Airwindows

Channel8

TL;DW: Channel8 is Channel7 with updates from Capacitor2 and Slew3. More and better of what Channel is.

Channel8 is a subtle ‘analogifier’ that applies saturation boosts, subtle highpass filtering, and slew clipping. What that means is, there’s a ‘drive’ knob you can turn up to boost things, and you can pick three ‘flavors’ you might recognize. They’re not really the consoles associated with those things, but they are calibrated to take effect about the same way, and when you use Channel8 (on tracks, on the mix buss, wherever) you add a little ‘analog flavor’ by restricting what the audio can do, in ways that are characteristic of real analog gear’s limitations. This restricting can help make things sound bigger and more solid.

This is basically the newest evolution of Channel, which has always been one of my most popular plugins. It uses the improvements in Capacitor2 and Slew3, so basically it’s still relatively subtle, still very much Channel, but it’s taken on a new level in quality and natural tone. I’m real happy with it, and I’ll be returning to trying to fix up my video setup etc (and finishing up the dither re-releases, etc etc) knowing that I’ve dropped a nice audio bomb on the world. If you ever liked Channel, this should make you real happy.

In fact, it went so well that I’ve added it to the Airwindows Starter Kit. It’s every bit as good tone-wise as the no-controls Interstage, and much more fun :D

My work’s supported by Patreon, because Patreon is way steadier and less ‘transient’ than selling stuff retail. I’m going to underscore that only if you can afford it, should you be on the Patreon: I’ll keep working for you regardless. These are times where there is real value in us working together and taking care of each other, and I mean to do my part. :)

Date September 6, 2020
Author Chris
Comments 6 Comments

Slew3

TL;DW: Slew3 is a new approach to slew clipping meant for a more analog-like darkening effect.

Slew3.zip(344k)

A Chris’s work is never done! Or at least it’s not, when it comes to refining basic tonal building blocks that apply to many plugins. It’s just recently that I updated Capacitor with an analog behavior found (quite strikingly) in certain real-world capacitors. I’m at it again.

This makes a third Slew plugin, and every one is strikingly different. Slew (original) darkens radically and makes a grungy, clipped tone (it’s in Channel, too, very subtly). Slew2, though there are some similarities in code, acts wildly different: it produces an intense rolloff that is only right up at the Nyquist frequency, and is an elegant anti-glare solution, but barely has a tone at all.

Slew3 uses ideas from Acceleration and DeBess to produce a slew clipping that’s actually reading information beyond what the samples provide: it’s like it reconstructs the wave a bit and is most effective where you’d get intersample peaks. It’s NOT an EQ: it has very striking dynamic qualities. It’s not a pure ‘glare cutter’ like Slew2, either: there’s a limit to how much it will darken. But what it’s all about is producing an analog top-end on your digital content.

This is an experimental plugin. In development, some of my audio caused it to freak out, and it took extra time to get it to behave (I suppose I could also put out the freak-out version but for now let’s stay safe, OK?). It’s not quite linear or predictable (neither is real analog) and though I feel like it might have some very serious mojo to bring, I’m also interested in whether it dies given certain kinds of audio. I’m pretty sure I have it tamed to where it won’t do anything crazy, but is it really the silver bullet? I guess we’ll find out together.

This, like my work on Capacitor2, will be very useful going forward and there’s more work to be done. My work’s supported by Patreon, which means the more work IS likely to be done, the best I can, because Patreon is way steadier and less ‘transient’ than selling stuff retail. I’m going to underscore that only if you can afford it, should you be on the Patreon: I’ll keep working for you regardless. These are times where there is real value in us working together and taking care of each other, and I mean to do my part. :)

Date August 30, 2020
Author Chris
Comments 3 Comments

PaulDither Redux

TL;DW: Single pole highpassed TPDF dither.

PaulDither.zip(340k)

As long as we’re making Redux dithers, here’s something worth noticing, and a shout-out to a great person.

In a public Facebook discussion on dither, Paul Frindle (Sony Oxford, and the DSM 2 ‘prismatic compressor’) suggested his own preferred solution, in general terms: “The one we use most is triangular single pole high pass dither. It not freq bent enough sound odd, but is slightly less audible that flat dither. It can also be easily made by taking one sample of dither away from the previous one – this gives you the triangular PDF and the filtering in one go :-) “

The great thing about this is, we don’t have to get his code to be able to do that. In fact, I’m not: I’m using a sample of dither, storing it to be the previous one, then taking it away from the next sample of dither (which is backwards from what he suggests). However, the effect is the same: TPDF single pole high pass dither.

The coolest thing about this is, it’s actually twice as CPU efficient as normal TPDF! You store a dither sample (random generation is a pretty CPU-hungry process when done properly, and it sounds better when you don’t half-ass it) and then you use it again for the highpass! So not only is it just as good as regular TPDF, it’s cheaper to use.

