Using the Vividizer Plug-in with a DAW

INSTALLATION & LICENSING:

Simply download and install following the prompted instructions on your device. Default installation locations for plugins can be found here:

Mac Global: [Macintosh HD]/Library/Audio/Plug-Ins
Windows: C:\Program Files\Common Files\VST3

Upon first opening the plugin in a DAW of your choosing, you’ll be prompted to start a trial or activate. If you’ve purchased the plugin, you’ll have received a license code in your email along with the download link. Simply click “activate” and paste in your license key. If there are any issues here, please contact support@vivaldi3d.com.

If you’re testing the software, start a trial! You’ll have 14 days of full use.

SETUP & TUNING

Vividizer is a series of cross-talk cancellation filters based on the half-span angle of the speakers at the listening position.

You can imagine the two speakers and listener as forming a triangle: In an equilateral setup where the distance between left and right speaker is the same as the distance from either speaker and the listener, then the angle of the speakers would be 60º. To get your half-span angle, you’d simply divide that in half to get 30º.

EXAMPLES

A lot of studio monitoring situations will have stereo speakers with half-span angles anywhere from 20-35º (or higher).
A far-field listening room may have speakers from 15-30º.
A computer with symmetrical speakers to each side of the keyboard would be somewhere from 12-18º, a tablet held horizontally would be a similar range, and a soundbar several feet away could range from under 10-14º.

NOTE - Please note these are ballpark numbers, just to give you an idea of where to start looking for your own devices.

So how do you pick a filter angle?

While you could measure your stereo triangle and compute the angle, it’s actually much faster (and more accurate) to tune by ear. Simply enter tuning mode, click the L or R buttons to play noise, and move the slider until the sound is cleanly off to one side around 90º. Think of trying to get the ball of noise to sit within arms reach directly to either side. The actual perceived location varies by device based off of acoustic performance and geometry, but the target stays the same.

You only need to tune one side, whichever is more obvious to you. Once you’ve settled on a number, do some listening! You can always go back and re-tune.

NOTE - some DAWs require you to start playback to hear any sound generated from a plugin. Other DAWs, such as Premiere, may not let audio effects play noise themselves. In that case, we recommend tuning in another environment to find a suitable half-span angle first.

PLAYBACK & LISTENING

A quick note on latency

Currently, our plugin doesn’t report latency to DAWs for delay compensation. However, there is indeed a very short latency added when listening through the plug-in, under 10ms.

A quick note on buffer size

Our plugin currently requires minimum buffer sizes of 256 at 44.1/48kHz and 512 at 96kHz. If there are any clicks and pops, please increase the buffer size.

Where should Vividizer be in my signal chain?

Ideally, the plugin should be the last processing on your master bus / stereo out. If you use room correction software, more often than not you still want Vividizer after the room correction, as many softwares such as Sonarworks alter delays and levels between left and right to create a more matched signal at the listening position. If this is before Vividizer, it would ideally create a more symmetrical listening environment for Vividizer to perform in. On the other hand, if room correction is after Vividizer , it could alter the timing and phase within the filter and decrease performance. However, this is likely to vary depending on setup and software, so do feel free to experiment both ways!