Airwindows

DeBess

TL;DW: DeBess is an improved DeEss, with perfect rejection of non-ess audio.

This should be fun! Sometimes it’s worth keeping a weird codger like me around ;) meet DeBess.

Named because, for some of you at least, it is at last The Best De Ess. Period. Ever.

…assuming certain conditions.

DeBess is an extension of my former DeEss, which itself was the high point of several earlier attempts at a special de-esser with an unusual algorithm for finding specifically ess content and rejecting anything else in that frequency range, no matter how many overtones it had. DeEss used a set of sample comparisons to try and find esses, and was very successful at this… except some folks had trouble getting it to engage, and others needed it to be more perfect at rejecting even the faintest softening of other content.

DeBess does this by extending the sample comparison window a LOT. In fact, it’s now a slider! You can set it to be even blurrier than DeEss if you like… or barely crack it open to replicate the original DeEss… or crank it up for high isolation de-essing. If you are recording on prosumer equipment or using moving-coil microphones, you might not get enough change between samples to engage DeBess. Same if you’re using high sample rates and your mics do NOT extend right up as far as the sampling lets you: DeBess is not for taking stage mics and making them lisp. It is very distinctly for taking the most high-end of vocal tracks and de-essing only the ess sounds out of them, with zero cost to anything else. Whatever you’re using, if your esses are blowing out the highest treble (which is exactly what you need a de-esser for) then it ought to work for you.

If you’re using high sample rate and struggling to get DeBess action and you’re going to be treble boosting for that ultra-bright voice sound, try brightening BEFORE DeBess and you’ll probably be able to get what you need. It wants very bright esses to work with, so it can duck and darken them. Use the filter control to shape a better EQ on your esses, rather than just trying to duck ’em.

Airwindows is supported by Patreon, so if you can afford to buy this for $50 like it was a commercial plugin, and you’d want to, then go throw $50 a year at the Patreon instead. If I’ve written another good plugin or done something else useful a year from now, you can keep it going :)

Date October 27, 2019
Author Chris
Comments 18 Comments

Monitoring (Redux)

TL;DW: Monitoring is your one-stop shop for final 2-buss work!

Monitoring.zip(419k)

Oh, hey, new camera! And I bent my glasses so they don’t blind you! (They still work for reading stuff though!)

But also… new MONITORING. So this outright replaces the previous one, ‘cos they’re basically the same, but with the following changes:

-Aurat now has mono-summed versions that come out of either the left or right speaker, so you can get a true mono grot-box single speaker mix check even if you don’t have one
-Phone’s now mono (no special single-speaker tricks, it’s more an afterthought but sure enough, you don’t normally get stereo cellphones)
-TWO new Cans algorithms, Cans C and Cans D.

Cans C is just ‘stronger, but basically still normal’, as requested. Cans D is something else again. It’s for really messing up the stereo, like when someone wanted to listen to old Beatles tracks and ‘fix’ the weird dual-mono mix (which I don’t normally approve of). But, since it uses SUCH a strong allpass stereo crossfeed, what you get has also got some characteristics of Peaks, without the exaggerations. So, if you can’t work with Peaks or find it disorienting, there’s a new ‘headphones energy redistributor’ in town and this one attacks exaggerated stereo too. Try it out and see what you think!

Patreon pays for a lot: it helps me upgrade my gear so people can take my operation more seriously. But it also leads to other stuff: not only all the livestreams, but also side-projects that can bring you new stuff in their own right. I’ve been building eurorack-module kits. I made four Radio Musics (also known as Chord Organs) and they all work great. Not only can I put out dedicated drum samples that are dithered correctly for the Radio Music (current ones are OK at rhythmic sample triggering, especially if you’re doing a backbeat that might lay behind the click anyway), but I’ll tell you now that I am going to be trying to write alternate firmware for the Chord Organ/Radio Music platform. Because they’re soooo nifty, and very affordable if you can solder up a kit. And I’m still aiming to do things with the Axoloti… so those of you who build stuff, that is your cue to take interest in the Radio Music and Axoloti if you’re not already interested.

Much like Émilie of Mutable Instruments, what I’m doing is compatible with other people running with it. So, look on it this way: if you support Airwindows so that I make some kind of amazing firmware with stuff that you could then turn around and design a faceplate for and build yourself and sell… hey, win/win as far as I’m concerned. I’ve done a lot towards trying to manufacture hardware but it’s becoming clear that I’d rather be a lighthouse: nothing would make me happier than to see my ideas out there getting used. (And since it’s all open source it keeps ya honest if you do mean to go into business on the back of my stuff: if you can, so can someone else, so be good! :) )

Talk to you later (or indeed sooner, as in ‘Monday at 11:00 AM EST’ for my Q&A stream!)

