Airwindows

UltrasonX

TL;DW: UltrasonX is a method for rolling your own Console-type systems with total control over your ultrasonic filtering.

UltrasonX.zip(588k)

A little while back, I made a simpler ‘Ultrasonic’ filter, with the intention of making a lighter-weight utility that could be used where Ultrasonic might go. The idea was, Ultrasonic (which is already available) was too heavy: it uses five stages of biquad filtering and I thought doing the same thing with just one or two stages would be better.

Turns out you can do that, but if you stack them up you start losing the super-highs. The one or two-stage versions weren’t steep enough: didn’t bring out the super highs close enough to the ultrasonic zone. But, the five stage version is still just too much processing to put all over the mix. What do?

UltrasonX solves this problem (that maybe nobody but me had :) ).

This is a plugin that does any one of the five stages in Ultrasonic, one at a time. It’s got settings for A, B, C, D and E stages. Each of these are a carefully calibrated resonance value, that add up to nice and flat and clear all the way up to the supersonic region.

Console7Cascade does something like this, internally, and gets a particular tone because its ‘more resonant A stage filter) is before distortion, and the softer unresonant filters that compensate for this are after the distortions.

But here’s the thing: if you want to make a Console topology where the channels aren’t overly brightening, but you’re feeding a submix buss that is more crunchy and shouldn’t be hit too hard, you can do that too. This is likely going to end up my problem but now you can experiment!

To do that, construct a Console system, using an earlier Console or PurestConsole (the original) and see to it that there are exactly five instances of UltrasonX in each signal path. Maybe two on each channel, two on the submix, one on the 2-buss! Or, one on each channel before hitting the PurestConsoleChannel, one on the 2-buss before the PurestConsoleBuss, and then three more sprinkled between your 2-buss processing. And any of these can be the ‘pre-brightening’ or ‘complementary darkening’ ones, meaning you could have the brightness boost after summing for a bit of air in between your instruments, or early on for softening saturation and adding glue.

Or, you could use it anywhere, or on one single channel (that didn’t have ultrasonic filtering) as long as you’ve got room to fit five individual filter plugins. Bottom line is, if your audio goes through ABCDE and comes out the other end, it should be correct. The rest is up to you :)

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.

Date January 9, 2022
Author Chris
Comments 3 Comments

ZNotch2

TL;DW: ZNotch2 acts more like the Emu e6400 Ultra phaser in motion, with coefficient interpolation.

ZNotch2.zip(618k)

This completes the reboot of my original Z-style filters! These are all based on study of a real hardware Emu e6400 sampler. (If my Patreon does well, I’ll be able to study more interesting hardware gear like I did this one). ZNotch is based on the ‘phaser’ settings, and ZNotch2 brings the coefficient interpolation people longed to have in this filter.

Bear in mind, ZNotch also has its place. It’s meant to sound exactly the same (I may possibly have improved the tone a tiny bit with ZNotch2, not sure of that) but the original ZNotch does NOT have coefficient smoothing. That means it started out less than the real hardware filter, ‘not as good yet’, BUT if you’re not modulating the controls, you can get the same tone with a lot less CPU by choosing the Z filter that is not the 2 version. The originals will use less CPU because they’re not recalculating so much every sample, and that means you should probably have both installed if you like this type of filter. I demonstrate ZNotch2 on an electronic kick drum to great effect, and there’s nothing I’m doing there which I couldn’t do with the original ZNotch at lower CPU cost.

That said, this one will move more fluidly, and the ‘Phaser’ sound is very special in motion! I hope you like it. We’re starting 2022 with the full DnB arsenal available ITB: Mackity, MackEQ, and the Z-style filters! I hope people have a lot of fun with this.

You can also have fun hanging out on my new Twitch :D https://www.twitch.tv/airwindows which is where I got my music today! I’ve got it set up so that I can talk to chat without it going to my recording, so it’s a very good way for me to get back into making new music (heavily techno influenced, but with all sorts of things going on) and also answering questions. I’ll be streaming most afternoons, as early as noon EST, ending as late as 6 in the evening, more typically an hour or so. Please drop by! For the time being I’m also streaming to YouTube, because I’m far from the threshold where Twitch would tell me to stop that, but Twitch’s probably the best place to do it, and the more people show up, the more likely Twitch will end up letting me be visible in ‘Browse’ (techno music streams). So if you can pick one, go for the Twitch and we’ll see where this goes :)

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.

