Airwindows

Nonlinear Space

TL;DW: Airwindows flexible reverb plugin.

There are many reverb plugins. This one is mine. And only this plugin has the power to turn Chris from Airwindows into a tumbling tiger. Fortunately my dexterity with these claws is almost unimpaired. I can still program, and I’ll have to, because they’ve broken all my guitar strings. And I’m not even going to get into what happened to the drumheads. Please join the Patreon and help me innovate new instruments to be played by large cats. I may be the first, but the rest of you will join me once you set the nonlinearity control to -11.

Nonlinear Space is special because it’s got filter controls and acoustic space simulation in the loops: the usual allpasses and comb filters are just a little different here, designed to produce a deeper sound that’ll blend into the mix better. It’s the peak (so far) of all my efforts with reverb, it has its own sound, and it’s free Mac/Windows/Linux AU/VST!

It’s also got a nonlinearity control, which besides the easter egg polymorph duties can do two things: one, it can make louder sounds sustain longer. This is a bit tricky to set up and you’ll want to feed it with consistent loudness, but you can get that ‘sort of 80s gated’ sound if you set it just right, especially if you’re driving it from just a snare track or something sparse like that. Two, it can make louder sounds sustain less, which is the opposite. Using it that way lets you set it up as a reverb bed which doesn’t die away, but you can replace the stuff in it by overlaying more sounds. It’s the opposite of the first nonlinearity but it might come in handy for ambient purposes.

The sample rate thing really just tells it what buffer lengths to use: shorter buffers make tighter spaces. It should give a roughly consistent sound if you use the buffer corresponding to your sample rate, but then you can also be at 44.1K and set it to 96K just to have a huge stadium soundscape. Half the fun here is using it inappropriately, so I wouldn’t dream of telling you how to use Nonlinear Space: I hope it’s easy to get normal sounds with, and for everything else, just have fun.

Until I think up even wilder algorithmic reverb ideas, enjoy Nonlinear Space. (and even then… because I think it will come in handy.)

This work is supported by my Patreon, and if it stays over $900 once April has begun, I really will give you Aura (the plugin, not the Hard Vacuum control) in April. And yeah… what really happened was, the video failed. I don’t know why, but I still had the demo and the mic recording, so happy April 1st :)

Date April 1, 2018
Author Chris
Comments 8 Comments

C5RawConsole

TL;DW: The original Console5 with DC offset (and a very minimal, defeatable DC remover)

C5RawConsole

So, here’s what this is about.

Back in December of last year, I launched Console5. It had some innovations I’d come up with that got it to a height of sonic deliciousness I’d not reached before. I put it out Xmas morning… and immediately panicked and scrambled, because I’d been testing it with a sort of ‘choir’ and hadn’t thrown enough softsynths, etc. at it. And when you hit it with a intensely asymmetrical slew (how fast the waveform moves) it flipped out and began producing powerful DC voltages.

Ever since, I’ve been doing variations on Console5 (which all interoperate with each other) that avoid the problem. That same day, I rushed out a bugfix. I tried an alternate method for getting that tone, which wasn’t as good but was more resilient to DC offset. I came up with a good workaround for Console5, which watches for silences as a good place to pull back on DC, and set up the final Console5 that way. I released PurestConsole to offer a cleaner, clearer version that totally avoids the problem in the first place. I released PDConsole, because if you can’t have the original Console5 tone algorithm, why not have PurestConsole crossed with PurestDrive (which doesn’t have the DC issue)?

All the time, there were SOME sorts of audio that were fine… or mostly fine… with the original, special-toned Console5. Technically, nothing’s perfect: if you went for long enough under the original Console5, the DC would inevitably drift, unless the tones were really perfectly symmetrical. But it was a lost opportunity: the DC bug was so severe that the original version was forever lost, banished for endangering DC-coupled equipment and never to be heard again.

UNTIL NOW :D

Don’t use this Console5 version if you’re not willing to work with it and keep an eye on it. Much like the plugin DC Voltage, which simply turns the output into a fixed DC offset for signal-processing or testing purposes, C5RawConsole is capable of giving you signals that are bad for your gear. The final Console5 is very nice and automatically handles DC problems, PurestConsole can’t possibly give you DC issues, neither can PDConsole, and you can mix and match these if you like. There’s plenty of Console5 stuff out there if you just want to get some sounds and go.

