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

Nigel, that's exactly how I felt when I first tried it! Note that the threshold on most of the presets are set at a whopping -24dB. Frindle said in a thread on GS that he set them high so you can immediately hear what the curves do to as you cycle through the presets, and that the threshold should be adjusted for the particular material you're affecting. I experimented more with it today.. If you want to quickly get a feel for how it works, put an eq ahead of DSM in the effect chain then watch and listen to what DSM does as you raise and lower frequency bands in the eq and adjust controls in DSM.

  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.

Sorry to bring up an old thread, but I have been demoing the DSM V2 and I have found that it will not keep my curve or settings when I save my project.

dstrenz, are you having this issue?  Are you running 32 bit or 64 bit DSM?

Thanks!

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.

I just installed the plugin the night before last so I do have the latest build as far as I am aware.

I tried the plugin in Reaper and it works correctly, but I don't use Reaper I just wanted to see if it would work.

I hope I can get this working right.

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.

Yeah, that is the version I have and it still doesn't work.

I am trying the Melda MSpectraDynamics at the moment as a substitute, but its not the same as far as I can tell.

I have emailed their tech support and am hoping they can answer me before my trial is up.

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.

dstrenz,  are you using it successfully within Sonar X2?  What host are you using?

I have heard back from tech support (very quick!) and they say it is a known bug that still affects some people.  I have tried it in a different DAW and it is working correctly, but I don't know the other DAW and only downloaded a demo to test the plugin.

I love this plugin, but I really don't want to have to load the curves each time.

Thanks!