Date January 2, 2022
Author Chris
Comments 2 Comments

Pressure5

TL;DW: Pressure5 expands Pressure4 with after-boost and built-in ClipOnly2.

Pressure5.zip(616k)

Yup! It’s here. Happy solstice, and welcome to Pressure5 :)

This plugin builds on 2017’s Pressure4 in numerous ways. I made it for my own use: I was mixing an album in Console7 that had to follow a previous album I’d mixed on an analog board, and I needed extensive 2-buss management and the ability to deliver a final output and control mix density across a lot of parameters measured by a meter I’ve invented (which isn’t available, it’s just for my personal use and doesn’t work properly in a releasable way). And now Pressure5 is out and you can have it!

Pressure is a compressor with some unusual controls: there’s a ‘mewiness’ control that manages the way the ratio engages. You can dial in the intensity with which it ‘dynamic inverts’ and super-squishes the audio. It’s got a very wide speed range that can go real fast for a dense, distorted sort of sound, and it’s now got an additional control that nobody else has: ‘PawClaw’. This manages the way ‘mewiness’ handles transients, the intent being to extra-squish the spiky transients on ‘Paw’ or to let them through more on ‘Claw’. It’s very subtle, but it’s there to tailor the way stuff hits the compression in an entirely unique way. I don’t think anything else has a ‘PawClaw’ control, but now you have one :)

It’s free. All this is open source and funded by my Patreon. I’m redirecting that to a more patron-numbers-oriented model and I’ve got a set of new goals for 2022 and beyond, that have to do with where I go once I do Console8: very big console emulation goals based on replicating the sound signatures of some very significant, quite unattainable consoles. Or, you can simply use Pressure5 with my blessing: the rest of what I do is all about bringing people the tools to make music (in tandem with other open source tools) freely and without inhibition. What you know and understand can be the only limit (granted, that can be a big challenge in its own right!)

The other part of Pressure5 is the output stage: Pressure5’s output control has the capacity to boost, into a built-in ClipOnly2. So it’s got that chunky, non-edgy hard clipping drive, that works at all sample rates, as part of the plugin. I intend Pressure5 to be used as a final buss comp/clip stage letting you dial in whatever you need, and then just taking the output and dithering it and being done. If you don’t want to go direct to final release, pad the output control so you’re not clipping anymore and ClipOnly2 will bypass itself like it’s not even there, serving as only a safety clipper.

I hope you like Pressure5 as much as I do. It’s built into the system I’m using as I start up music livestreaming again in 2022, and it’s been on everything I’ve done for months now. And it’s yours, too. :)

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.

Date December 25, 2021
Author Chris
Comments 5 Comments

ZBandpass2

TL;DW: ZBandpass2 acts more like the Emu e6400 Ultra bandpass in motion, with coefficient interpolation.

ZBandpass2.zip(618k)

ZBandpass2 is the followup that adds coefficient interpolation to my Z-Plane Filter emulation. Which of course is not to say that I had the code, or took apart the machine and cloned the schematic: no, these plugins are about running a reference sound into the real live Emu e6400 Ultra sampler, and smashing the crud out of it to get the most out of the filters and their distinct color and behavior, and then trying to mimic that in a plugin purely by ear.

The original Airwindows Z filters run more efficiently because they’re not asked to do as much: they have the same tone but aren’t trying to smooth zipper noise and interpolate, so if you need fixed filter settings don’t overlook those. However, half the fun of a real live sampler is to get funky with it, and so ZBandpass2 follows ZLowpass2 in adding the smoothing to everything, so you can automate whatever you like. Remember it’s set up to have lots of distortion and gain on tap, keep the input and output real low if you’re not just trying to melt the thing down (0.1 will give you basically unity gain, and the output will let you pad things a whole lot if you need to)

Getting close to the end of the year! I’m excited for 2022: it’s going to be a lot better than 2020 or 2021, in a lot of ways. Looking forward to seeing you there! :)

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.

Date December 19, 2021
Author Chris
Comments 1 Comment

Chris

UltrasonX

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