But, that original algorithm captured people’s hearts. The way it handled the fabric of sound was something a little special… so now, that original Console5 lives again. The Xmas morning one, the ‘wow factor’, dangerous one. With one tiny detail added, that can make it tame if you know how to handle it.

The control ‘Centering Force’ defaults to 0.0, which is the ‘Xmas Morning’ setting. If you turn it up to maybe 0.7 or 0.8, you have the first bugfix, where the correcting force took away some bass just to make sure the problem was fixed. Cranked up, it’s a little bit like a highpass and you can use it to tighten non-bass tracks, seeing as it’s there… it’s like a free highpass, but very gentle slope. But if you keep it at 0.5 or below, Centering Force reacts so very slowly that it won’t touch your bass. I don’t think it’s really perceptible at 0.5, but you can always be even more cautious and go to 0.25 or so. At settings close to 0.0, it will take minutes to erode away any DC offset that sneaks in. And at 0.0 it’s completely defeated and there’s no centering force at all.

This is for the people who wanted that very first version back. You can couple the plugins with other, outboard DC correction filters if you like, or you can use the Centering Force (especially if you see voltages lingering anywhere in your mix, that tells you that you need to apply some). You can treat it like there’s a built-in highpass as part of the circuitry of the Console, and tune the dominance of your subs very conveniently without having to run an extra highpass (much less a multi-pole, steep-cutoff highpass). I guarantee C5RawConsole can be used for this, because it dials between the extremes nicely, from noticeable subs reduction at 1.0 to absolutely no reduction at 0.0, with a really really extreme exaggeratedly logarithmic curve making it so the middle setting is still pretty much no bass rolloff.

Patreon is how I’m able to keep working on this stuff, because it means I have the freedom to keep refining plugins as well as trying to find new things. I do find new things (such as Atmosphere, which is also a Console5 variant but with a powerful tonal color that resembles sound mixing through free air at a distance) but I also get to bring back stuff that needed some more polish.

I think this should give people a chance to play. I could’ve stuck with the final Console5, in practical terms I think that’s the one most people should use. But Airwindows people like pushing the limits, so I needed to make that possible. Now, if you use C5RawConsole and leave the centering force off, you have that untame, primitive version that came out first and was gone in mere hours in a frenzy of bugfixing. It’s what I made when testing obsessively against the ‘choir’ sounds, trying to get something special while still mourning the loss of my Mom, who sang in a choir. That’s where that first Console5 came from, and it pleases me to (with caution) bring back that original tone, and let people have access to it.

Just be careful how you apply it, and if you see voltages hanging around (on tracks or the buss), put some of the Centering Force in! We could all use some of that :)

Date March 25, 2018
Author Chris
Comments 2 Comments

OneCornerClip

TL;DW: An ultimate full-bandwidth clipper.

OneCornerClip

It’s great to patiently develop and improve subtleties like nonlinear DAW mixers and dithers and such, but now and then it’s very satisfying to just drop a bomb.

Boom ;)

OneCornerClip works like this: it’s like ADClip, except it spreads out the onset to clipping over possibly many samples. They converge upon the maximum possible output, which means the front edge of a clip takes on a continuous curve, moving its energy down into lower frequencies where the clippage is less bright and gritty, and more brutal and ballsy.

Then, on departing the clip, the waveform just snaps instantly to the next unclipped value, with no attempt to soften: so your waveshaping ends up getting one corner (on departing the clip) and one rounded onset (entering the clip).

What this means is, you can smash this with bass and it’ll remain bassy. Smash it with midrange and it’ll be middy. It shapes itself to the needs of your track, the distortion taking on the character of what you’re putting in. And that means, you can slam stuff absurdly hard through this while retaining character… and you can retain size and scale and depth.

