving to 96khz sample rate didn't seem to help much so maybe those harmonics that are being generated just keep on going?! I'm going to be honest here and say that even though it was very obvious on a test tone, it wasn't night and day obvious on actual guitar tracks. But I only had a cursory listen so I will be very interested in what you find out. It certainly seems that amp sims are "technically" awful with horrible aliasing but I wonder how much difference that makes to the sound.

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@@PaulThird Have you kept the Access Analog service? Do you / did you use it often?

Not used it in well over a year. I don't get any benefit from analog

@@PaulThird Right! Good to know. Was sure handy for comparison tests though. Thanks for the replies. great vids.

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honestly I didnt get this message, which is just a semplification.

@@TheMonkBeatsOne ?? It's easy: The big three selling (some) products that don't do what they claim to do. The proof is here in this channel and in other channels too (Dan Worral).

@@NikolausBrocke Sorry, Sir. But I would specify 'some products', and you didn't in your first message. And we are talking about analog emulator plugins: other Waves' products are top of the game since 30 years. Same for UAD: they did the best possible for their legacy products. Also, we saw that Helios [for example] could be bad sounding when pushed at its limits, but when used in basic situations it could sound good, same for Waves 550B [I don't use both]. They both have to do better marketing and better plugins now, yes. But what Paul is teaching us is: analyse the stuff you use, possibly before you buy, then use it properly even having a scientific look at the settings you tweak. That's not an easy "big sisters cheat on [some] plugins". Sorry, Sir.

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I think cause many don't test plugins before buying many devs have purely been lazy in many plugs cause they want to maintain the friendly cpu/dsp sales pitch. Shocked at UAD though. Expect a lot better

I know it's annoying. That's the problem with demos.. They expire unfortunately haha plus UAD have never reached out to me so it's probs gonna stay that way 😢 I mailed them twice over the course of the year but never got a reply. Guess I'm stuck with what comes with the pcie card

You can contact UA about a demo reset.

I'll try again but I got bumped the last 2 times 😢

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The irony here is that Paul may be putting even more money into Waves owners’ pockets. “New update version with oversampling! Renew your WUP membership today!” At least they half-heartedly tried to do this in the BB plug-in released recently. Although the higher oversampling options are broken, the 2x works. If one records tracks @ 96k, oversampling @ 192k should work out fine. … at least that’s what I’m telling myself after dropping $25 on it. 🤦‍♂️

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Yeah oversampling is something that I'm thinking about. Trying to find plugins that oversample using different techniques and then see if we can compare any audible differences between them. Or something along those lines

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I know but how many people actually know that? Especially when tons of legacy plugins come with the pcie cards. Honestly you'd be surprised. people would actually argue with me saying that about the legacy plugins unless I showed it 😂

@@PaulThird haha people are amazing aren't they. Straight from the horses mouth/website and they don't believe it.

That's why i need to prove everything I say now. Honestly in this community you give an inch somebody will take a mile. You've gotta be pretty careful on YT especially if your starting out

I have the UAD legacy plugins with one the UAD2 pcie card. I pulled the card over a year ago since i never used the plugins. To be honest I never liked them and used them occasionally. I never even understood much about the whole analogue emulation and why a Pultec was supposed to be special. Until I started watching your videos and others on engineering and mastering. The science of music and sound! What do you think about genres of music that intentionally add aliasing like lofi using old sampler emulations ? Its also used in Synthwave. I just picked up the SQ80 plugin from Arturia and to my ears it has all the grainy digital nasties the original had to its sound.

It's all about the understanding. As you said it's a sound for certain genres but you know when it's applicable. That understanding allows you to use it as a tool compared to not knowing at all. Gives you more control as an engineer. I avoid audible aliasing like plague but there may be a time where it just works but I'm in control of the aliasing, not the other way round if that makes sense. I can choose whether it's there or not. I know what plugins cause it and how to control it. If anything it gives you more knowledge about how plugins work which I think gives you a better understanding of your tools which is invaluable in itself 🤓

ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-Ako1EUTw6Ag.html That's a good example

Same thing. Oversampling a plugin x2 at 48k is equivalent to loading the plugin in a 96k session

@@PaulThird Cheers

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Nope has to be done on the track itself. Rendering the project at a higher sample rate purely upsamples the master channel and has no effect on the tracks

That's got oversampling has it not?

