The Master Rank function may be crude compared to the newer method of harmonic selection but in general its very fast to use and it works well for lifting instruments from low quality vintage recordings.
Newer method takes several times longer attempting to find a coherant set of harmonics on old recordings and at best seems hit and miss whatever settings are used. It works well for higher quality modern recordings.
Request for Spectralayers 12 - Have the new harmonic selection function by default but allow in preferances to select Master Rank as an option.
For what I do, Master Rank is the single most important feature. Upgrading to version 12 unfortunately is not an option.
4 Likes
I do agree with this
the one new standout feature in SLP12 that was an improvement IMO was the added ability to back-track a bit when actually selecting with freq/ harm selection tool
that said, in my typical workflow in dialog editing NR, I usually want to remove/ reduce unwanteds in the unmixed noise layer after running Unmix Noisy Speech. In that event, I make a rectangular selection (or composite additive selection) and then carve out the wanted speech using a combo of magic wand and selection brush. I just find the harmonic selection tool goes off into areas that don’t match up to the transforms I’m seeing…and after months of using both methods (harm selection or not), I find not using the harmonic selection tool is more efficient for my purposes. I don’t work on music very often, certainly not for unmixing, more for NR reasons.
That said, I fully agree: if I want to set the rank manually, please let me do so. Automated tools are certainly very helpful, yet sometimes manual work is more effective.
SLP12 has many improvements over SLP11…I spoke out against 12 early on, then I got used to using 12 and definitely prefer v12 to v11. Sure, some improvements have proved a hinderance and losing control over Master Rank setting is one of the hinderances IME.
Shall we tag @Robin_Lobel 
3 Likes
Yeah, I fully agree!
I still think Robin should implement what I had suggested for an update in harmonics selecion:
This tool should allow me to tweak the parameters after you make the selection. Like, I select a frequency and then adjust master rank, number of harmonics, width, and SL updates the selection accordingly, untill I find the best settings. For me this would be flawless.
4 Likes
hmmm, you could set the harmonic number more than you want and then use subtractive mode tools as a workaround (that’s usually how I do it; but again, I mainly run NR on human talking; not music)
but, additive tools are a challenge, especially in hi freqs