Monitoring2
TL;DW: Monitoring2 is Monitoring, but with Airwindows Dark instead of NJAD.
Here’s a little update for users of Monitoring! Monitoring is the end-of-2-buss plugin that allows you to check your mix in lots of different ways. You can get 24 or 16 bit output out of it (as in, direct to CD format for saving as 16 bit), lots of reference sounds like SubsOnly, SlewOnly, PeaksOnly that will let you hear your mix in a very different way (if it’s way out of balance when you can only hear the deepest subs, or the brightest highs, you can re-adjust things.) PeaksOnly shows you a fake and unnatural sound that will enhance the inaudible peak energy and highlight anything that might be too loud because it’s heavy on peak energy. You’ve got four variations on Cans for headphone mixing (which gives you crossfeed in the form of allpassed, blurred audio a bit like what PeaksOnly does), you’ve got mono and side checks, narrowed-bandwidth checks like Aurat (including one-side mono versions to more closely resemble use of a real mono mix-check speaker) and even utilities like VoiceTrick, which gives you mono with one speaker out of phase: position a mic exactly between the speakers and you can lay vocal tracks without headphones if you need to (not perfect, but it should work).
In short, Monitoring, but with one little change. Everything is the same, but now Monitoring2 uses Airwindows Dark for the wordlength reducer. This is different from the original Not Just Another Dither, in that it will give you deeper blacks in your silences and darker, warmer tones than the original NJAD would do. Dark is not really a dither: it makes its choices (for wordlength reducing) based only on what will create less hiss, noise and highs in the final output. This won’t be right for everybody, and is subtle no matter who you are, but it might be just the thing if you have a retro aesthetic, are into the whole cassette-release scene, or just want to produce music that sounds as unlike the modern DAW scene as you can get.
download 64 Bit Windows VSTs.zip
download Signed M1/Intel Mac AUs.dmg
download Signed M1/Intel Mac VSTs.dmg
download LinuxVSTs.zip
download Retro 32 Bit Windows VSTs.zip
download Retro PPC/32/64 Mac AUs.zip
download Retro PPC/32/64 Mac VSTs.zip
Mediafire Backup of all downloads
All this is free and open source under the MIT license, brought to you by my Patreon.
Recently started using your plugins and love them.
Just tried out the Monitoring2 but the VoiceTrick setting doesn’t seem to work for me? The dedicated VoiceTrick plugin that I downloaded from your site works great, but I don’t get the same result from the VoiceTrick setting in Monitoring2, Maybe I am doing something wrong?
@Paul It has now been re-uploaded with the VoiceTrick bug fixed!!!
I’ve mostly tested my mixes by listening in mono but this sounds like a simple and low-CPU plugin with which to graduate to the next level! I also wanted to say what a wonderful human being you are Chris for sharing all these plugins with us. Friendly-minded projects like Airwindows make the world better :) :) :)
I was wondering ,what would be the result by adding TPDF noise with one of your smart truncation tools like “Dark” or “NJAD”? That would be completely wrong…Right? ;)
Which of the dozens of Windows 64 bit VSTs would give me headphones crossfeed? That is the only function I’m interested in.
@Michael: You’re looking for Monitoring, probably the original. I use Monitoring on the “Cans B” setting (for what I hear as the most realistic crossfeed setting,) along with Toneboosters Morphit for wonderful results.