Console3
Console3Demo is the latest Airwindows digital mix buss replacement. That’s right: replacement. It’s not an emulation of anything in particular, it’s not a coat of sonic paint to slap on weak digital recordings, in fact it tries its best to have NO sound of its own and none of the tones you put through it should sound any different.
So what’s the deal? Soundstage depth, sonic dimensionality, 3-D audio. That’s what. After two years of development it’s finally possible to update Airwindows Console.
If you want details on how it works, there’s a write-up on the Console2 post. You’re probably more interested in what’s new, and how it was improved.
Console3 is using the expanded word length introduced in the popular saturation plugin, PurestDrive. It does everything at ‘ludicrous resolution’, an 80 bit internal buss, and noise shapes the result to the CoreAudio buss. It was already a 64 bit internal buss. Seems people like what it sounds like when I push that even farther. Console3 is totally 80 bit resolution for its processing, like PurestDrive is.
Console3 also builds on a quality earlier Console versions had: opening out the clarity and transparency of the sound. It’s doing it through applying the Console process to audio near the Nyquist frequency. That is sample-rate dependent, so if you’re running 44.1K it might be more obvious, and if you’re at 96K or 192K you are basically ‘analogifying’ those beyond-air, ‘angels fly in the sky, I can fly twice as high, reading rainbow’ frequencies. In other words, I think at 96K you already have all the transparency and changes up there won’t be noticeable. But then I didn’t think PurestDrive was going to take off, either, so what do I know? Maybe running Console3 at 96K or 192K will be the latest in beyond-analog mix sonics.
It’s new, it’s literally everything I’ve been developing over the last couple years, it’s letting the DAW compete directly with large format analog consoles sonically instead of just trying to imitate them—and since it builds on a line of already successful plugins, there’s a lot of existing Console users who’re getting it for free. So… time to try and reach people who didn’t hear about it the first or second times around!
Console3 is $50.
Chris, this is beyond anything i have heard in the digital domain. This thing SHOULD BE integrated in every Daw. Congrats for your innovation and hard work.
Absolutely awesome, and I got it as a free update! Of course, I had to go and buy something else. We have to keep Chris fed so he can keep coding! ;-)
I forgot the name of the plugin that you can process mid-side seperatly, and than bring them back in together
Great review in Tape Op:
http://www.tapeop.com/reviews/gear/104/console-plug-ins/
Hi Chris, I am doing sound editing on existing songs,no mixing,in different file formats (mp3 etc). Which of your plugins would you recommend for this? I bought recently Adclip4 , PurestDrive , PurestGain , Console3. Please give me also advice how and where to use your plugins.Many thanks for your help and keep up the good work. Regards Udo
It depends very much on what you’re trying to do :/ Console is for mixing, ADClip is for making stuff louder. What do you need to make happen?
Hi Chris.
WOW.
Done a weekend with console3 for a friend who wants me to do it exclusively ITB.
The sound-stage of console3 reminds me a lot working with my console.
I tried before Slate VCC, also the Waves stuff on it, and always missed the sound-stage attitude.
One question is left:
On you console2 take I liked a lot that it touches lightly the transients, like with real hardware. You should integrate this in console3 and you will have a perfect summing replacement. BTW I also used channel4 on some VSTis. Its wonderful for beefing up bad sounds. Keep on the good work.
All the best for 2015 from Germany Berlin
Andreas O.
Hey Chris. I make really Sub Bass heavy music. When I tried Console3 in my session in ableton Console3 seemed to suck the life out of my sub bass?
Everything else opened up wide and sounds almost 3d like my Dangerous Dbox. Is there some sort of roll off happening? Or am I slamming Console3 too much?
Thanks again for making great plugins!
It’s about the levels: Console3 isn’t meant to directly handle mixes where one element (like sub-bass) takes up such a huge amount of the output level. If you had multiple elements making the bass it would have an easier time, or you can cheat it by turning up the sub-bass fader above unity gain. Be cautious as it will get too dynamic that way: rather than ‘slamming the buss’ it will just make loud noises, the opposite of saturating the buss.
Awesome I got it to work well by putting Console3 buss as the first plugin in the chain.
Could I use Console3 for most of the elements of a mix but dont put the Console3 buss on elements like sub bass etc? I would only use Console3 buss on things I wanted effected?
Hey Chris,
Wondering the same thing about sub bass. Is it possible to have a pre-master-2bus where I send all the channels to, and apply console3bus, and then route that to the master 2 bus and send the sub-bass there and blend? This would keep the sub-bass out of the console. I gain stage all my stuff very well so not sure if this will be a problem for me but I tend to use sub bass often which comes up a lot louder on a frequency analyzer so just incase…
Hey Chris, I just purchased Console3 and i would like to get Console2 also so can you send it to me ?
@Andreas in Germany
Could you pls explain your setup and routing of the Console3 plugins?
This may seem like a dumb question, but does this work in PT11? I see the format being AU, so does that mean I just need a AU wrapper? If that is the case, does this software work equally as well/as intended when using a wrapper?
Thanks in advance.
Chris
If you have a wrapper that can host Audio Units, that should work. It won’t go directly into Pro Tools of any version.
88k will have the intended impact ???
Chris, How can a 32 or 64 bit eq work inside Console3 at 80 bit?
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Console3 is really subtle.
I tested it with two different orchestral mockups (a mellow one and an aggressive, percussion-heavy one). I moved volume and panning into the channel inserts so there was absolutely nothing between Console3Channel, DAW summing and Console3Buss.
When I first just slotted it in the project, I could not hear any difference at all. I did a volume-matched blind test, but couldn’t tell A from B in either of the test tracks.
Then I did a second test where I ran every channel as hot as possible (with PurestGain inserts before Console3Channel). This time, I could hear a very slight difference in the aggressive track but not the mellow one. The percussion sounded slightly more compressed with Console3 in the mix.
(Just to be clear: I did try summing the waveforms out of phase to make sure the plugins were actually doing something and they certainly were.)
I wanted to try this because “soundstage depth, sonic dimensionality, 3-D audio” are important considerations in orchestral mockups, but in my case I simply cannot tell wether anything happens at all most of the time.