Hi Jeff,

I had asked the same question about MEP 2016 and John EB found the answer. As far as I can tell, there is now no limit on the number of plugins. This is a new look for audio effects that Magix introduced into MusicMaker, Audio & Music Lab Premium and MEP2016.

AML Premium is a good fit for VPX and MEP if you have a lot of sound cleaning to do.

John EB mentioned MDynamicEQ from Melda. Melda has a lot of plugins, only two of which I have used and many that are free. Take a look.

Since you're upgrading from a much older version, you're going to see many new features including the measuring instruments. Take a look at these and observe what happens when you play with the brightness, contrast, gamma, HDR Gamma and HDR Blur, and colour.

You can also select the source monitor to show the screen before applying effects so that you can simultaneously see before and after effects, amongst other uses of the second monitor.

I'm away from home and won't be taking a look at the new features until Wednesday.

@John EB,

Do you have a preferred preset or setings for MDynamicEQ that you use by default, and what is it?

Regards from the Great White North where we're in deep snow in the mountains but the ski slopes are closed.

John, thank you!  I would never have found that, I think, especially since the relevant section of the pdf manual (p190) (screenshot below) talks of the "old-style" slots being still present!

Jeff

@ John C.B.  Again, thanks for this.  Yes, the new version does look, and feel, very different!

Because I do a lot of audio work I have a number of VSTs installed, both 32 bit and 64 bit, which I use, primarily in Adobe Audition CS6, along with iZotope RX5 Advanced for really serious cleaning of audio tracks.  (It's a brilliant piece of software but VERY expensive, but I would highly recommend it to anyone who has to do a lot of work on cleaning audio of all kinds of unwanted garbage.  e.g. I've just been asked to help improve the audio of a 30+ years old audio cassette recording of an interview with the late art historian/critic Brian Sewell which a documentary film maker in Slovenia wants to use in a film about the art history of his country).

And yes, I do have the complete Melda Productions Free bundle, along with a couple of paid-for plug ins from the same developer.  One of these is the "Vintage Rotary" which is an excellent emulator of those old Leslie speaker cabinets; an other aspect of my work involves, very occasionally, creating backing tracks, hence my usage of VST Instruments as well as VST Effects.

Jeff

PS.  Hope you're able to get at least some skiing done.

Hi

@ John CB

. . . . . Do you have a preferred preset or setings for MDynamicEQ that you use by default, and what is it? . . . .

Yes I do - these are the settings I use - the only ones I changed from the default were the Input and Output gains.

There is a lot of advice out there that says you should aim for your loudest sound to be limited to 0 dB the problem with that is it will have people rapidly scrabbling for the TV remote to turn the sound down.

AFAIK most commercial DVD's / BD's are limited between -6 dB to -12 dB for 'loud' soundtracks and as low as -27 dB for dialogue -    a musician friend of mine, with a recording studio, also recommends -6 to -12 dB.

HTH

John EB

@John EB,

Thanks for that. I see that you are not using the left and right redlines for setting high-pass and low-pass filters. Any reason?

From what I understand, the default settings shown expand the gain by +4 to +6 db approximately in each band when there is sound in the band. Or, as per the manual, the higher the input level is, the higher the dynamic gain will be, but it will never exceed the dynamic level set, that is, the 4 to 6 db set by the vertical bar on the  band.

In layman terms, what does this mean to the sound? If voice is at about 650 Hz or band 3, what I see is a dynamic gain setting of about 4 db, whereas the other bands are a bit higher. So what does this really mean? Is ambient sound amplified? Voice as well?

In a video that I brought in from VHS tape of a musical group, I left the 650 Hz band as is, I think, and actually increased the level by 6 db, and for the other bands, I dragged the dynamic level downwards. I found that the instruments were drowning out the voice and I was trying bring out the voice. I'll have to look at what I actually did as this is still a work in progress, but I know that whatever I did in one case, my wife, the singer, noticed the difference and was pleased. Is my method correct for this type of use?

@Jeff,

I think we had this discussion before about iZotope. For what I do, I find that Magix AML Premium is very good. The spectral cleaning in the new version was slightly improved, which for me was a big improvement. I am trying to clean up some of those old video recordings and in one case, there is an intermittent thumping noise that I have been removing thump by thump. What a task, as there must be a couple of hundred of them. I haven't had time to go back and continue the process or use other tools in AML. I posted the video on my wife's site anyways. Cleaning up these old recordings is definitely challenging, and since I'm not sure of what I'm doing, a lot of trial and error is involved.

