Airwindows

Guitar Full Wave Rectification

I was just rebuilding an SG copy I own (Samick guitar, real bridge/tailpiece/pickups except the pickup baseplates were so worn out I had to put the Gibson pickups on Ibanez baseplates) when I discovered something. The Dan Armstrong ‘Green Ringer’ (or even a reissue, like the one I have) is far more significant to Frank Zappa’s solo tone than I’d imagined, with instances built into his famous SG and also a Strat (I think I hear this effect on ‘Watermelon In Easter Hay’), and here’s the deal…

It’s way more adaptable to any single-note-lead playing guitarist than you’d think. Or even some double-stops and chords. And it will not automatically make you sound like Frank… but it will mutate YOUR sound into a sort of hypercharged, octave-boosted version of your sound, with many similar effects. And, at least with my Samick SG and reissue Green Ringer, I can build it into the SG without routing or removing controls, and I have done. (see full post for the pictures) Read More

Date March 1, 2017
Author Chris
Comments 3 Comments

BuildATPDF

TL:DW; Design your own tone-shaped TPDF.

BuildATPDF

I explained how DoublePaul was made: taking a TPDF highpass dither, and including additional nearby samples to cause the tone of the noise to be more high-pitched.

Wouldn’t be fair if I didn’t give you a chance to play with it yourself :)

To use BuildATPDF the way I used it, set the middle sliders to -1 and +1. Then adjust the other sliders until you’ve tailored the sound of the noise in a way you like. With the other sliders at 0, you have PaulDither. If the surrounding sliders ‘oscillate’ (going minus, plus, minus, plus) you have more of what DoublePaul is. Tailor the highpass in ways gentle or obvious, or even darken the highpass while leaving its dither functionality intact! It’s the combination of a -1 and +1 tap that gives you highpassed TPDF. (This won’t work with +1 and +1, because it’s the same random noise passing through the plugin: it needs to play a positive node against a negative node)

Or, you can set up the -1 and +1 taps, and then just play with the sliders to see what it sounds like!

Airwindows is supported by my Patreon, and I’ve produced 44 plugins as free VST including this one. Amazingly, not all of them are dithers :)

Date February 26, 2017
Author Chris
Comments 1 Comment

Magneto-Dynamic Infundibulator

I HAVE CONSTRUCTED A MAGNETO-DYNAMIC INFUNDIBULATOR

*ahem!*

No, seriously, I have! Watch the video and you can construct one too! You’ll need an XLR cable, a transformer (like a 600 ohm telephone transformer with three windings), some little diodes like stompboxes use for clipping, and a teeny capacitor. Two of everything, for stereo. You’ll want a soldering iron (if needed, I can make a How To Solder video) and either a multimeter, or in a pinch, guitar cables and some kind of amp (as shown in the video). With these, you too can build what I’ve built.

This is a real thing. It’s inspired by the $3500 Gyraf Audio G21 “Magneto-Dynamic Infundibulum”. That is much better than this, much like a vintage Klon Centaur is much better than a modern MXR Distortion+ bought off Amazon.

But, you probably can’t have a Gyraf Audio Magneto-Dynamic Infundibulum (or a vintage Klon Centaur). And if you could, you’re probably not watching my videos. But you can have a magneto-dynamic infundibulator! And what’s more, you can use it: the homebrew version performs very respectably considering its humble origins. It leaves a lot out, but since you’re homebuilding it, you can experiment and see how many features of the Infundibulum you can incorporate. This device follows consistent principles, which I explain. It’s all in the video!

This sort of thing is supported by my Patreon. Support that, and I will construct again! I’m not sure if I’ll end up with anything quite this impressive, but let it be known that I’ve never been only about the software and plugins. I’ve developed everything from stompboxes to speaker designs (the SubKick video shows glimpses of some speakers I’ve made, you might not have noticed what they are since they’re so huge and strange) and I would love to bring my patrons along for the ride :)

Date February 24, 2017
Author Chris
Comments 5 Comments

DoublePaul

TL:DW; Like PaulDither, but more so.

DoublePaul

This is for sort of a special purpose.

I’ve got an outrageous custom dither (well, wordlength reducer: there’s no noise and no randomness in it) called Not Just Another Dither. For final output, it’s that I recommend.

However, I’ve got a mastering engineer friend (Hi Bob!) who favors another dither of mine, PaulDither. The reason is, it’s traditional TPDF dither. It handles dithering duties perfectly (with a slight Airwindows-izing: the weight of the final noise floor is balanced to make one ‘bit’ function as zero, and to make the dither activate adjacent bits on either side for a better sound. This also gives a teeny least-significant-bit DC offset, if you assume ‘zero’ is between the two smallest bits, positive and negative)

I wanted to give Bob (and anyone else selecting traditional TPDF) something fancier that still counted as purely normal dither. So, here’s DoublePaul.

It’s TPDF highpassed dither, just like PaulDither. But, I’m also using some adjacent samples to skew the noise profile even further into the highs. It’s just a redistribution of energy, and it leaves the key pair of full-intensity noise samples to stay as TPDF dither. I just doctored the way you hear the noise, to push it a little farther into the highs. I’ve also backed off the teeny DC offset, and shaped every filter tap by ear. If you liked PaulDither, try DoublePaul and see if you like taking the PaulDither concept just a teeny bit farther, with no penalty to how the TPDF works. It’s just like a little sinc interpolation, a thing that’s trying to hide the TPDF energy by pushing it farther into the extreme highs. If you don’t trust NotJustAnotherDither, but you’d like something even quieter than PaulDither, try this.

All this is supported by my Patreon, so if you’d like to see me cheerfully continuing to think up this stuff indefinitely, help me get it to where it looks like a real job. I’m quite good at being a starving artist but money is a resource and it limits and distracts me when I’m starving too much.

Date February 19, 2017
Author Chris
Comments 4 Comments

Chris

Guitar Full Wave Rectification

BuildATPDF

Magneto-Dynamic Infundibulator

DoublePaul

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