spiff user manual

1. 1. Introduction
2. 2. Quick start
3. 3. Parameters
4. 3.1. Cut and boost modes
5. 3.2. Main section
6. 3.3. Stereo section
7. 3.4. Output section
8. 3.5. Advanced section
9. 4. Frequency and reduction graph
10. 4.1. Band listen
11. 5. Toolbar
12. 5.1. Preset menu
13. 5.2. Undo/redo
14. 5.3. Comparing settings with A/B switching
15. 5.4. Help menu
16. 5.5. Configuration menu
17. 5.6. Version update checks
18. 6. Paths for presets and uninstallation
19. 6.1. macOS
20. 6.2. Windows
21. FAQ and support

1. Introduction

Thank you for choosing Spiff!

Spiff is an adaptive transient processor that cuts or boosts only the frequencies that make up the transient material, keeping the rest of the audio signal intact.

Spiff was originally designed to attenuate or remove sharp clicks, such as mouth noises on vocal recordings. These clicks can be a byproduct of excessive compression, treble boost, suboptimal microphone choice, or just an unwanted part of the performance. Spiff has been carefully tweaked to work well on vocal tracks, introducing minimal artifacts and leaving the rest of the signal intact. Because of this, it turned out to be an equally useful tool for almost any sound source.

It is recommended that you read through the manual to understand all the details about Spiff. Alternatively, you can use the integrated tutorials in the plug-in or this quick-start guide if you want to get right to it:

2. Quick start

1. When you have added Spiff to a channel with audio material, start by turning on delta, and turn up the depth a bit to hear what Spiff is reacting to.
2. Decide if you want to cut or boost this.
3. Next, adjust the sensitivity and decay controls until you have focused on the part of the transient material you want to control.
4. Use the nodes on the frequency graph to filter out the frequencies you don’t want to process or boost frequencies you want to process more.
5. Adjust the sharpness and decay lf/hf values to taste (they can often be left to default value).
6. Turn off delta monitoring and adjust depth again.
7. Bypass to hear what Spiff has added or removed and trim the output signal to match the original volume.
8. When cutting, a good rule of thumb is to place Spiff as the last insert of the channel for the smoothest results. When boosting, Spiff usually works best early in the signal chain, before any compressors, limiters, or saturators.

3. Parameters

3.1. Cut and boost modes

Spiff can be used to either cut or boost transient material. Cuts or boosts are applied only on frequency areas containing transients. If you apply Spiff to a kick drum, it won’t boost the boxy frequencies around 300 Hz unless there is transient information.

3.2. Main section

Depth determines how much processing is being applied: more depth results in bigger cuts or boosts. Spiff is input-level independent, so you can put it anywhere in your signal chain, and it will always work according to the depth value, regardless of the gain staging.

Sensitivity controls how Spiff detects transients. Higher values mean it detects more transients. Lower values mean only louder transients are detected. Easy to remember as more or less sensitive. The best way to hear what sensitivity does is first to enable the delta mode, crank up the depth and then adjust sensitivity to taste.

Decay refers to the time it takes for a cut or boost to recover to its initial level. A higher value results in a longer recovery time. When set to 0, only the very beginning of the transient is adjusted. Increasing decay applies processing to the tail after the initial transient. Values lower than 5 produce the most natural results. Higher values can be beneficial for creative uses!

Decay lf/hf (low frequency / high frequency) is used to adjust the relative difference in decay time between low and high frequencies. Lower values mean that low frequencies have a longer decay time than high frequencies. Higher values mean high frequencies take longer to recover than low frequencies. In the center, the decay time is equal across the frequency spectrum. Values lower than 5 tend to sound the most transparent.

3.3. Stereo section

When running as a stereo instance, Spiff can control the link between the two channels with these parameters.

Stereo mode determines if you control the left and right channels separately or the mid and side channels separately.

Stereo link on 100% will combine the side-chain signals and apply the same reduction for both channels. Stereo link at 0% will make Spiff act as two mono instances (dual mono).

