Airwindows

Console 8

TL;DW: Console8 moves to a channel/submix/buss topology and adds analog simulation.

Yep. Told you I had stuff in the works! ;)

These are subtle things, not meant to be wildly wildly more colored and different from regular digital mix buss. It’s not like an amp sim. BUT, all the same, if you start to seriously listen to the texture and depth and how stuff communicates through Console8 relative to even Console7 much less a straight DAW mix, Console8 pretty much obliterates the rest. I made it because I needed it. I’m going to be using it, lots, and you can use it too: my plugins and digital things are free, Patreon-supported. These are tough times but that’s still working and has become all the more important to commit to.

But what makes Console8 that much better?

Ultrasonic filtering at 24k, distributed among more stages than ever before in a Console version, for extended highs (and it switches off at lower sample rates when it wouldn’t be helping, for lower CPU and more direct sound)

Distributed highpass filtering emulating real analog gear. This is a new filter that doesn’t exist anywhere else and is only part of Console8. It’s more a texture/attitude filter than a sound-shaping filter, and is quite low but its effect is strongly felt.

Distributed, gradiated treble softening across the whole mix topology. The idea is that your inputs are clean and low level, and as we go deeper into the console the levels rise as does the energy level, until the final mix buss is very powerful and pushing any electronics, transformers etc. quite hard. This gives Console8 the ability to do airy subtle sparkle and big roaring powerful energy all at the same time. It should just naturally happen through appropriate mixing. Think big, grand scale.

A new mix topology with much simpler rules for how to set it up, using six dedicated plugins in six places.

ChannelIn, SubIn, and BussIn go FIRST on your channels, submixes, and master buss.
ChannelOut, SubOut, and BussOut go LAST on your channels, submixes, and master buss.
All channels must go to a Submix with unity gain between the Out plugins and the In plugin on the submix.
All submixes must go to the Master Buss with unity gain between the Out plugins and the In plugin on the master buss.
The output of the BussOut goes directly to your converter, your file etc. and you’re done :)

I realize this is a lot to take in but in practice it should all just work and fall into place very naturally. The Out plugins all have faders, which are good to assign to midi controllers so you can adjust them with physical controls and not the mouse. I have mine working with a TX-6 :) They’re designed so that 0.5 is unity: less than that fades down to zero, and more than that gives you about 12dB of boost in each stage. That’s also true for the master buss, except it also drives into the ClipOnly2 so it gets a punchier ‘slam’ than the channels and submixes get if you push those.

It’s not really intended for ‘everything is louder than everything else’ overloudenated nonsense but will probably do that better than anything else you can have, especially if you’re trying to get a grand scale on things and not just ear-maiming grit :)

Again, ‘In’ goes first. ‘Out’ goes last. All Channels go to a Sub, all Subs go to the Buss, and you’re done. Easy to explain :)

I may or may not get back to my regular posting and/or streaming routine but I’m inspired and have more great stuff coming so it should be good. More on that when it actually comes out: you know I’m full of surprises. Please do join the Patreon if you’re sure that you can, we gotta stick together and I’ll pull my weight. Console8 should still count as ‘one plugin’ unless you really feel you should support it as if it were worth six :)

download StarterKit.zip for just the basics
download 64 Bit Windows VSTs.zip
download Signed M1/Intel Mac AUs.dmg
download Signed M1/Intel Mac VSTs.dmg
download LinuxVSTs.zip
download LinuxARMVSTs.zip for the Pi
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.

The original version, which didn’t apply the ultrasonic filtering on VSTs, is at Console8original.zip(4M)

Date June 14, 2022
Author Chris
Comments 22 Comments

GrindAmp

TL;DW: GrindAmp is a heavier amp sim for many purposes.

GrindAmp.zip(785k)

Hi! I’m back home (well, one of ’em) and though I am delayed and scrambling to get my stuff together, I am full of ideas and have a new plugin for you.

GrindAmp is a followup to FireAmp, and you’ll hear them back-to-back in the video. And where FireAmp is all about that midrange howl and rawness, GrindAmp is a different style: heavier! Thing is, you must understand how these work. They’re distortions voiced to work with guitars, into filtering and truncated, undersampled cab emulation that has dynamic processing. When I say truncated I mean it: there’s very little cabinet rumble or any over-hang beyond the immediate sound. Also, the dry/wet control both brings in dry AMP sound against the cab sim, and also dry guitar sound against the amp sim… at the same time.

So GrindAmp is every bit as much designed for a Rockman-type, extremely direct and dry tone, as it is for an amped, miked tone. It’s sort of a hybrid. Why would you ever do this? For the same reason Def Leppard used Rockmans on Hysteria: you can use this kind of tone to bring in a part without getting in the way of everything else. You can arrange with whole instruments, bringing in stuff to emphasize certain qualities. If you used FireAmp you’d be bringing in extremely raucous midrange, if you use GrindAmp you have a lot more low-end punch and the ability to push the gain a bit higher (though I think it’s at its best when you’re allowing it to be kinda percussive)

