DSM V2

  It lists for $329, but they're offering it for $279, plus using the coupon code "newx3x50off" for 50% discount, my total price was $139.50! I've had my eye on this for a long time but it was too expensive and had an iLok. Now that both of those obstacles are gone I bought it. I played around with it for a couple hours and am truly amazed and loving it! Check out the videos. I'm pretty sure the coupon code works for everything at PA, btw.

Could I ask, exactly why is this so different from other mastering compressors / plug ins? Still seems a great deal of money even with all the discounts.
Would love to hear your thoughts 
Nigel

Thanks so much - I think I am starting to just about understand what this is! It does sound intriguing - a lot of money still but perhaps I can see why.
Oh well, start to prepare the justification defence as to why this is essential to my plan for world domination of the current music scene and why I JUST HAVE TO HAVE IT!!!!
Thanks again
Nigel

Hi Nigel. I owned Harbal but haven't used it in several years. If I recall correctly, it matches a captured sample by creating a fixed eq curve. DSM matches a captured sample by applying compression to many individual frequency bands in real time. DSM doesn't modify a particular frequency unless that frequency gets louder than that frequency in the captured sample. DSM can be very transparent, but Harbal applies eq to the whole track and is anything but transparent. I've been playing with DSM some more and getting to know some of the controls. It sounds very natural and smooth to me. I'm sure some other people won't like it though so, if you're interested, I suggest downloading the demo to see how it sounds. The 50% coupon code is good until tomorrow, Oct 31.

Hey Johnny One Note, ol pal...could you post links to some of those "amazing mixes"??

I posted about the new DSM in an earlier thread, and I put the demo thru its paces, but I've decided to pass.  I would advise anyone considering this plugin (or any plugin, for that matter) to demo it on your own material before purchasing.  For me, it proved "interesting" but I couldn't really get it to improve any of my tracks or mixes.  I felt it imposed an unnatural sound on most anything I tried it on -- weird pumping effects on mixes, increased tape hiss and noise on old material, and too much "color" on most individual instruments and vocals.  I did try varying the threshold, wet/dry control, gain, etc. but getting rid of the odd effects also made the more positive attributes inaudible (to my ears). 
 
I can see how this could be used as a special effect, especially for synthetic music, but that ain't my thing.  It was an effective de-esser, but I'm already covered in that department.  Bottom line for DSM:  not a panacea for everything, YMMV, and kudos to Mr. Frindle for developing and supporting a unique tool which may indeed be useful in many instances.
 
Cheers,
Eddie

  Eddie, Excellent advice about trying before buying. I haven't noticed the pumping you mentioned. I did notice the exaggerated hiss from some old tapes but got rid of most of it by putting a hiss filter before DSM and modifying the curve with the controls on the bottom of the plugin.

It used to be a known issue- do you have the latest build?

p.s. regarding PluginAlliance. Never buy at full price- keep an eye on their facebook page- they often have short sales with massive discounts, eg next 99 plugs sold $99 each, half price off mastering plugs week etc.

The latest version (2.0.3) supposedly fixes that problem: -------------------------------- Dynamic Spectrum Mapper V2 - Changelog Version 2.0.3 (Jan 16, 2013) - fixed threshold curve not retained bug -------------------------------- If that's the version you have and it still doesn't work and your determined to use it, realize that you can save and load curves manually. I'd also let them know about the problem. They seem to be fast to fix things and posting updates. EDIT: Sorry about the formatting. Apparently Firefox and the forum software don't get along well.

I see the Plugin-Alliance team posting on Facebook from NAMM so you might have to wait for a response. When DSM was over my budget at $300+, I looked for alternatives too including the Melda plug and Voxengo Soniformer, a 32 band compressor, but didn't actually try them. The Melda plug cost almost as much as DSM. Soniformer was more affordable at about $90. Neither of them do curve matching, which is unique to DSM as far as I know. If you want to quickly get an idea about how it works before your trial ends, capture a curve at the best sounding part of a track. Make sure there are no other compressors enabled on that track, especially before DSM in the chain. Watch the display as you play the whole track. Frequencies that show above the curve are automatically reduced by DSM. Frequencies below the curve are not. Play with the threshold and gain. Insert an eq before DSM and experiment with raising frequencies that show below the curve. Don't forget to consider how the frequencies in the section you capture will affect curve matching. Ie. capturing a piano playing in the upper octaves will obviously produce bad results trying to match the curve when it's playing in the lower range. But then again, trying to do that may help show how DSM works.

I haven't tried it in Sonar X2. I don't know that it's okay in a Sonar forum to mention the host I'm using with DSM but it's not Reaper, and the curve is correctly saved/restored. Using the 64 bit version, btw.