Dear all,
we are happy to announce the immediate availability of a new patch for SpectraLayers 11, version 11.0.30.
This update introduces several improvements and issue resolutions throughout the application.
The installers are available for download from the Steinberg website and via the Steinberg Download Assistant .
For a detailed list of improvements and issue resolutions, please refer to the Release Notes.
All the best,
wonderful, thanks @Robin_Lobel !
ugh, I DLād from Steinberg Download Assistantā¦which always resets to my C Driveā¦(I DO NOT want any DLs going there!)ā¦So moved to my DLs folder and installed from there which overwrote my already installed 11.0.30 build 386 beta with 11.0.0ā¦then points me to the patch pathā¦
so instead, I went to
steinberg>support>spectralayers 11 to DL the latest patch and installed 11.0.30 build 387
but Iām probably not working with SL todayā¦
Thanks Robin!
Iām hardcore fan of youš
Go to Settings in the Download Assistent and choose the folder you want it to download to.
indeedā¦this must be done EVERY time one uses the SDA
itās not my first go aroundā¦it would be nice if the DL assistant would remember my choiceā¦nevertheless, IME it does not
hence, no need to use it! go straight to the support page folks!
Thatās very strange. I set it once and itās been good for about two years now.
Are you Windows or Mac? This sounds like access rights settings on a folder.
Thx Robin.
So I tried the VST3-Plugins and find, that they react slower than before. Itās not realtime anymore. It seems like 400ms or somewhat delay between input and result.
For instance: The Kilohertz Frequency Shifter works almost instantly in Audacity and Wavelab, but not in Spectral Layers.
Is this supposed to be this way?
Some delay was added to avoid the buffering issues you were having indeed.
That being said, most modules in SpectraLayers have a similar delay, the VST3 Effects module was mostly the exception here.
OK, I have reset SDA to my preferred locationā¦closed the applet and re-opened and the location stayedā¦letās see if I have blundered next time around 
Iām on win as it sez in my sig
again, nevertheless, I find higher efficiency navigating directly to the support pages
Hi Robin,
ok, thx. But will there be a better flawless inclusion of the plugins in a later version?
Since Audacity and Wavelab do this very satisfactory, it should be possible in Spectral Layers also.
As it is now, I consider the plugins are not very usable in SL and have to fall back to Audacity or Wavelab.
Audacity and WaveLab are not spectral editor : when you preview or apply a VST3 plugin, itās applied directly the waveform as-is. In SpectraLayers, itās applied to your spectral selection.
Hence why the computing is more complex and requires some delay - as with all modules in SpectraLayers.
Hi Robin, it also happens, when no selection is taken and only one layer from the original file is loaded.
I do not see, why it should be in principle more difficult, as other programs, even though they are not explicitly spectral applications, can do this smoothly.
From a programers point, I think each layer has itās own waveform after all. Therefore it should be in principle possible to work just with that waveform - especially, when there is only one layer in one project.
And inside the plugins, there is also spectral calculation, so I do not see a principle problem there.
(But, of course, I am not that deep inside the project to judge it. I am just a customer here, who expects the product to work as expected)
It seems, as I wrote several weeks ago, that the design of the whole codebasis of SL might be āoldā (not bad(!)) in the sense, that it becomes more and more difficult to implement new features or correct existing errors - which is not so unusual in software. Spectral Layers today is not the same product, as it was 5 or 10 years ago.
There comes the time, when the existing codebasis can not cope with the demands anymore and it has to be fundamentally rewritten.
In this case, it is not enough just to raise the delay. Maybe the complete dataflow has to be redesigned. (But as said above, I am not deep into this. (Itās almost always easier to say good things or suggest something, when not involvedā¦ definetely not meant as smart a**ing )
Not a very pleasant thought that is, for sure.
So the question here is: Will the issues with the plugins be fixed or not?
To conclude: The actual problems with the plugins are not high priority, but should be adressed sometimes.
SpectraLayers is designed first and foremost as a spectral editor with layers. It is known mostly for its spectral editing capabilities, as well as itās AI unmixing/restoration capabilities.
VST3 processing on non-spectral content is mostly a convenience function because as you said, most standard audio editors handles that pretty well, so itās not the main focus for SpectraLayers.
Regarding the delay, Iām not sure I understand why you see it as an issue for VST3 Effects but not for all the other modules in SL, which are much more important than the VST3 Effects module ?
Itās design choices here - sure there are delays with SL modules, but they allow things that no other editors do, and in the case of VST3 Effects module, that includes seeing the spectral impact of a VST3 plugin in the spectrogram in real time, and the capacity to restrict it to specific frequency ranges. At the cost of a small delay in the preview, but if itās not an issue with the other modules, why would it be for that specific module ?
If using VST3 plugins is central part of your workflow, why not use SpectraLayers as an ARA plugin within a DAW that is specifically designed to handles VST3 plugins with minimum delay, automation, etc ?
Ok, I understand this viewpoint, but do not appreciate itās conclusion. If plugins can be used, than why not use them as possible. If it is such a limitation in SL, because of its dataflow, than there should be an official marking for this. Something like: āVST3-modules can be used only with a certain delay of xyz msā or something like this.
As it is now, some plugins are just not practical to use for in SL. So, either remove this plugin feature at all (this will not happen, for sure) or fix it, so that they can be used as expected or say explicitly (which is a matter of Steinberg, I guess), that there are inherently limitations.
So in the Release Note it says: āMultiple issues with the VST 3 effects module have been resolved.ā
Ok, nice, but now, there are new limitationsā¦ like the delay.
My personal opinion here is, as always: āQuality before quantityā.
The plugin-feature (as it is today) feels like a cheap plastik add-on to a very high quality solid-metall statue.
But anyway, SL is such a great program, we look over this.
Hey @Robin_Lobel , I think the scrolling is broken for me.
In none of the modes present in preferences does the scroll work. =P
Is there something I must enable, or something? It wasnāt like this, and it works fine in Nuendo.
Can you please take a look at this?
By the way, why canāt we just choose this behavior freely?
I would die for:
scroll> vertical scroll ,
shift+scroll> horizontal scroll
ctr+scroll> horizontal zoom
ctrl+alt+scroll> vertical zoom
whatever doesnāt get in my way>3D
Please, allow us to choose how to perform each of these navigation functions, instead of having to choose from 3 pre-assembled ākitsā.
This way we can also not waste a modifier key on 3D, if we rarely use it.
Thank you very much as always!
@henrique_staino I donāt understand what you mean by scrolling
I zoom with mousewheel in the timeline/ freq lanes and sometimes lft-clk-hold the viewable area lozengeā¦and the amplitude scale for waveform display. I actually find this pretty fast for navigating.
are you scrolling with a track pad or something?
the one thing that I find is trickiest the playhead position strip in the timeline is really very small and zeroing in on that can be cumbersomeā¦altho we have already talked about that
Hey @ctreitzell !
By scrolling I mean moving the spectrogram left and right, up and down inside its anytime it has some degree of zooming in in either axis.
Thatās how I usually navigate, with the scroll wheel on one hand and shift, ctrl and alt in the other I can have quick access to all sorts of movements and zooms. I really hate the navigation bar and always avoid it whenever possible.
But yeah, using the āhandā is not a bad idea! Thatās what you got configured for left click hold, right? The only thing is that Iām always coming from Nuendoās timeline, so having to turn the switch to a different navigation system on practically the same program is quite a mind game.