Neither of these have chorusing and delay/reverb… but hey! I’ve been putting out plugins that do that, and I bet Chamber will do the slapback thing on a guitar very well, and there’s always PocketVerbs Spring: Airwindows plugins are deeply modular and you already have literally hundreds of them so if you wanted to go full Rockman with GrindAmp (or FireAmp: more to come) then nothing’s stopping you. And they’re free, so nothing is stopping you. And they’re open source, so if you really really REALLY wanted to build them into one plugin… amazingly, you can! Or you can let me make ’em for you :)

Hope you like GrindAmp, and though things are a little scattered around here I think it is a sign of inspiration for more to come. And I’m excited to see where it leads. I’ll keep you posted, and should be able to return to my weekly plugin posting schedule, perhaps with more things snuck into the week as opportunity permits! :)

download StarterKit.zip for just the basics
download 64 Bit Windows VSTs.zip
download Signed M1/Intel Mac AUs.dmg
download Signed M1/Intel Mac VSTs.dmg
download LinuxVSTs.zip
download LinuxARMVSTs.zip for the Pi
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.

Date May 31, 2022
Author Chris
Comments 2 Comments

StereoDoubler

TL;DW: StereoDoubler is like GlitchShifter optimized for pitch shift doubling and tripling.

StereoDoubler.zip(640k)

StereoDoubler is another retro plugin I’ve had for a while, that is now available as open source and VST2 and M1 Mac and Raspberry Pi and so on. It’s using the basic concept of Glitch Shifter, so I should explain what that is first.

Glitch Shifter is my plugin for doing pitch shifting (and feedback on it, if you like) in a different way. Instead of smoothly interpolating over relatively small loops of sound to pitch shift, it works with potentially much larger loops, and searches for spots where it can seamlessly (or near-seamlessly) switch over without ever blending or blurring the sound. For that reason, it’s more up front and edgy, more personality, but it can also disconnect from the source audio in weird ways or glitch out like mad, hence the name.

StereoDoubler’s like two of those, tamed. Well, mostly tamed. It takes the source audio, and gives you a pitched-up version in one channel, a pitched-down version in the other, and lets you bring in dry for a center channel if you want. Because it’s still Glitch Shifter, it’ll give you faint ticking noises if it’s struggling to make its loops work, but it’s a lot tighter and more normal than Glitch Shifter usually is, and it’s simultaneously shifting up and down so the two sides will each have their own distinct glitch ‘personality’ while being as upfront and direct as they possibly can.

I hope you like it. Sometimes taking a wild experiment and reining it in a bit, is just the thing. StereoDoubler isn’t meant to work on every possible situation, it’s designed to be amazing when it’s in its element. Maybe your mix is its element :)

download StarterKit.zip for just the basics
download 64 Bit Windows VSTs.zip
download Signed M1/Intel Mac AUs.dmg
download Signed M1/Intel Mac VSTs.dmg
download LinuxVSTs.zip
download LinuxARMVSTs.zip for the Pi
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.

Date May 16, 2022
Author Chris
Comments 5 Comments

Evergreens: Steely Dan’s ‘Do It Again’

I think I’ve found out how to do these, so let’s get started. I’ve got a lot of ground to cover.

Evergreens asks the question: what is it about these classic hit records that makes them so amazing? I’ve spent years, decades, developing the ability to get sounds through the digital medium that still speak to a listener, but is it a waste of time if you’re not the Beatles? Are some heights reachable only by a generation of which we won’t see their like again?

Nope. You only have to know what you’re doing and why, and THAT is what Evergreens is all about.

We’re looking at great records that have stood the test of time, and while we are to some extent interested in their musical value we’re going to take a good hard look at EXACTLY what the music sounds like in its natural, original form: as released, the form that people initially responded to. We have many options: anything people openly use on react channels ought to be available. We can also do a rather interesting thing: you’ll see that a major part of this format is METERING, showing how loud the tracks were and what was happening with the peak energy (you know, what everybody limits or clips off automatically these days).

Through looking at where the peaks are distributed in the sound, the ‘cloud’ showing where they lie on a second-by-second basis, and the color which indicates the frequencies at which these peaks tend to hit, we get a literal picture of the hit record sound… which is also able to show us where the CD remasterings and loudness rebalancings went horribly wrong.

Today’s video never went horribly wrong. Steely Dan always sounds good no matter what. Even so, it’s possible to see how the still-very-good streaming service version is louder, harder-edged and doesn’t deliver the hit record sound as well as the original vinyl does. We talk a little about musical details of Do It Again, including a wild notion (on recording this I felt certain I heard three lead vocals, a triple tracking in L C and R. I’m no longer sure of this: thoughts? Is it only two? I think it may be three).

And then I’ll ask you to study the meters, as we listen through to the uninterrupted Do It Again off the original vinyl. And understand: if I captured this to a simple CD, and played it back, it would be a bit flatter but would read about the same. This is not about fetishization of the original recording materials, or a slam on digital. You ought to be able to get a charge out of this sound directly off YouTube, and that’s not only digital but low bit rate lossy compressed, yet you’ll still get a sense of what’s here. It’ll shine right through.

This is about how to get these sounds yourself, with DAWs, plugins, and the choices you make in recording, mixing and mastering. I know how to do this by now and you can too. Join me on this journey into the evergreens with Steely Dan’s first single, Do It Again <3

Date May 10, 2022
Author Chris
Comments 4 Comments

Chris

Console 8

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StereoDoubler

Evergreens: Steely Dan’s ‘Do It Again’

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