Airwindows

PurestEcho

TL;DW: Optimized Airwindows echo with a twist!

Here’s a nice little addition to the Purest line of Airwindows plugins (minimal, stripped down, extremely deep and rich tone in simple and uncompromised ways).

PurestEcho gives you four echoes, sample-averaged to deliver extremely precise timing, each with its own tap. That means you can use it as a delay line and set up discrete echoes which then stop completely: no feedback, only a series of trailing echoes which then get out of the way and don’t mud up your mix. Or you can use it for just a single slapback (use the last, for the longest delay time). Or, you can set up odd effects like increasing volume slapbacks, or use of only certain taps.

Or, you can get a tone that’s part of the 90s: turn all the delay taps on full and then set the delay time really short. You’ll find there’s a tightly controlled pipe-like honk that emphasizes a musical tone… sort of a Dalek-like robot-like thing… and you can play this using the slider. Note: this slider is NOT smoothed, because it’s smashing the buffer anyway, but more importantly if you’re programming in a bassline using this effect you’d need it to abruptly switch frequencies. So think of it as something you’d play via control automation, not so much through live entry on the slider.

Between that and the ability to throw a big rich echo that fakes ‘feedback’ but then gets right out of the way, I think PurestEcho will find its way into peoples’ workflows. I hope you like it :)

My work’s paid for via Patreon, which is going nicely: if I reach the $700 mark, which could happen even this month, in upcoming months I’ll not only release the next ‘greatest hit’ (ToTape is up next!), but I’ll also pick one from the bottom of the list that’s less (in total sales) than what the Patreon is at. By definition that immediately makes plugins like StarChild, Golem, PurestWarm, and PocketVerbs possible, plus some favorites of my own like ElectroHat. (there’s another Patreon goal where I’m still releasing stuff from the bottom of the list, but it’s YOU guys picking it :) at that point, Aura and OneCornerClip will be within reach…)

I’ll get to work on the latest ToTape, and if all goes well I will have another little nifty plug next week while I work on ToTape. Thank you for being there for me! :)

Date June 11, 2017
Author Chris
Comments 4 Comments

BussColors 4

TL;DW: The Airwindows console emulations, now working up to 192K correctly.

BussColors4

I’m very pleased to bring you the latest version of BussColors :)

This plugin’s a pretty huge deal: it’s been around since before console emulations were a thing, and I’ve been steadily working on it year after year. There’s not been much to do: my original algorithms, once I moved past the earliest incarnation as the ‘Character’ plugins, were so solid that it left little to do. BussColors has sold $22,445 of plugins over the years, as Audio Units alone, in spite of the fact that it has always been a 44.1K plug (due to being based on a convolution model).

The story there is, a guy at NoiseVault always wanted someone to make a plugin which used his sets of hardware convolution kernels, which he’d done at all different levels. Sort of the Nebula thing (Giancarlo has been a great help when I was getting the VST thing going, check out Nebula)

I’m not that. I’m Chris from Airwindows… so I set out to make my own version of this sort of thing, with hardcoded algorithms generated on-the-fly, as raw and close to the metal as I could get it. And I got some pretty respectable CPU efficiency with all of the tone quality I wanted, limited to 44.1K.

UNTIL NOW :)

Try it. BussColors4 is the newest version of BussColors, and it works at any sample rate and gets you the same sound. Better, in fact: I like what it does a lot better at 96K and 192K. It also doesn’t greatly expand processing and CPU hit at higher sample rates. I think this one’s a real highlight of the Airwindows arsenal. It would definitely be worth your $50, like its predecessors (well, I always did give existing BussColors users free updates for life, I mean for new buyers). Feel free to shoot it out against the most expensive and/or CPU-hungry options and I think it will clobber all comers.

And since it’s a Patreon supported plugin, it is AU and Mac/PC VST, and it is free. Now, if you LIKE me bringing the industry tools like this to use, you might find it in your best interest to throw me a buck a month using the Patreon so I continue to make and upgrade these plugins. BussColors didn’t used to be ‘all sample rates’, until I worked out how to do it properly, and now it is. I think if you look at the stuff I’ve done, and the stuff I’m preparing to do, you’ll see the point of supporting the Patreon.

