CLAP
AirwindowsClap.zip(1.1M) (also on my Mediafire)
On January 24th, 2022, in a KVR forum, I stated the following: “By 2023, every Airwindows plugin will be available as CLAP natively in Linux, Windows and Mac Intel and native M1.”
I want to apologize for the last year. I got distracted by something that could have been a dream and ended up turning into a nightmare. I don’t want any I told you so’s: you don’t have all the facts and never will, and I’m a very stubborn person in some ways. I’d been leaning hard on a personal friend: it helped, but my friend died of heart complications some weeks ago (he did get to be alive and awake for an emergency helicopter ride to Dartmouth Hitchcock and I’m told he had a huge smile on his face that whole time: it had been a bucket-list thing, to ride in a helicopter). Without my friend, I could not cope with the demands of that dream I mentioned, and it turned really dark in that way you can’t come back from, and I don’t want to reveal the secrets or whys and wherefores and hope I never need to. There are some hells that should be private.
The Kalevala (in my grandmother’s translation) says, “Only I am left to sing these tales learned from riddles, snatched from the wayside, broken from the heather, torn from bushes, drawn from the waters, rubbed from blades of grass” and it may literally be true, now or tomorrow or in this next year. And I may sing the tales, and they’ll be riddles and they’ll be lies and they’ll be true, especially the ones that are lies. I’ve already begun and I will share this singing, that being all that is left of me now, as soon as I can stand to do so.
And here’s a lie: I did not keep my word above. I don’t have Linux, or Windows, and am not sure if I have both Intel and M1 Mac.
But much like in Finnish folklore, in my travels I met someone, going by ‘BaconPaul’, and it so happened that I could gift him something in the way of open source plugin code. And he and his friends used it in their Surge Synthesizer project.
And then, just casually, Paul sorta whipped up a port of my stuff to a new plugin format. For fun. Because he was ‘the-man-who-writes-new-synthesizers-and-things’, and what was impossible for me was light work for him (like in Finnish folklore). And so he weaved a Terminal spell of cmake and compile, and his magic spit out a 3.4 meg file (1.1M, zipped), and it was plugins… in CLAP format.
Which plugin? ALL OF THEM.
This is for you, those of you who can use it, for now. I think I can make it include new plugins as they come out. I don’t know if I can run it on Windows and Linux as my machines for doing those builds are air-gapped and don’t get internet access, but I might end up able to cover those bases as well. Or, I can direct you to the project and someone out there can attempt to make and share their own Windows and Linux builds for now. If it doesn’t work for you, I can get back to Paul and I’m sure it can be fixed. I don’t know how he did what he did but I can share it… and he’s also playing with doing the same thing for VCV Rack, and if that pans out I’ll get it to you as quickly as I can, and probably share some explorations with VCV Rack myself while I’m at it, as I’m no neophyte to Eurorack music-making. I can show you the ropes of that… in time.
Give me some time in my cave to heal, and I may let you in when I feel up to it, and I hope I don’t have to apologize for this upcoming year. I can do better than I have been doing. Let me know how Airwindows.clap is treating you, and we can make it grow into something worth having.
Thank you Chris! Generally I am here for the plugins and audio potpourri, but airwindows is also life lessons, motivation and progress in a sense. ClipSoftly is nice, as well as your upgraded studio! onto 2023…
Hi Chris,
I only recently discovered your work and am still finding my way around your plugins, but I want to thank you for all that you are giving us.
Maybe you dream of giving even more and that is beautiful, but don’t be too hard on yourself when that doesn’t work out as planned
Please take the time to heal, my friend.
If anybody reading this hasn’t listened to Chris’ album ‘Welcome To Free Luna’, please check out his Bandcamp. Even if it’s not your kind of music (it is mine), it sounds absolutely gorgeous!
THD
🙏 That’s both a clap and a prayer.
Sorry for your loss, thanks for the new format.
I think its kinda an advantage your velocity in your closed setup and its safe…. however..