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Dunno.. I tried their msatutator and wasn't near as good as cobra. However msatutator is free so it's a tough one to call. Just tried out Tbpro audio gsatplus.. Now that is a saturation plugin. Free, no aliasing at x4 oversampling and has a random mode where it manipulates mid and side harmonics in real time. Gives it that proper random non linear behaviour. You can choose between odd and even harmonics as well and boost to taste. Honestly why these sorts of plugins aren't more in the social eye is beyond me. All the gearspace guys had a massive say on this plugin so it's been thoroughly vetted. And it's free while the new SSL fusion drive is £200+.. Its like nobody's interested unless it's got an analog face plate 🤷‍♂️

Yeah it's a good idea but it's flawed as you'll also hear the added harmonics in the null as well. However you've gave me an idea to oversample, print and do a null test vs original without oversampling. That would leave you with the aliasing 🤓

@@PaulThird haha yes that would make sense! I was just thinking it would be good to actually hear what different types of aliasing sounds like opposed to seeing it in a parametric eq or the spectrogram and just flat out saying it's gonna be bad. also it would be interesting to hear what the aliasing that bounced back i.e. curved back round such as in the rueletec eg did @10:28 compared to the fucking mess of helios which was more to the left of the base fundamental harmonic @23:09. if that makes any sense!

I'm thinking a test per developer where I pick their worst ones and show the difference when you oversample. Something like that

Thank you. I did put a lot of work into it 🤓

@@PaulThird what do you make of all the goofiness going on in the kit neve and noiseash neve... i did test with 10k at -18 and there was a bunch of stuff going on below 10k but it wasnt showing up as static harmonics but instead in jumping all over the place....

Hmmm.. Looks like they have upgraded it then. I think my api 550b may be v9 or 10. If they have upgraded it then it just makes me angrier at the waves update plan as all upgrades should be free like every other developer. They just don't do anything right do they 😂

www.dropbox.com/s/8b8ttdshnyaxsp6/testtones.zip?dl=0 you can download them from Tim Pethericks website 👌

I'll never enjoy aliasing.. I REFUSE!! 😂

I agree with Paul here. Aliasing is all that is bad about plugins. Noise and randomness in curves is relative. @Paul Third said in a comment in last video that or even in the video maybe that they capture hardware at their peak performance. And that is amazing. If we wouldn't have aliasing all the hardware emulations would sound better than the hardware.

Aliasing isn't even a good way to get a nice nasty digital distortion if that's what you're after..... Nobody is going to miss it off it goes away.

I mean aliasing can work for special effect type sound design, but in general it just makes things sound muddy imo.

The frequencies of aliasing have nothing to do with the frequencies of the music - so totally unmusical. Nobody wants that.

If my cpu can handle it max oversampling but only if im really driving the plugin hard into saturation where I'd need max oversampling. In most cases x4 should be enough. I do the oversampling in the context of the mix, not just when exporting

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Yeah I remember reading about digital pedals and finding out that they had sample rates just like daws, normally 44.1, which caused them all to alias when pushed into distortion. Anything that requires a sample rate to reproduce an audio signal is using digital processing. Dunno what you'd class some of those pedals as.. Hybrid? Haha

@@PaulThird I guess it's semantics, but most people would consider something like a Deluxe Memory Man an "analog" delay... Even though the bucked brigade circuit has a sample rate and a clock, so it's essentially a very early form of digital processing. I think they marketed it as "solid state" at the time, in contrast to tape delays. Modern digital pedals with a proper converter and processor are a different story. Looking forward to a potential future video on amp sims. I love my Helix modeler, but technically it probably aliases like hell. Does that mean my ears are broken? Or did they manage to control the aliasing artifacts in a way that in the end is registered by listeners more as uniform noise and not un-musical?

With guitar amp sims and digital guitar effects aliasing is just something that you have to accept. However neural dsp so x4 PA and Sgear do X8 do they are working on it but most cheap amp sims you'll find are riddled with aliasing due to the amount of distortion created. Amp sims is something I plan on looking at in more detail

Can't remember the last time I bought a plugin haha but yeah I've wasted a lot of money over the years 🤓

@@CraigScottFrost Not a all, what i meant is there are lots of very bad plugins out there from several companies, but the market them very well, at the end is not really what they say the are, PA has quite good unique plugs, they do, but others through time i just stop using them, did not stand out.

