PeterMc
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Spectral response of "gloss" (now with image)
A few people have been asking about gloss. Here's the effect it has on pink noise - just a gentle increase in frequencies above about 1K. No sign of spectral smoothing. The green curve is the spectra of the original pink noise, the pink curve has been glossed. Bear in mind this is just the amplitude part, but I can't imagine that gloss would mess with the phase deliberately. It's hard to imagine it's this simple, but what else could it do that wouldn't show up in a spectrum? Cheers, Peter. (EDIT: Now with image) 
post edited by PeterMc - 2011/01/06 16:13:58
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Keni
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Re:Spectral response of "gloss"
2011/01/06 15:21:55
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Thanks Peter.... any way we can see the spectrum displays?
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PeterMc
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Re:Spectral response of "gloss"
2011/01/06 15:24:16
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The Maillard Reaction
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Re:Spectral response of "gloss"
2011/01/06 16:36:58
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Thanks Peter.
I think Cakewalk says there is no smoothing but I didn't believe such a feature would be so idiotic... I felt that surely there must be some special something. Something more than a slight boost in hi frequency.
It just furthers my experience with the fact that people will say all kinds of crazy things about what they think they hear as an improvement.
Obviously anyone could simply boost the hi freq and get a similar result.
silly silly silly.
Thank you very much.
best regards,
mike
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PeterMc
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Re:Spectral response of "gloss"
2011/01/06 17:26:10
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Recording vocals and acoustic guitar in 8.53, I found myself adding a little top end to one or the other quite frequently. The Sonitus EQ is good for this purpose. In ProCh this doesn't seem to be possible easily with any of the bands. Gloss does a pretty similar job, but I'd really like to be able to control the amount.
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Keni
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Re:Spectral response of "gloss"
2011/01/06 19:11:03
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Thanks again Peter...
The image said a lot to me...
That's basically all I heard it doing was brightening the track... If they are using some king of smoothing algo, I didn't hear it... which may mean that my hearing is getting worse? ;-)
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Middleman
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Re:Spectral response of "gloss"
2011/01/06 22:21:41
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You've got your analyzer set on RMS, that is not exactly going to provide the whole story on the Gloss EQ. You need to set it to peak so if there are any other aspects to the effect, they can be revealed. Not saying you won't get a similar result, but RMS is averaging the output. I would think you would get better transient information by going to another view of the results.
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bvideo
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Re:Spectral response of "gloss"
2011/01/06 23:00:08
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Reverse engineering gloss! How about a different "noise" profile. E.g. if the low part (below 2000) of the noise profile is changed, does the "pink" line still look the same? Or if the low part is not "noise", but a non-random frequency distribution, is the gloss still noise? Another way of asking if gloss does some kind of spectral translation other than boosting a given frequency range. Or is this a silly Q?
Bill B.
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bitman
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Re:Spectral response of "gloss"
2011/01/06 23:23:52
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Ooh and the real good news?
The gloss button responds and transmits CC9 for ya!
Kick A$$
Sorry, hot button issue for me.
No pun intended.
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Middleman
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Re:Spectral response of "gloss"
2011/01/06 23:41:41
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bvideo
Reverse engineering gloss! How about a different "noise" profile. E.g. if the low part (below 2000) of the noise profile is changed, does the "pink" line still look the same? Or if the low part is not "noise", but a non-random frequency distribution, is the gloss still noise? Another way of asking if gloss does some kind of spectral translation other than boosting a given frequency range. Or is this a silly Q?
Bill B.
I think your question is right on. The filter is softening the highs not just boosting them. There are things going on with the sound that a simple RMS spectral graph is not going to reveal.
post edited by Middleman - 2011/01/06 23:43:44
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The Maillard Reaction
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Re:Spectral response of "gloss"
2011/01/06 23:44:05
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The idea about checking peak vs RMS seems like a good idea... but it is a fact that Cakewalk has said that gloss is not a smoothing filter but only a boost. I looked at it on several analyzers tonight it looks like it's simply a boost. On Span it appeared to go up to 30kHz on my system... which I thought was sort of funny because I'm running at 44.1 and that means everything over 22k isn't really there. :-) Here's a screen shot I found interesting:  best regards, mike
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Middleman
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Re:Spectral response of "gloss"
2011/01/06 23:45:36
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Mike, from the manual. Adds a smooth breath and presence to the high end without any harshness using a unique gloss filter.
This tells me that although there may be a boost, there is some frequency modification i.e. dampening as well that could be occuring for some frequencies. No spectral is going to indicate that. Also these charts are point in time, not showing transient characteristics. That must be considered as well.
post edited by Middleman - 2011/01/06 23:48:21
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The Maillard Reaction
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Re:Spectral response of "gloss"
2011/01/06 23:49:50
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I don't recall if it was Robin or Brandon or Seth... but they were quite specific when I asked about this. No smoothing filter. We asked if it was like Voxengo's Gliss... they said "NO". I guessed "smoothing filter" while further implying something like a Gaussian algorithm, they said "NO". I'd say having a button that pumps up the hi end arbitrarily qualifies as unique. :-) I've been looking at the Saturation filters too.... there's nothing tube like about them... They seem to act more like a bad transformer. best regards, mike
post edited by mike_mccue - 2011/01/06 23:51:56
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Middleman
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Re:Spectral response of "gloss"
2011/01/06 23:56:38
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Would be nice if someone from Cakewalk could enlighten us as to what exactly is going on with this filter. I will say this, it's like ear candy for managing spikey transient things.
