ZRegion2 (and ZRegion)
TL;DW: ZRegion2 is an Emu e6400 style Airwindows Region filter, with coefficient smoothing.
ZRegion2.zip(667k)
ZRegion.zip(657k)
Here’s one I might be needing in future, so I’m putting it out for everybody to have!
The Airwindows Z series filters are kinds of digital filtering, with sampler hardware emulation put on ’em for added color and vividness, plus a staggering capacity for gain (folks using the original samplers often internally distorted sound with gain boosts in order to get maximum color out of the Emu filters).
But what if there’s a filter type that didn’t even exist on the original device?
ZRegion is that filter. The original Airwindows Region wasn’t written in the context of an Emu Z emulation, more like just experimentation. It uses the cascading filter stages and distortions in an interesting way: you’re using bandpass filters and distorting them, but Region lets you stagger the bandpass frequencies so that you’re successively distorting through series of different filters. A bit hard to explain, but it lets you distort on midrangey frequencies and soften into the bass, or start out with bass clipping and then exaggerate that effect with higher frequencies.
The reason I might be needing this one is, I can get pretty killer bass tones using it. I’ll set the first filter higher for midrange articulation, set the last filter very low for heavy bass mojo, and it’s instantly a bass-amp type of sound. And if I intend to leave the setting as a fixed setting, ZRegion will give me that with the same flavor as my other Z filters.
But if I want to automate or move the controls as part of the mix…
ZRegion2 comes out at the same time as ZRegion, but note that I’m still putting out ZRegion. This is because ZRegion will always run at lower CPU than ZRegion2, because the first plugin doesn’t do coefficient smoothing. It’s for if you have a fixed tone setting to use, OR if you want to have a slight glitchy/zipper-noise quality on some audio and you’re moving the controls.
If you’re going for automation, the Z2 filters are the ones that interpolate the coefficients across the sample buffer, meaning they’ll make control changes smooth. No crackling! This eats more CPU, but a lot of the fun with these filters comes from actively manipulating them. The original sampler never had a Region filter type, but now you can make believe it did, and produce aggressive and textural bandpass-y effects across a broader range than the original sampler’s ZBandpass. Hope you like it!
download StarterKit.zip for just the basics
download 64 Bit Windows VSTs.zip
download Signed M1/Intel Mac AUs.dmg
download Signed M1/Intel Mac VSTs.dmg
download LinuxVSTs.zip
download LinuxARMVSTs.zip for the Pi
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.
oiiiiiiiiiiiii. Xregion and zlowpass2 are my favourites. Will try those zregions sooner or later. Thank you Chris.
Great opinion, Foco! XRegion and ZLowpass2 are my most used AW filters as well, with XLowpass and ZHighpass coming next. Played with ZRegion2 today and its fantastic! Easily as useful as Xregion, and I think it will replace my usage of ZHighpass in a lot of situations so i can get more nuanced control over what little window of highs im dirtying up
ooooooh smoooth
Thank you Master!