The harmonics essentially hit the end of the frequency range and bounce back as aliasing

@@PaulThird Thank you very much for the prompt reply!

Yeah it's hard due to my aspergers. I do everything in one take and I don't realise I've swore over an important bit until I edit haha I genuinely just go off the top of my head in every video Plus, I work in the college now with young sparks and in the middle of the whole trades department.. In Scotland..so swearing becomes as normal as hi and bye, especially when you become animated 😂 I'll try my best to see if I can limit it though 🤓

​@@PaulThird Thanks for your response...Dont worry...I get it...would just be nice to not have to wear earbuds hehe. I use to swear like a trooper as they say...I dont really know...but just had a spiritual experience a number of years ago and pretty much never had another swear word come out since. But look, really enjoy what you are doing. I think its so important to have the background knowledge. I always like good mix to good photo/composition and HDR is almost exactly the same...where you take a wide dynamic range and balance it with composition/key/tones etc but of course its a visible language...but using the curves tool is just like a multiband and so it goes on and on. Breaking the mechanisms down into these types of modules is really good. I was horrified to try it out this afternoon on an F6 and Im not sure if I have something wrong but it is absolutely hideous for aliasing. Would love to pm you the example and see what you think...but the F6 is my first locked in plug in my templates as I use it a the swiss knife to fix issues before it moves along the workflow.

I'm pretty sure every daw has a sine tone generator. That's what I do in protools. Highlight a section on the time line, audio suite and then generate a sine tone

@@PaulThird Thanks for your reply! I thought of it actually. I use ableton so I'll try to make one with a stock synth. What about the sweep? Should it be an automated Sine getting pitched or something?

Yeah. Ive done it in other videos with waves plugins 🤓 you've just got to be careful that you don't exceed the plugins supported sample rate so if you oversample too much it'll start shifting the frequencies up. For example most waves is supported up to 96k with some exceptions at 192k. If you boost past its supported sample rate then a 100hz boost will be 200, 5k boost will be 10k etc etc and it'll multiply again with every oversample

@@PaulThird huh, I didn’t know that. That’s super cool (and interesting) haha. Love your channel btw. Cheers!

On the most part yeah as they are mostly pretty clean

What you see there is 192khz sample rate. You'd never actually hear any of the information you see there. Technically speaking there is around 172khz of inaudible harmonics and noise haha In terms of noise and convolution I suppose it's what happens when you sample gear. Id assume that's also captured in the frequency response. It also depends on the level of the noise. Most noise you see in PD may look a lot but if you look at the dB scale it's actually still under -100db. You'll find that nearly all noise in plugins is kept well below the audible threshold. Some gear is like that too. Just depends on the gear

@@PaulThird Cheers, that's very helpful for me. Wishing you a good weekend and sending a hello from Russia :)

Ok, just checked. You get 9 for free if you buy 8 now.

How much is 8?

RU-vids really funny with links. It's too expensive for me. I'd love to have rx9 but I'll probs just get in contact and see if I can wangle an NFR from izotope haha I have no shame in asking for plugins now 😂

@@PaulThird Nor should you! I'm sure they will. I write my plugins off on my taxes but I'm not sure how that works on your side of the pond lol. I get it! I'm working like crazy right now but broke, billlllllssssssssssssss........

Just imported the printed sweep from the daw into the desktop version of RX7.

Yeah Im glad you confirmed the harmonics thing cause I was printing sweeps of a lot of gear like.. "these are relatively clean.. Wtf" haha

while I agree on the "overdoing harmonics part" in plugins - I can't agree that "old skool guys" are devoted to analogue gear. Some are, some aren't. To me these videos do not prove analogue superiority at all.. these videos simply share a light on lazy plugin-developers.. there are more than enough plugins that compete or even best analogue gear - and that's without talking price-range and maintenance-cost. The BlackBox Plugin for instance cracks at a point that you will never, ever, ever, ever come to in a real mixing-situation... if you'd use settings that hard any scource would sound horrible.