It’s a long video. Feel free to just download and start using the plugin, and I hope you like it. :)

Date June 4, 2017
Author Chris
Comments 33 Comments

Iron Oxide Classic

TL;DW: Old school tape emulation, extra pure and free of grunge.

Iron Oxide Classic

As promised, here is the 2017-ized version of the pure, sweet, original Iron Oxide. No more grit or tape flutter or noise!

It’s funny how this works. If you’re a commercial developer, and you release a plugin that’s real popular, one thing that happens is people begin asking for more. More features, more variations, this and that and the other. The flutter in Iron Oxide 5 came about that way: it migrated over from ToTape (which is also coming to free VST).

Every new thing added is something lost. But since I’m no longer doing strictly commercial development (it’s steadily all becoming free, backed by my Patreon which allows all this to happen) I can do things like confuse the ‘market’ and release both the feature-full Iron Oxide 5, and the stripped-down Iron Oxide Classic. This one is just like the original: input trim, ips control, and output trim. Better yet, it has the pure unsullied tone of the very first Iron Oxide, only brought up to date so it noise shapes to the 32 bit buss etc.

Even if you liked the grunge factor of the very adjustable Iron Oxide 5 (more controls may be added but bear in mind I have a commitment to release plugins like BussColors, not just keep revising Iron Oxide!) you might want to check this out. And if later versions of Iron Oxide wandered away from what works for you, for instance if you’re making electronic music and needed much cleaner handling of synthetic tones… this is your lucky day!

Hope you like Iron Oxide Classic. It is, truly, one of the Airwindows classics, now for free VST and brought up to date. :)

Date May 28, 2017
Author Chris
Comments 6 Comments

Bite

TL;DW: An unusual edge-maker.

Bite

This plugin is a weird little science experiment. I’ve got Iron Oxide Classic coming, but I still have to make a video for it and get it ready (and do the other offshoot TapeDust) and this one was ready to go, so here it is :)

Bite puts on a sort of midrange edge. At high sample rates it’ll be more of a trebly edge. It’s no specific frequency, so much as it’s just a harshening factor: you can also use it inversely, to take out midrange edge. It runs a couple samples of latency: on VST that works as a couple samples of delay. Again: an experiment, a science project.

I’ve got some changes (new things you can get) in my Patreon. There’s a new, easier goal to reach: if we get to $700 a month, I will begin releasing a plugin a month from the bottom part of the list: the ones that are on the tail end, scheduled for a loooonnnnggg time from now. That’s in addition to ‘in order of popularity’, which I’m still doing. The ones from the bottom are my pick: the only thing is, I will pick only ones whose lifetime sales are less than what my Patreon is at. As it gets higher, it opens up more possibilities, but I already have some I could do. For instance, StarChild, ElectroHat, or PurestWarm.

As before, if I get to $800 I will begin open sourcing one plugin from what I’ve already released (my pick).

If I get to $900, I will make it YOUR pick which ‘tail end of the list’ plugin we get. It’ll be some sort of vote of patrons or something. Same deal: pick one that has less lifetime sales than my Patreon is at. By $900 that includes Aura (a killer!) and Single Ended Triode, and OneCornerClip. There are a few real prizes in there.

And as before, if I get to $1000 on the Patreon, I’ll put out two free plugins from the top of the list, which will make reaching any particular plugin go twice as fast. And so on… I’m just adding new stuff between the other goals so that we can see more of the fancy plugins come out quicker. It seems to help teach people what I’m about :)

Next, Iron Oxide Classic, as soon as I make the video!

Date May 14, 2017
Author Chris
Comments 5 Comments

Chris

PurestEcho

BussColors 4

Iron Oxide Classic

Bite

human-made bespoke digital audio

Kinds Of Things

The Last Year

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