I know from working on music and the computer the sheer amount of time required.. and perhaps friends like paul could make a github action that did the necessary stuff ( i am not aware of the minutae to get it working – but im sure could be partof your library type parts… )
however i think if you change it can be gradual or part of your release process…
perhaps you could slow down since everyone will not mind and experiment on a new machine for this to be used air gap later on.
Thank You, Chris!
Your plugins are always great!
Wish you the best!
Take care ❤
Chris, you are a FKN HELL of a guy. Love that quote, and this is a dumbfounding development IMO! Are we talking about all airwindows in rack? BaconPaul and you are truly FOSS warriors, I cant tell if I’m exaggerating or underselling it when i say stuff like this changes the world! Clearly on some level, everything does, but the scale of sound and creativity that you are opening up for people is just truly heartening.
Sorry for your loss and thank you so much for all your work Chris.
I’m having some issues running them on my MacbookPro (macOS 12.6.1). The file unzips into a folder and they don’t show up in Bitwig, with a warning message from the OS saying that the file may be corrupt or something. I also tried to unzip from command line and I got the message
“replace Airwindows.clap/.DS_Store?”
Not sure if that DS_Store file might be causing the issue?
Cheers,
Luca
Thanks for all you’ve given to the audio community! Your spirit would be appreciated even if your contributions were questionable. Thankfully for all of us out here, your work is just amazing!
Wishing you and yours all the best for 2023 and all that lies beyond!
Thanks for everything, Chris! I’m really sorry about the loss of your friend, I wish you strength through your grieving
My heart is with you Chris!!
Bernhard from Germany
Hey Chris sorry for your loss…are you OK, haven’t heard from you personally…
You are a man with a huge heart Chris❤️
You are an amazing writer with an enormous heart, Chris. We’ve never met, but I’m compelled to address you like a friend as I type this – if not just as a member of our shared community. We all love music for deeply human reasons, like the reasons that you have so humanly (and openly) shared with us. I cannot imagine the compounded heartbreak, and, without pretending everything has an explanation, I hope music is a place you can sing through that unimaginable heartbreak right now.
And just to say: if shame are at all involved in how you are grieving, I just pray that you’re being kind to yourself as you work through it. It’s your journey and, yes, you are both (1) correct and (2) in your power to say we don’t and won’t know the facts. People shame people for chasing their dreams, which sucks. But, regardless of shamers and dogmatists, dreams are what humans do, just like sleeping and breathing.
So I hope you are finding time for sleep and breath. When you are ready to return, we’ll be here. :cooge:
Hi Chris!
I’ve never commented or made myself noticed to you in any way or form. Even after years enjoing immensely your work and wisdom. Being so, in the first time that I adress you, I just like to let you know of my deep concern with your wellbeing, well aware that you are maybe in the toughest moment of your life.
I come over habit, yes. To glimpe the joy you gave me with your inventions every week of the past several months and years. Sunday night was airwindows time!
That said, now I come here everyother day in the hopes if seeing you better. From someone who also got beaten hard by life, more times than I can count, I’m sending you my love and wishes that you find the energy and grit to pursue your true path once again.
From Brazil,
Gui
Dear Chris,
You produced some more real gems in the past year or so!
Mix after mix, with many other options for virtual channel summing now, I still go back to Channel 7.
As you’ve said it only works on the summing itself – and it might not apply any colour or flavour to the mixed output, but it always seem to pull things together and tighten disparate elements in a mix with subtlety. For me, every time, it really does instantly improve a mix. It’s in my cubase template of course.
Channel 8 seems to me to have more that could be done to it, I did really like the effect I preceived using it, but just found the need to use it at zero gain restrictive for easy automation.
I think there might be more you can look at with channel sections and summing but even if you didn’t, Channel 7 is an undersung hero.
thank you, Chris!
Enjoy your studio – and new music!
In my comment above I should have said Console 7 (and Console 8) – sorry.
Just rocked up here because pop2 is kicking ass so hard. Its fascinating. what will happen when i multiband it?
You have a unique and poetic way of saying things my friend. I think that you should put some of it in a booklet and sell it. I’d buy it, when I’m not so broke that I can’t even pay attention.
Thanks!