Thank Paul for that, not me. (though I do have some ideas about ways to tweak it: I’ve put in a switch between 24 bit and 16 bit, and added the DeRez control)

So what do you get? Well, this is still a TPDF dither, so you get mathematically correct dither that doesn’t fluctuate in volume. The tone is brighter because it’s highpassed. That makes it a quieter bed of noise, and there’s a sort of silky, not-harsh quality to it that’s nice. I think it does affect perceptions of brightness and the tonal quality of the mix, so it’s a choice, not ‘the automatic correct option’. It’ll give a ‘sound’, and focus your attention differently, towards detail and a subtle revoicing of the track. If you mix through it, your choices will be conditioned by this way of hearing.

The original plugin is available at PaulDitherOriginal.zip: don’t try to have them both installed at the same time. Even if you renamed one of the plugins, they still have the same internal plugin ID. I think the newer one is better because you can pick 16 bit and play with the DeRez: the original has no controls and is always 24 bit.

If I was going to use just a TPDF dither, it would be this one every time, because it’s not just a TPDF dither, it’s silky and sweet and a bit quieter than the usual kind. And just as Paul told us freely what the basic concept was, so Airwindows PaulDither is free. Thanks, Paul :)

Date August 23, 2020
Author Chris
Comments 1 Comment

BrightAmbience2

TL;DW: BrightAmbience2 is more BrightAmbience with better tone and more slapbacky effects.

BrightAmbience2.zip(377k)

Hi! I’ve been real busy doing stuff like relaunching my music streaming, and have taken on so much that stuff is going all wacky, all over the place. Things I forgot: to reposition the camera window last Sunday for my plugin video, to wear my glasses this video (so I couldn’t see much and the ruts under my eyes show too much in the absence of the glasses), and to mention Patreon at all this video.

But hey… some NEW and more exciting Airwindows plugin tech! And this time it’s not a dither, this time it’s an insane reverb effect that is free AU/VST open source for you! Also, I’ve got some amazing stuff coming that builds off what I learned doing Capacitor2… but let’s talk BrightAmbience2.

This is just like BrightAmbience, except different in pretty much every detail. Techwise (skip to next paragraph if you like) it is using a totally different prime number series, ‘super-primes’ for its delay spacing, and then it’s offsetting alternately left and right delay taps to the next prime number in line, meaning that it’s a dual mono ‘ambience’ but center signals WILL get stereo spread. Also, there’s a kind of regeneration that was real tricky to do, but it means you can get a clean digital slapback, or any degree of ‘fuzzed out’ bright ambient slapback all the way to the wash of sparkly atmosphere, either subtly regenerated or cleanly gated.

Okay, but what does it do, and what does it sound like?

Super ultra bright ambience space that doesn’t get in the way. You can put it on things like drums for 80s gated verb, you can do dub-like things through using it to make a blurry slapback, but this thing is bonkers at putting Star Quality Vocal Glitter on voices. You don’t have to have it loud, and you don’t have to stretch it out so long that it feels like a reverb. That’s not the point, this is about doing that classic Lexicon thing (without, I might add, using ANY actual Lexicon sounds or algorithms) where you can fill in a bright, glossy atmosphere around the voice that makes it sound like star quality. You probably don’t want to treat it like a reverb, on a send or whatever (maybe on a vocal bus? It’ll handle split harmony vocals very elegantly since it’s dual-mono). Instead you want to use it like your lead vocals alone go into a special chamber. Might also be an inspiring thing to monitor while tracking: I sure had fun playing with it in my headphones, and if it’s on your mix while tracking you might not have to print it on the actual vocal track. Everything about it is evolved from BrightAmbience, even the algorithm that makes it.

Oh, also if you’re a coder and want to get your hands on the delay taps, it took hours of looking up and typing in specific prime numbers, as there is no such thing as a ‘list of super-primes except every other one uses the next real prime after the super-prime, making the list pan every little echo to alternate sides using inter-aural delays’. And maybe you never even thought of such a thing. But if you think you can make use of such a thing, in the .h file (for the AU, anyway) is a definition of ‘primeL[]’ and ‘primeR[]’ that you can simply copy and paste. It’s 489 total entries which will get you a half-second or more out from the dry signal, even at 96k, and you just use ‘primeL[]’ and ‘primeR[]’ to specify the delay taps you want, typically in a range (like, entries 40 to 60 will give you a little ambient blur starting at whatever ‘primeL[40]’ is, which is 1031 samples)

It’s MIT license so you only have to shout me out and you can do anything you want with it… so don’t say I never gave you nothin’ :D

Date August 16, 2020
Author Chris
Comments 5 Comments

Chris

Channel8

Slew3

PaulDither Redux

BrightAmbience2

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