Date October 13, 2019
Author Chris
Comments 4 Comments

MoNoam

TL;DW: MoNoam gives you variations on mono, mid, and side in different channels.

MoNoam.zip(339k)

Sometimes you just want to lend a hand :)

Stuff’s a little chaotic in Airwindows-land right now. I’m trying to revamp things about my studio, since thanks to the Patreon I can upgrade some stuff like my grotty webcam (always reinvest in your business, kids! And have a real accountant so you can get the benefits of doing that!), therefore you can expect some interesting side-videos: be sure to be subscribed to the YouTube channel and notification bell yada yada, because there will be some more content that only turns up there. Stuff like how to get the Tommy Mars Electrocomp ‘synth horn’ sound without an Electrocomp, or (if all goes well) the correct way to hook up multiple Arturia Keysteps without them flaking out the whole time.

So, today’s one of those days where I just put out a plugin that maybe just helps one person. Because I can, and because sometimes it’s nice to just do that and not worry about whether the thing will be popular. So, meet MoNoam. It’s named sort of after the person who wanted something like it, and sort of after the concept ‘Mono’. Because all it does, is switch around some mid/side type things for your convenience.

You see, the new Monitoring is getting ‘Aurat’ settings that give you that but as mono coming from literally one speaker (you pick). Seemed like a good way to replicate what is literally a mono mix check speaker. But I got requests for that on straight mono audio… and on side, for that matter… and a lot of stuff I can’t put in Monitoring without it getting way complicated. The thing is, if I do a ‘massmarket’ generally useful plugin like Monitoring, part of that is me choosing to leave stuff out, and what’s left in takes on greater importance as stuff I think you should be doing. But there are always exceptions…

So, MoNoam (almost symmetrical, like a palindrome) gives you mono/mid and side (directly) in such a way that you could sum them to get the stereo back again. But it also gives you mono in either one or the other channel, to come out of only one speaker. And it gives you ‘mono-ized’ side: this will be fuller-sounding than the true side, because the true side is out of phase between channels. And you can put the mono-ized side in one or the other channel if you want. If you’re recombining things it’ll get weird, but if you just want to hear it then this is your chance. And maybe you might have tricky situations having to do with mid/side, or you’re doing odd things in Blue Cat Patchwork, or just making complicated signal routings, and need one of these options. They’re odd enough to require a lot of fiddling if you were doing them just in the DAW. Now they’re one simple plugin :)

Have fun. I don’t think this is going to be a popular plugin, but it’s nice and clean and convenient and simple. What’s not to like?

Date October 6, 2019
Author Chris
Comments 3 Comments

PurestAir

TL;DW: PurestAir is a brightness experiment.

PurestAir.zip(350k)

A while back, I got reminded of this plugin. Someone said, ‘you haven’t put this out, when are you going to?’ and I said ‘Oh, that’s right, I haven’t’.

So here you go. It’s a bit weird. Normally ‘Purest’ plugins are ultra-simple. This isn’t quite like that and I don’t remember why. It’s sort of like Air or Energy, an air-band boost or cut, but it’s also got a limiting factor where it’ll refuse to boost past a certain intensity of treble. In that way, it’s like Acceleration. Except it’s not exactly Acceleration, not exactly a slew clipper… heck, it’s not even like Air or Energy. It’s a little like a de-esser in Bizarro World? Working oppositely?

Anyway, it’s yours if you want it. There are many odd ways to do EQ code. This is clearly one of them, and it seems to be not exactly like anything else I’ve done, and it sure does crank up the extreme air band if you want that. And it’s got that clamping factor to cap it (though similarly to Acceleration, it’ll give you trouble trying to hear what’s being done). I guess check it out, and if your ears are amazing WAY up in the ultra-treble, and you also like the sound of it, you’ll probably be able to hear the action of the limiter just fine.

Me, I’m more interested in dark reverbs and deeper spaces and bass, so this was never my pet plugin: maybe it can be yours :)

Patreon is how I keep doing all this, including the bigger and more generally useful things I have in store (much like Monitoring, and yes, I still have revisions to do on Monitoring and a more intense Cans headphone-crossfeed to deliver). It also pays for vital stuff like food and firewood, and neat stuff like electronics kits. I’ve bought some, and I hope to put out some nice meditative ‘sit with me while I assemble a kit, like from Erica Synths or Music Thing Modular or Bastl’ videos. I’m also getting interested in doing some just relaxing in Minecraft, which can also be a stream: perhaps people can join me. But I’ll be getting back to the plugin-mongering, it’s a regular thing with me as you know :)

Date September 29, 2019
Author Chris
Comments 7 Comments

Chris

DeBess

Monitoring (Redux)

MoNoam

PurestAir

handsewn bespoke digital audio

Kinds Of Things

The Last Year

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