I didn’t really design it for 2-buss mastering duties though I’m sure it’ll find some use there. It’s more a technical experiment that came to life and ate Tokyo. I think it’ll do great for nasty industrial noise, for obliterating drum room tracks, just a whole bunch of uses: because this isn’t a special purpose effect. It’s a big fat dirty distortion, and that makes it more flexible than bright gritty distortions, in that it can wear your frequency balance like a mask. It IS still distortion, so you won’t be using it for clean things. But it’s also very good at soaking up brief clips without revealing itself, so it’s not an insane choice for subtler use. I keep it at 0.618 for general use: that gets a good range of tones.

Hope you like it. I know this is going to be Xmas Morning for some folks (or whatever your equivalent would be). Enjoy the present.

This work is supported by my Patreon, and the more of that there is, the more insurance I have that I’ll keep on doing this stuff for years on end. (these days I open source new things, so me doing it sort of helps everybody). Funny I should mention insurance, I replaced my car last year when the old one died, and it turns out the insurance on the newer one (weaker, nicer, still making payments) is four times what the old junker’s insurance was. Yikes! So I am extra glad of you patrons, and it turns out I’m not quite done starving (of course, I’m also doing a lot of research, but it does mean I gotta budget carefully). And certain wild projects can’t happen as quickly as I might like. But the plugins are the core of everything, and thankfully those can go on rain or shine, snow or more snow (hey, it’s still Vermont up here) :)

Date March 18, 2018
Author Chris
Comments 11 Comments

PDConsole

TL;DW: PurestDrive and Console, sittin’ in a tree…

PDConsole

What can I even say? This is pretty much just what you’d think it is. Console5 (PurestConsole version) with a PurestDrive stage in every channel and on the buss. There’s a dedicated control for each PurestDrive, and since it’s implemented as a single plugin it saves you having to go out to the 32-bit floating point buss (not applicable to the 64-bit buss VST, in that case it saves you having to go out to that buss)

Behavior-wise, it’s a Console5 variant. You can swap in the channel or buss and exchange it for any other Console5 plugin of that type and it’ll work as intended. I should mention that I don’t really mean for these to be all mix-and-match, even though I know people will want to do that: in my opinion it’s best to find an optimal combination where the channels match and the buss is your preferred buss (maybe from the same Console variation, maybe not) and then tweaking for channel EQ etc is done using more normal tools. I’m allowing people to do the digital version of recording stuff with all different preamps in the belief that’s best, because I know it pleases some people a lot, but don’t think that you MUST make a big mix-n-match Console rig from all the different variations. It’ll be more cohesive if you use the same ones: the threads of the tapestry will match.

And if you’re using PDConsole as your preferred version, you’re going to have a really soft, lush tapestry. It’s not a big blur-and-ooze offender, but all the same it will pull everything into a smoother, more seamless zone. If you’re craving analog warmth of the recording-console type, this is probably the version of Console5 that most closely resembles an analog console built of hardware electronic parts. Other Consoles seek to deliver holographic imaging or great depth (there’s one coming later which ignores sounding like hardware, and tries to sound like acoustic sounds mixing LOUD in free air, not even a mixing desk at all). But PDConsole blatantly goes for that lush, big-console sound, smoothing and rounding stuff off in a controlled, euphonic way (without getting muddy about it).

I put out these experiments because I know that for some people out there, one will be by far the best. It won’t be the same one for everyone, but I like knowing that there will be some listeners who go ‘Yeah! This one is absolutely the one for me. I’m now all set, and my mixes sound even more like my intentions’.

This work is supported by my Patreon, which is why I’m still here doing this. I’ve got that ‘acoustic air’ Console version in the works, and other great stuff coming like OneCornerClip and Nonlinear Space, and everything that comes out now gets to be LinuxVST and immediately becomes open source. I hope we can all be excited about where this is heading. Me, I’m excited because I’ve played some more with VCV Rack, and though I have not yet been able to compile it, I do think that’s my next target for ‘porting everything’. And when I can port all of Airwindows to Rack, then I’ll be able to do some crazy virtual modular experiments to go along with my crazy real-world modular experiments. The difference being, Rack + Airwindows would be all open source and free. :)

Date March 11, 2018
Author Chris
Comments 5 Comments

Chris

Nonlinear Space

C5RawConsole

OneCornerClip

PDConsole

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