Balance refers to the amount of processing applied between each channel. When adjusted to either extreme, the value window will change to show which channel is being processed (left only, right only, mid only, or side only). At 100/0, only the mid (or left) channel is processed. At the center position, 100/100, both channels are processed equally, and when set to 0/100, only the side (or right) channel is processed.

3.4. Output section

The output section lets you adjust the monitoring and levels. With the mix parameter, you can combine the original dry signal together with the processed one. You can, for example apply heavy processing with Spiff and then mix some dry signal back in for a more transparent result. With mix on 100%, only the processed (wet) signal gets to the output, and with 0% only the unprocessed (dry) one gets out. The mix parameter also works while the delta is enabled, blending the dry signal with the delta.

Trim is the make-up gain control for the processed signal to compensate for any changes in level that Spiff introduces. It affects only the wet part of the mix.

The delta toggle presents the difference between the wet and dry signals. This is useful for monitoring the part of the signal that Spiff is affecting. With delta, you can understand what Spiff is reacting to and adjust accordingly.

The bypass toggle is a soft bypass for quick A/B comparison without the glitches that some DAWs’ own plug-in bypass might introduce. Please note that Spiff continues to compute the output, using the bypass toggle won’t save you any processing power. To disable the plug-in, you should always deactivate it from the host.

3.5. Advanced section

Clicking the advanced bar presents you more options on how Spiff operates.

If you need more fidelity than the default configuration offers, you can add oversampling and resolution to the process. These should be reserved for the master bus or mastering applications when the sound material being processed is very complex. As a rule of thumb, the default settings are probably fine for individual tracks. You can evaluate this using the delta toggle.

Phase mode selects between linear phase and minimum phase processing. Linear phase mode is recommended for surgical cuts, especially when combined with the short window. The linear phase mode may introduce an audible pre-ring, especially if used to process low frequencies. Minimum phase mode eliminates pre-ring. This can be better for boosts and often sounds more natural but is less accurate. Minimum phase mode is also a bit heavier on the CPU.

4. Frequency and reduction graph

Spiff uses a real-time graph showing the parts of the signal being processed.

The frequencies being affected can be controlled using the sensitivity curve in the frequency graph section. Please note that this is not actually an EQ, but a weighting for the processing. You can think of it as a sidechain EQ.

Dragging a band upwards increases the amount of processing for that band and vice versa. Using the high- and lowpass filters, you can make Spiff ignore the areas above and below specific frequencies.

Spiff has five bands that let you control the sensitivity curve. You can select a band by clicking on the corresponding node. Adjust the band parameters by dragging the nodes on the graph or by using the knobs in the band section at the bottom of the graph. You can adjust the width (or q) by holding a modifier key and dragging it up/down. The modifier key is Cmd on Mac and Ctrl on Windows.

The red, yellow, and purple bands can be set to parametric, low shelf, high shelf, or tilt shelf mode. You can set the slope in decibels per octave of the lo cut and hi cut bands from the band controls shown below.

Multiple bands can be selected for editing by either dragging a box around the nodes or by holding the Shift key ⇧ while selecting nodes. You can bypass a band by double-clicking on the node or by clicking on the toggle on the left-hand side of the band controls, labeled “band 1” in the screenshot.

4.1. Band listen

Toggle the band listen button to monitor the delta signal on the frequency area that the selected band affects. Sweeping over the frequency spectrum with band listen enabled you quickly find the part of the signal you want to process. Band listen can also be momentarily enabled by holding the Alt key while dragging a node.

5. Toolbar

5.1. Preset menu

Spiff comes with a selection of factory presets. Click the current preset’s name on the toolbar to open the preset menu. There you can find an additional folder for your own presets. Clicking on a preset or using the arrow keys to navigate instantly loads it. Cancel loading a preset by clicking “Cancel” at the top of the menu. Navigate to the next and previous preset using the arrow buttons in the toolbar.