Do you have any preferred MDynamicEQ settings for different situations?

It's snowing here, expecting 10 cm this afternoon. No skiing, but I'm going snowshoeing now with the dog, or else, she woofs. I'll take the camera.

Hi

. . . . I see that you are not using the left and right redlines for setting high-pass and low-pass filters. Any reason? . . . .

Yes - my main camera, Sony VR520EV is not plagued by low fequency issues such as electric fields and has a Windcheater over the mics - top right of image - the lens hood is a modifed Canon hood with a diy adapter ring to slip over the w/a adapter

and I do not use the audio from my sportscam because it is normally inside a waterproof housing stuck on the side of my ski helmet as can be seen below

Got some good video from ski holiday - annoyed camera fogged up - the temperature dropped rapidly while up on the mountain -  when we had spectacular ice crystal 'shower' complete with 3 haloes and millions of sparkles in the air here is a still shot - pity the camera could not get all the 'show' in.

HTH

John EB

Hi

I see the German forum have found that there appears to be no way to select the Main Concept MPEG2 codec in the program settings of VPX(8).

I have not installed the new program but has anyone else found this. Is it a deliberate ommission or a Bug.....?

Peter

Hi

. . . . Main Concept MPEG2 codec . . . . a deliberate ommission . . . .

This page would indicate that MainConcept are no longer developing the CUDA / OpenCL h.264 codecs among others.

It would appear they are concentrating on the HEVC (h.265) codec.

John EB

Hi John

Thanks for the link.......interesting, but the choice of Intel (default) or Main Concept MPEG4 is still in VPX but only Intel MPEG2 activation is available. It doesn't say anything about MPEG2 on that MC SDK page and I think that MPEG2 for DVD is not going to be superseded any time soon

Cuda and Open CL H264 HWA is obviously a dead duck with MC and Magix, as we have long accepted.

Peter

Hi

. . . . I think that MPEG2 for DVD is not going to be superseded any time soon . . . .

IMHO - DVD is a dead format - no further development can / will occur because of restrictions of the format and is retained for backwards compatability for older hardware.

In addition BD with higher definition codecs are taking over, and MP4-AVC (h.264) , AVCHD, and particularly HVEC (h.265) are the future standard codecs of choice.

Cheers

John EB

Peter, John EB, I don't know whether the following is directly relevant to your discussion, but one thing I have discovered re MC MPEG-2 codec is that it is NOT available within VPX (8) unless one makes a one-off purchase, about $5 USD.

I have an on-going support request with MAGIX re a problem with, I think, display fonts.  As an example I post below what I see on the initial "Choose Project" screen.  Not easy to read!!

.

Once this, and a couple of other problems (eg. installed and activated extras not showing on any tab) have been resolved I will try and remember to return to Peter's question about how /whether it is possible to select the MC codec on the MPEG-2 Export screen.

Jeff

Hi Jeff

. . . . unless one makes a one-off purchase, about $5 USD . . . .

That would fit in with the licence fee requirement up to end Dec 2015 for using MPEG 2 codec see item 1 and 2 here  - about half way down the page .

The issue of codecs is also going to become a problem for anyone whose camera uses the MOV video format - Apple have stopped support for it on Windows - no new version since Windows 8 came out and it is recommended to uninstall due to security issues with it - see here

John EB

Hi John

IMHO - DVD is a dead format - no further development can / will occur because of restrictions of the format and is retained for backwards compatability for older hardware.

Unfortunately though a huge number of people still depend on it and besides, it seems a bit weird that we have to now start paying for something that is dying!

Actually I use it so little that I have only just realised that there is no DVD decoder in Windows 10. Can you or anyone recommend a source for the codec that will not screw up our machines? Same also for .Mov and Pro Res import / export.

Thanks

Peter

Hi Peter

Personally I do not bother with WMP anymore - for DVD and mpg I use VLC and for BD I have Nero Blue-Ray player.

For MOV there is the 'Quicktime Alternative' however I have no experience of this nor do I know if it supports Pro Res.

I have not used the MOV file format for some time now and do not have QT installed, if the need arose to convert to / from MOV format then I would use Movavi Video Converter.

John EB

Thanks for the tips John.

I had VLC on my last PC with no problems. I also had FFMPEG which is to play HD as Vista did not play that with WMP.

I imagine Quicktime Alternative shares the same security issues as QT Player.....?

Peter