Aliasing is only created when you saturate and make high order harmonics past nuquist in your DAW's sample rate. Depends on how much you saturate and how high the harmonics made are. If you were only to use clean plugins aliasing isn't an issue

@@PaulThird good to know...big thanks man!!

In regards to heavy saturation you need a plugin with lots of high quality oversampling. Melda has one of the best OS algorithms and their amp sims and distortion based plugins make aliasing not a problem as they can go very high without completely ruining the phase. But for really really high gain stuff, amps and pedals will always be best id say. But analog pedals, not digital pedals which you can find here and there

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@@PaulThird Do you have a list of plugins that you advise maybe? (Without Aliasing). I read the next comment below, very interesting feedback as well.

Depends on what you are looking for really.

@@PaulThird I think about classic and common usage. For instance, plugin EQ like Pultec, API, Neve, Compressors like SSL, 1176, Neve stuffs. Actually: The "no-aliasing" and nice tone plugins *starter pack* for Mixing ...and mastering why not! :) Cause you demonstrated that the major brands of plugins are not really synonymous of Professional tools. I'm thinking about Analog Access, but the costs could be high regarding the duration of a full album production.

Depends on whether you want realistically modelled or plugins that can offer you the workflow but loosely modelled.

Yeah I was thinking that. I recall the aliasing of the original being commented on a lot

Mainly Tim Petherick but a few other clever engineers as well. I have a good network 🤓 All I do is annoy them with questions haha Theres still loads more to understand though. What I do is I learn so much, share it with others and use others to teach me stuff whether it be from the comments or even people stating I'm wrong. I learn from that that and then repeat the cycle. That's how I work and learn in my own strange way haha trust me there are a lot very well educated guys out there. Maybe not on youtube but they would have me tied up in knots within a few minutes haha I just bleed them dry.. But in very small doses.. I am nowhere near done with them and unfortunately for them they can see more questions around the corner 😂

@@PaulThird That's the key to any success. Throw yourself out there and learn from the best. You are the best at what you do that I know on RU-vid and that is not nothing. Keep up the great work 👑

@@PaulThird there are plenty on the ignore list these days. The usual first day release influencers. Funny you never see them using the software that they always claim are "game changers"

Yeah there is a lot of that going on. I was pleased with myself as I was looking over my new single as its nearly finished. Was very pleased to see the transparency haha Sonimus Britson routing throughout, sonible smart eq, cola comp, camel pre, TimP Lbus2 & Opto 32, London acoustics telge & uad 1176 as rear bus, titanium and bettermaker combo on mixbus, neold big AL, hg2 black box, titanium cl1b, spiff, magenta pre, arturia 33609.. Blond, soothe and fabfilter in premixing, Probably a few more as well I'm forgetting but mostly everything I've said I like I use haha

@@PaulThird nice one, i took a large chunk of time this morning testing based on your methodology. The results for some plugins didn't really surprise me, except for one company, TBProAudio. The implementation of oversampling was really good on his free GSatPlus. The 4x oversample got rid of all the inharmonics. Analog Obsession wasn't that great oversampled, still some audible inharmonics. A few demos from another manufacturer that i tried also showed positive results but at the expense of serious amounts of CPU.

Reaper DAW has this per plugin oversampling as well

I do have my enemies as well though. There's a few lex luthers out there who want to take me down 😂

Kinda what airwindows ultrasonic does but I've not got it to work yet for me but I may have the routing wrong

It might help in different ways, but it does nothing with regards to aliasing - if that is what you are suggesting.

@@PaulThird i generally set up the channel with what I need ex pre + ddfm (lbuss x 4) and in ultimate instance i put a pro q 3 with the "ideal filter" which is a brickwall filter using Max linerar phase.. i generally left some space between the start and the finish of recordings because i notice that ddfm cause some delay especially in high oversampling and i cannot work in real time with it.. so i have to print and realign the track unfortunately

@@AlexLapugean correct me if I'm wrong but a filter on the air band would prevent to the extra Harmonics generated to bounce back in the audible signal? Or not?

@@AftertuneMusic Only if you oversample and apply that filter before converting back to the original sample rate. Otherwise, by the time that filter is applied, the frequencies are already reflected to lower ones which are no longer affected by the filter. But that is what oversampling does in any case. For example, if you oversample a plugin with DDMF Metaplugin, you won't need to add a filter, that plugin does that automatically.