Airwindows

Airwindows Nodal Tempo Guide

Here’s something interesting, that’s not even a plugin. I hope it’s useful, though it’s one of the more out-there researches I’ve explored. If this works, it allows for fine-tuning of musical feel on a whole new level. Click on it for the full size jpeg, which you can save and use.

Tempo seems to show ‘nodes’ of stability and instability that are so powerful that they help define entire genres, and there’s an algorithm for how that works. I think I’ve found the algorithm (and Airwindows fan Bo Danerius helped to brainstorm and refine it, so the exactness of the result owes as much to his efforts)

I found that there were songs, of entirely different tempos, that gave a common feeling of great stability and steadiness. At the same time, there were songs that seemed to be exploding with energy, where the groove seemed to ride on this knife-edge of ultimate excitement. They fell into a pattern, an algorithm cycling through stable and maximally unstable nodes.

Looking a bit further gave me something else: exactly halfway faster than the stable point, meant a node of ultimate groove. Not just one: a whole series of tempos that seemed to burst with energy but in an accessible way. And then, starting from the stable point and exactly halfway SLOWER to the ‘edgy’ node, gave a series of tempos loaded with swagger and attitude.

So I’ve made a reference. It’s simply a jpeg: that’s all you need here. In big type is the tempos you’ll use: the first column is the chill, serene, effortless flow node. The second is the livelier groove node, with just enough energy. The third column is the edge zone, where the intensity is overwhelming and high drama. And the fourth column is the swagger zone, where it’s the relaxed flow zone but more… emphatic. So, ‘serene/flow’, ‘lively/groove’, ‘intense/edgy’, and ‘swagger/attitude’. It’s possible to derive tempos slower and faster than this reference shows: I’ll provide links to the calculators used, I just felt it becomes less useful. Super-high tempos just come off as doubletime and the slower you get, the closer the nodes become until it can’t possibly be meaningful.

That said, I know people like to go crazy over this sort of thing, so in tiny type under the big tempo numbers is the exact numbers from the algorithm, to three decimal places. If you want to really REALLY zero in on a desired effect, there you go.
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Date August 9, 2020
Author Chris
Comments 4 Comments

Spatialize Dither Redux (and ‘one more thing’)

TL;DW: Sort of airy compressed-y dither

SpatializeDither

Spatialize is one of my high-performance boutique dithers. It’s not as good as NJAD or Dark, but it’s got some neat tricks, and what it excels at is focus.

This modified dither algorithm has opinions about what ought to be randomized. Any normal dither (especially a technically correct TPDF-based one, such as PaulDither, TapeDither or NodeDither that can encompass either) has no preferences about what samples it gets. It will apply noise regardless, with perfect impartiality.

Spatialize (which I’ve also termed Contingent Dither, early in its development) isn’t like that. It says, ‘hey, this sample is exactly on a quantization value. No way am I going to mess that up, it’s staying right where it is!’. Or, it says ‘this sample is exactly between two quantization values. If I rapidly flip between adjacent values I can try to get the DAC to produce output between them. What could go wrong?’. Or, it says ‘this sample is none of the above, let’s bring in some randomness and apply dither like some normal plugin that isn’t crazy, would do’.

Or all of the above, blended…

That’s how Spatialize works. These are pretty bold things to try to do, especially the attempt to balance between two quantization values: that’s not really a reasonable thing to try, even when blended with random noise. And it pays something of a price: while Spatialize is quiet in its noise generation even without resorting to noise shaping, its behavior down around the noise floor isn’t perfectly well-behaved.

But that’s a trade-off, because by sacrificing this good behavior, Spatialize gets to be very sure that when samples hit perfectly on quantization boundaries, they’ll be accurately represented. And the bit-flippiness of the exactly-between behavior gives rise to a really strong highpassy effect that heightens treble energy. The result is a dither with a holographic, intense sonic reality to it: and it IS reality, because it comes out of this determination to honor the true values of the samples wherever possible. Spatialize is always prepared to abandon ‘appropriate’ noise floor behavior if it can nail down the sonic envelope with more ruthless accuracy.

So, if you’re into the hyper-real, high-definition sound of extreme clarity and accuracy, Spatialize might be your preferred Airwindows boutique dither. And, since it does it all with no noise shaping, there’s still an ease and naturalness to the resulting sound.

And since this is Redux, you can now have it with a switch between 24 and 16 bit operation, and the DeRez control both to monitor its noise floor behavior, and to use it for bit-crushing. It’ll be weird because of the extreme compressed quality it gets at the noise floor, but hey, another option!

Oh, one more thing…

As I said in the video, everything on my website from ten years of making AU plugins is now downloadable. When you download the ‘demo’ and open the disk image, it’ll be the full versions. (there are exceptions that I simply didn’t have on hand, mostly from around 2015 when times were hard.) If you download a .dmg (Audio Units only, Airwindows VSTs didn’t exist then) and the plugins inside don’t say ‘demo’ in the name, those are the real ones. :)

I got most of ’em. And it’s Patreon that got me this far, to where I could do this because I’ve re-released pretty nearly everything as AU/VST open source anyhow. So, now I get to give back, even more than before. Talk to ya on the Monday Q&A!

Date August 2, 2020
Author Chris
Comments No Comments

Capacitor2

TL;DW: Capacitor2 is Capacitor with extra analog modeling and mojo.

