NodeDither
TL;DW: The testbed for the TPDF-based dithers. Flanger dither!
And just one more dither plugin before the eagerly anticipated Naturalize… (because who will care about these then?) …NodeDither, the testbed upon which PaulDither and TapeDither were developed!
I still think it’s good to have those as separate plugins (for simplicity and purity of concept) but since the concept is ‘TPDF made up of a sample of noise, and then a delayed version either normal or inverted’, how can I not give out the tool I used to find things like TapeDither? This was coded to do something that wasn’t possible: put a big delay in so there’s a ‘cancellation node’ at around 1.5K, making the noise quieter there.
Trouble was, all you get is comb filtering and no nice clear ‘quieter’ zone. That’s why I experimented and found that four samples delay (inverted) gives you TapeDither, a nice softer noise. One sample inverted gives you PaulDither (in other words, a very bright one-pole highpass). Two samples gives you a neat silky texture which is still very bright. Eight samples gives you a thing kinda like TapeDither but even darker and beginning to sound flangey… you might call it CassetteDither, or maybe ‘TapeDither for 96K’.
Call it what you like, because NodeDither lets you use all those and anything else, up to really extreme delays that give heavy, heavy comb filtering (flangeyness). You can reinforce lows rather than cancelling them through out-of-phase, and dial in dark moody dither noises that fit better with your project. You can tune the flangey note of the dither to your track. All manner of silly things can be yours with NodeDither :)
And yes, you can make your noisefloor a flanger. I’ve demonstrated in the video how to do this with automation. If people really REALLY need a flange dither, I can make one later, but Naturalize will not be delayed any longer and is due to come out this Wednesday. But hopefully the possibilities of NodeDither are worth having! Or, put it this way: if NodeDither is for you, you know who you are and you’ve probably already downloaded it and are playing with the controls and thinking of how it would affect your creations.
Because, bottom line: this is still technically correct TPDF dither. It’s just also an instrument, now. Have fun playing it :)
The concept of a standard TPDF dither that’s also an instrument was brought to you by my Patreon: if enough people get involved in this, I can live or even invest in further experiments. Airwindows Console4 only happened because I was able to study a real analog desk (an Allen & Heath) and drive it with a nice multichannel DAC (a MOTU 16A) and study the results. The more money I make, the grander the experiments can become… and of course there’s extra stuff on my YouTube channel, live streams that are only announced to my Patreon patrons. (I suppose you could just hover over the channel, or search it, but I’ll make a point of alerting the Patreon crowd when I do something like that.)
The most recent (okay, first) live stream was hacking a Xiaomi Yi action cam, and making the mic better, so there was some audio content! It also involved un-gluing the lens so it could be removed, and installing a deadcat wind sock for outdoor use. I’ll try to keep a steady flow of unusual things happening on the Airwindows youtube, though most of them cannot be announced in plugin forums. Next, hotrodding my already hotrodded Squier J-bass to add a Artec mudbucker pickup! This was inspired by Rick Laird of Mahavishnu Orchestra. Only then did I learn this was also the pickup complement favored by Cliff Burton… I’ll post to patrons when that livestream is ready, and you can see the radical things I’ve already done to the J, and hang out while I do the work :)
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