Please note that for compatibility reasons, Spiff does not reveal its presets to the host’s native preset menu in some DAWs.

Set your default starting point

If you want to use a custom preset for when you open a new instance of Spiff instead of the factory default preset, the preset menu’s “save as default” will do this. Please note that the option to load a user default preset is not present before it’s saved for the first time.

Searching presets

You can search for presets either by name or by tags. The provided factory presets have tags added to them to describe use cases to which the presets could apply. Also, the artist presets can be searched using the initials of the artist; e.g., “Nolly Getgood” can be searched by typing in “NG.”

Saving presets and adding tags

Save presets that are useful to you by opening the preset menu and clicking “Save”. This will let you choose a location and a name for the preset to save. Use the default location for the plug-in to find your presets!

You can add custom tags to your saved presets by right-clicking on the preset name and using the context menu that opens. Write the tag for the user preset in the text field where it says “add keyword” and click on add.

Grouping user presets

You can group your own presets by navigating to the default location with a file explorer and grouping the preset files into folders. These are parsed into the preset menu when the menu is opened.

5.2. Undo/redo

Undo has a predetermined number of maximum steps exclusive to both A and B states.

Note: If you’re using Logic Pro, please only use the Spiff’s undo/redo system. Using Logic’s built-in one might yield unexpected results, especially when used together with A/B states.

5.3. Comparing settings with A/B switching

On the toolbar, in the right corner, there are four buttons, as shown on the right. These buttons are from left to right:

A/B Switch, A/B Copy, Help and Configurations

You can compare two different sets of settings by clicking the A/B switch button. All changes in the settings are set for the highlighted and underscored state (a or b).

You can copy the settings in the current state to the other by clicking the A->B copy button.

5.4. Help menu

The help menu contains various useful resources and is accessed by clicking on the question mark icon in the toolbar. The different options in the menu are summarized below:

• tutorials
  Leads to a set of interactive tutorials that guide you through the plug-in features with the help of demo audio material.
• manual
  Opens this manual as a PDF file.
• shortcuts
  Displays a window containing a reference guide of all the different keyboard shortcuts supported by the user interface.
• website
  Opens the oeksound website in the default web browser.
• about
  Displays a window with information about the plug-in, including its version and format.

5.5. Configuration menu

Open the global configuration menu by clicking on the cogwheel icon at the right end of the toolbar. From this menu, different settings can be configured that affect all instances of Spiff. These settings are explained in detail next.

Display range of the reduction graph

Spiff offers three options for the reduction graph’s (in blue or red, depending on the mode) display range. This changes the range of visualizing the effective reduction between precise and large. Changing this setting sets the blue dB labels accordingly as shown in the figure on the right.

5.6. Version update checks

Spiff automatically checks for new plug-in versions in the background.

When a new version is available, an exclamation mark will be displayed on the configuration menu button. Information about a possible update is shown at the bottom of the configuration menu.

Updates are provided for good reasons, such as bug fixes and performance improvements. We always ensure that presets are backwards compatible for all Spiff versions to come. We take great care to procure that things don’t break between updates.

6. Paths for presets and uninstallation

6.1. macOS

User presets:
/Users/<username>/Documents/oeksound/spiff/Presets

Configuration file:
/Library/Application Support/oeksound/spiff/config.xml

The macOS uninstaller can be downloaded separately from our downloads page: https://oeksound.com/downloads/#uninstaller.

6.2. Windows

User presets:
C:\Users\<username>\Documents\oeksound\spiff\Presets

Configuration file:
C:\ProgramData\oeksound\spiff\config.xml

Please use the “Add or Remove Programs” -function (or similar) to uninstall Spiff.

FAQ and support

You can find our FAQ section on our website: https://oeksound.com/support

If our FAQ doesn’t answer your question, or if you find a bug, don’t hesitate to email us at: support@oeksound.com

VST is a trademark and software of Steinberg Media Technologies GmbH.