Capacitor2.zip(359k)

Didn’t see this coming!

My researches led me to a webpage by the electronics company Murata, and an observation: for a particular line of capacitors they make, namely high dielectric ceramic caps made of barium titanate, there’s a concern. The capacitance drops sharply if you put the capacitor under voltage pressure. How much? As much as 50% for a little over six volts. It’s pretty linear. Thing is, the signal is ALSO a voltage. What if it tended to modulate the cutoff? As part of analog modeling?

I have plugins, the old Lowpass and Highpass, which frequency-modulate the cutoff based on the input signal. But they did it symmetrically… what about doing it the way the real-world capacitor would do it? What would you get, in the event that other capacitors had some of this behavior? It seemed like you might get a lot of even harmonics, and people tend to like that. Why not give it a try?

And that’s how something interesting got discovered.

Capacitor2 is Capacitor, already a popular plugin, but with this analog modeling built in. There’s a ‘NonLin’ control that lets you crank up the distortedness from very minimal, to quite extreme. It’s sensitive to input level (naturally) so that’s another reason to have it on a control.

And what you get is INTENSE analog coloration, and something unexpected: it emphasizes transients and brings out the articulateness of sounds in a really distinctive way. You may not have heard anything quite like this… or if you’ve been using analog gear, maybe you’re used to hearing it. I really didn’t plan for the result I got: if real-world caps have any of this behavior, it explains a lot. Literally all that’s happening is modulating the cutoff frequency of the rather Airwindows-y Capacitor algorithm. There’s no dynamics processing in there at all, but the result is incredibly dynamic. (you can even use it to boost narrow bandpasses for effect!)

This 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. Mind you, Capacitor2 is exactly the sort of thing that would give me a really good month of sales, the kind that carries you through a whole season. And that won’t happen, because Capacitor2 is free and open source just like Capacitor was. So use it in good health. And if you want to jump on the Patreon, that’s appreciated too. :)

There are several open source projects underway adapting and porting my plugins: an LV2 project, and Rackwindows which has already brought a few plugins to VCV Rack. I hope they enjoy Capacitor2: I think it would be a hell of a good match for VCV Rack in particular, as it’s kind of like a ‘fixed filter bank’, but would adapt gracefully to CV control of its parameters (they’re all smoothed). Though, maybe for glitchy purposes it’d be good to UNsmooth them and let you run audio into the CVs!

Date July 26, 2020
Author Chris
Comments 9 Comments

Vinyl Dither Redux

TL;DW: Retro ‘groove crackle’ dither with fuller sound.

VinylDither

Today we have VinylDither, now with 24/16 bit switch and DeRez! And also a variety of previews to other new things, in the video, including an explanation of Golem for those who missed it the first time (if you did miss it, it’s like getting two plugins today).

VinylDither used to be known as Ten Nines: it’s a weird dither using techniques kind of like DSD (direct stream digital, or one-bit digital). I tuned it to spit out noise floor that resembles vinyl surface noise. It’s a little cooler-sounding than regular TPDF, and works like a normal dither (doesn’t gate, or do anything too insane). It’s so good tonally that you won’t get a very good ‘bit-crush’ effect out of it: I demonstrate it compared to regular bit crushing from DeRez itself, and also with a DC offset applied to get DeRez to gate. VinylDither doesn’t do any of that, it sounds just like the high-res only with a vinyl-style surface noise.

I’m demonstrating on the raw audio files for an upcoming sample set: I was changing bass strings on my Rick, which meant removing perfectly good Rotosounds to try out some tapewounds (which I ended up loving, by the way). So it seemed like I had better do a serious sampling session, in order for people to be able to use prog rock Rick bass sounds in their purest form. This is with a SansAmp VT Bass on the neck pickup, and a guitar amp on the bridge pickup (a Chris Squire Rick-O-Sound trick, if I’m not mistaken). When I’ve made my sample set I’ll put the raw files up on SoundCloud for if anyone wants to do their own 24/96 sample making. The demonstrations of Golem are because it’s my tool for taking a stereo track of two mics, or a mic and a DI, and summing them to mono with whatever balance or micro-delay you like: Golem is a known secret weapon tool that hit VST in 2018 and it’s good to mention again. It can be downloaded here: Golem.

I’ve also showed some of my work on the hardware club: spent some time figuring out how I can get CMOS chips and useful parts into the hands of people, so that’s moving along and I’ll probably be good and ready when I reach that Patreon goal.

If you drop by the Q&A on Monday at 11 AM EST, I can tell you about what I’ve learned lately regarding the additional secret weapon of John Bonham’s putting aluminum foil in his bass drums to ‘make them go off like cannons’. It is a real thing, but it doesn’t do that. It does something else, very well, and I’ll be using it going forward, both in my kick drum and my floor tom… so next time I find time to record rock music it’ll be sounding a hell of a lot more powerful than before. And that should be fun :)

This work is supported by Patreon. If I hit $2000 a month I start reselling CMOS chips and experimenter parts at cost to my patrons. Otherwise, I’ll just keep on keepin’ on :)

Date July 19, 2020
Author Chris
Comments 1 Comment

Chris

Airwindows Nodal Tempo Guide

Spatialize Dither Redux (and ‘one more thing’)

Capacitor2

Vinyl Dither Redux

handsewn bespoke digital audio

Kinds Of Things

The Last Year

Patreon Promo Club