JAX Stereo Tool (AU)2.4 - App Store

JAX Stereo Tool is a visual Audio Unit plugin for manipulating the stereo image of digital audio. The distribution app comes with an embedded plug-in (Audio Unit) that is available system-wide when you install the app. You should be able to use it with most supporting host applications.

Audio Units are Apple's recommended method for providing shared audio effects for applications and audio editors. You can load the plugin into any host application that supports at least stereophonic audio effect plug-ins (in Audio Unit format - AUv3) with its own user interface.

JAX Stereo Tool has its main use as a mastering effect, that allows you to modify the stereo image of your audio by narrowing or widening it in a controlled manner. That is, the stereo output can be continuously adjusted in the basic function of pure mono to very wide stereo. This happens in real time and you can observe the result with the integrated correlograph, controlling and optimizing the audio thanks to this helpful additional visual information.

One of the special functions of JAX Stereo Toolis to recover lost mono-compatibility. This technique is conceptually quite simple and effective but somewhat difficult to understand. Please read the manual for further details.

The manual is shipped with the app or available on the product website at https://audio.digitster.com

Version History Maintenance Update 2.4

- this legacy project was recompiled for supporting latest frameworks and devices (including Mac Silicon and Apple Vision Pro)
- some legacy issues were fixed

- removed MIDI connectivity (for main app)
- removed Bluetooth functions (for main app)

- touch behavior was slightly changed (audio unit)
(zoom/pinch, moving/pan and reset/double-tap require consequently 2 fingers now)

note: This app is still supported but we recommend to use 
JAX 3Stereo now (multi-band processing, which also supports the classic all-pass mode).

JAX 3Stereo will get updated/upgraded regularly. 2.4 07/25/2024 2.3 (third maintenance update)

IMPORTANT: the type of the audio unit has been changed to provide MIDI support ('aumf'). existing projects possibly must be updated to access the new AU type.

A: ui improvements

- the user interface was completely reworked to provide much better contrast adjustment and readability and to fix some glitches with zooming and moving. the main controls now additionally give visual feedback, if tapped.

B: the contrast overlay controls can be hidden/revoked by a one finger long press gesture

- sometimes the ui moved around while adjusting the contrast with the slider. we fixed this.

C: AUM parameters

- the parameters are now specially exposed to the the AUM host app. the publishing of the main parameter (stereo width) disappeared therefore, because of the AUM MIDI type menu.
D: MIDI parameters

- the type of the audio unit was changed to support MIDI automation directly. the parameters stereo width, panorama and also volume can be automated with the standard continuous MIDI controllers 11, 10 and 7 now. The distribution app therefore got some new buttons to establish MIDI connectivity.

E: parameter interpolation

- users possibly want to dynamically automate volume, stereo width and panorama. so we implemented parameter smoothing for these realtime parameters to prevent zipper noise with automation. Especially MIDI automation requires parameter ramping, because MIDI values are usually quantized to merely 128 raw values per controller.

- note: some parameters (sample offset and all switches) are not thought for realtime automation and still may produce clicks or zipper noise when tweaked. this lies in nature of things and would require too much effort and advanced techniques to fade between states, which is not the purpose of this audio unit.

F: new bezier mode

- the correlograph can be toggled between points cloud and bezier mode. the bezier mode requires much more performance. so it is tagged as "experimental". while latest Apple devices should have enough power to run it, some older devices probably will make the UI stuck, while it is on. it was not even easy to get the points cloud to perform acceptably.

- if you do not use the graphs permanently, we recommend to switch it off, as this significantly improves entire graphics performance and reduces CPU usage.
G: the phase shift display was fixed to reflect the correct sample offset count and corresponding milliseconds value dependent of the current active samplerate.

H: the graph is now always proportionally resized with the plugins interface. the previous sizing was independent of the main ui, confusing some users. 2.3 08/15/2019 2.2 (second maintenance update)

this update fixes mainly functional issues with the Audio Unit programming interface.

A. exposing AU parameters

we implemented an extra function to (additionally) expose parameters to the hosts.
notes: there were issues reported with some host applications, not exposing our audio unit parameters at all.
this is quite strange due to the fact, that any audio unit per default implements a so-called 'parameter tree', that can (and
actually also *must*) be iterated by a host app to receive all that parameters of a loaded audio unit.

our units did and * still do * implement this parameter tree. the distribution app even uses this internally,
because this app is basically a minimal Audio Unit host, nothing more and nothing less, working with that
... bespoken parameter tree.

So basically, we do not understand, why some hosts are not able to just expose our published audio unit parameters (!?)
However, we now use an additional interface function to expose some main parameters to the host application with this release.
AUM for instance exposes the "main parameter" of the unit successfully, but on the other side, FAILS to list our parameter tree !?
that is absolutely un-logical and must be an issue in AUM.

B. AU parameter automation (which by the way, depends heavily on the parameter tree above)

parameter automation should now be possible. there was a missing link, that prevented our units to receive parameters
from the host inside the rendering block. this usually happens, if the hosts do so-called "parameter automation".
Although, many different host applications do implement this feature obviously differently and as long this is the case,
we cannot guarantee the functionality of our plugins with these hosts right now.

but: we tested the new parameter automation with cubasis successfully!
all parameters were recorded and also shown with their correct names from the parameter tree!
play back with parameter automation actually was showing moving (remoting) the controls as expected.

c. continuing removing IAA

Apple has deprecated this technology and we will support this actively.
our plugins may still be listed as IAA but we advice you to no longer build on that. Please use the included audio units.

D. removed the internal frame of the user interface

some users did not understand the pure sexiness of a gray frame around the center of our plugins. so we removed it.
you can be sure, that it won't come back ever. it feels offended now by you! ^^

E. added 'reset' buttons

the parameters 'panorama' and 'stereo width' got a small reset button. this was a user request. if pressed, the parameter will be reset to defaults.

F: the integrated web browser (product page) 'does not work?"

some users reported issues with the integrated web browser of our distribution apps (the 'help' button).
please note, that any external links (as opening an email client) or any popup links inside the pages are just
not allowed to open within the app. (also not your favorite porn sites b.t.w. ^^)

however, this may give the the wrong impression, that these links are defect. no, it is an internal restriction that is
required for some reason. users always can go to our product pages with any external web browser like Safari or such. 2.2 07/27/2019 2.1 (first maintenance update)

this is the first update after the initial release and applies mainly 'cosmetic' corrections and usability fixes.

A. we improved several things with the touchscreen behavior.

- the internal view is now movable with one finger as long no control is touched.
- sizing is done with common 2-finger pinch2zoom.
- resetting the view to default size will be performed if a double touch with 2 fingers occurs.

note: our audio unit plugins are self-resizing to fit virtually any host-provided container size.
the views also can be freely resized and moved inside. multi touches for controls are not supported therefore.
the view positions are not saved to user defaults for certain inter-operational reasons.

B. there was an internal compiler switch preventing to perform the "recover" and "test mono compatibility" modi.
we corrected this, it is now working as expected.

C. the contrast of the screen center can now be adjusted freely.

D. the emphasized color was changed from rather cold standard yellow to a more friendly orange.

E. the manual and the website resources were updated to reflect the changes, web links were actualized, a support link is available.

F. we will now remove successively all dependencies to IAA technology from our distribution apps.
eventually announced IAA features are invalid hereby.
despite the fact that IAA never really was a real user experience than more a hack with loads of problems and distraction,
Apple has marked this 'technology' as deprecated now. the future are audio units and we will build entirely on this new(er) technology. 2.1 07/24/2019 2.0 07/23/2019