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mikespitzer
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Re:Spectral response of "gloss"
2011/01/07 00:16:51
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This should serve as a reminder to many who have fallen prey to trusting companies who claim their plug-ins are an ACCURATE COPY of same famous piece of dedicated hardware processor.
This is not always the case.
YES, there are obviously some great plug-ins out there, but just because a plug-in looks and CLAIMS to me a model of a certain piece of hardware does not mean it really processes the signal the same way.
I am reminded of Lexicon Pantheon Reverb,
Yes, it was a pretty good reverb.
But dial in IDENTICAL reverb settings on Pantheon and a dedicated hardware Lexicon PCM91
Now listen .........
Big difference
Even the new LXP and PCM plug-in suites which are intended to copy hardware models like the LXP-15II and PCM91/92 sound different with identical settings.
Kind of surprising really -- you would think with modern PC computing power it would be easy to duplicate these hardware units.
But often it is not the case for some reason.
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snookerc
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Re:Spectral response of "gloss"
2011/01/07 01:30:11
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I'd say having a button that pumps up the hi end arbitrarily qualifies as unique. :-) I wouldn't call it "arbitrary". That would imply they somewhat randomly chose frequencies to boost. Seems like their goal was to have a one-button method to add musical "shine" that people frequently end up adding with a few knob turns?
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chrisharbin
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Re:Spectral response of "gloss"
2011/01/07 01:42:32
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mikespitzer
I am reminded of Lexicon Pantheon Reverb,
Yes, it was a pretty good reverb.
You'll forgive mike, but a. Please don't remind of the pantheon hehe b. Gotta give a pretty huge "I don't agree" lol Did like the sonitus though.
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The Maillard Reaction
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Re:Spectral response of "gloss"
2011/01/07 05:46:02
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snookerc
I'd say having a button that pumps up the hi end arbitrarily qualifies as unique. :-)
I wouldn't call it "arbitrary". That would imply they somewhat randomly chose frequencies to boost. Seems like their goal was to have a one-button method to add musical "shine" that people frequently end up adding with a few knob turns?
it's as arbitrary as the Jazz, Rock, Country, Classical, Techno, and Trance settings on your home stereo. :-)
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PeterMc
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Re:Spectral response of "gloss"
2011/01/07 15:17:37
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Middleman
You've got your analyzer set on RMS, that is not exactly going to provide the whole story on the Gloss EQ. You need to set it to peak so if there are any other aspects to the effect, they can be revealed. Not saying you won't get a similar result, but RMS is averaging the output. I would think you would get better transient information by going to another view of the results.
Good point. There may well be more to the story than a simple RMS spectrum would reveal. The peak spectrum, however, shows a very similar behaviour, although obviously noisier. Cheers, Peter.
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PeterMc
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Re:Spectral response of "gloss"
2011/01/07 15:25:51
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bvideo
Reverse engineering gloss! How about a different "noise" profile. E.g. if the low part (below 2000) of the noise profile is changed, does the "pink" line still look the same? Or if the low part is not "noise", but a non-random frequency distribution, is the gloss still noise? Another way of asking if gloss does some kind of spectral translation other than boosting a given frequency range. Or is this a silly Q?
Bill B.
I used a song I'm recording (vocals+acoustic gtr) instead of pink noise. Although the spectrum is not as smooth as for pink noise, the effect of gloss seems to be the same. Cheers, Peter.
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bitflipper
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Re:Spectral response of "gloss"
2011/01/07 21:55:34
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Adds a smooth breath and presence to the high end without any harshness using a unique gloss filter. What? Our own bakers using marketing hype-speak? I'm shocked. Just shocked.
 All else is in doubt, so this is the truth I cling to. My Stuff
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bitman
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Re:Spectral response of "gloss"
2011/01/07 22:40:20
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bitflipper
Adds a smooth breath and presence to the high end without any harshness using a unique gloss filter.
What? Our own bakers using marketing hype-speak? I'm shocked. Just shocked.
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BlixYZ
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Re:Spectral response of "gloss"
2012/06/11 09:08:12
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I put gloss on a turd and damned if it didn't come out polished!
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yorolpal
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Re:Spectral response of "gloss"
2012/06/11 10:18:58
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So...are you saying that Cake is "glossing over" the fact there's no filter?? That's not very smooth.
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peregrine
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Re:Spectral response of "gloss"
2012/06/11 10:43:33
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Is it possible they're just adding odd and even order harmonics above 1K?
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