Airwindows

Compresaturator

TL;DW: Compresaturator fades between compressing and soft clipping.

This is eagerly anticipated. For some, it needs no introduction.

For everyone else: one of the final plugins from the Kagi era, this stopped being available for a while when Kagi went out of business. It’s like a soft-saturator in which you can dial in even more cleanness, but couple it with a weird springy quality that’s very dynamic. It occupies more of the role of a stem or buss compressor than a peak limiter, but makes for a very powerful loudenator. The idea is that you can get a loud punchy sound but with more attitude than usual.

Since it’s one of those strange Airwindows algorithms, be aware you can push it too far and get it to ‘flutter’ or oscillate like a tremolo or do other odd things: in normal use that shouldn’t ever be a concern, I’m just saying that this plugin isn’t normal and doesn’t sound or act quite like other plugins.

In other words, classic Airwindows :) hope you like it!

Patreon is the reason I can do this. I’ve got a couple new Patreon goals beyond simply putting out amazing plugins every week: since people are used to that, apparently I have to do more, and I’ve come up with something good. If I reach $1500 a month total, I’ll do a third livestream every week and deconstruct/analyse a classic hit record from its high-dynamics original vinyl version. You won’t hear the whole record but I’m going to try to play a minute of the audio, the same minute I analyse with special Airwindows tools that aren’t even in plugin form. Since it’s a livestream, you can probably hear it too: whether it’s retained on the channel depends on which record company owns it and how they handle ContentID (it is absolutely fair use, but nobody cares about that). So you might need to tune in, to get the full experience. Then at $2000 a month, if I get there, I’ll be doing the same thing for the music of patrons giving $50 a year and up, and then it becomes more of a production workshop. We’ll see how these things develop, but it gives me something MORE to offer beyond all I’m doing already :)

Date March 17, 2019
Author Chris
Comments 4 Comments

Patreon 2: More Stuff More Often

So there are more than 150 Airwindows plugins out there, free and open source in Mac AU, Mac VST, Windows VST and Linux VST formats.

More than two years ago, on August 3rd 2016, I announced my Patreon, and my goals. The idea was if I earned enough money that I could continue doing Airwindows even after the loss of Kagi, my previous payment processor, I would begin releasing all the plugins I formerly sold for $50 each and all the ones that were free as well. If I met a higher goal, I would begin open-sourcing the plugins. If I met still higher goals, I’d begin doing it faster, do more of them per month, accelerate the pace until people had all their favorite Airwindows plugins for free with open source.

That was more than two years ago. It worked. I still do plugins full-time, I’m nearly done with the backlog of Kagi era plugins (for instance, Compresaturator is coming tomorrow) and everything is open source now as soon as it’s out. We won: we got everything to work out in the best way, and though I keep doing new work there’s not much left out of the ‘goodie bin’, and many bases are covered over and over again.

This means it’s simply not as good of a goal as it used to be, to say ‘I will release the plugins, I will open source them’. I’m already doing that. People are used to it, perhaps even take it for granted. And I’m still struggling to live, kind of: I’m very limited by my economic position and could do more (and be healthier and less scared) with more stability.

So the question becomes, what MORE can I do, for you all? Because there’s no sense saying ‘look at all I am doing’, if I can think of something new and different and more interesting to do.

The answer lies in the livestreams I’ve been doing on Mondays 11:00 AM EST, and in my own past projects.

Back in the day, I did an elaborate study of evergreen hit records, trying to work out the secrets to why people compulsively love certain records and buy them in the millions. It didn’t directly help me sell plugins back when I had to do that every month to live, so the study went away, and the follow-up examining records in more detail never saw daylight. I had to work and sell plugins, but some people remembered it. Well, one of those people is a writer, and has recently written an article in the New York Times about the loudness war and what it’s done to music. It’s a lot like my study. That’s because it was based on my study from word one, and written in consultation with me, and I’m one of two people cited in it: the other is Bob Ludwig, noted mastering engineer. (technically, that alone might make me notable enough for Wikipedia, but that’s not for me to meddle in)

So here’s the new goals.

If I can earn $1500 a month, from everybody combined, I will add another livestream to my schedule, and spend more time with you. It’ll be Wednedsays 11:00 AM EST, and I will spend two hours analysing and explaining a ‘hundred hits’ evergreen classic album, using the measurement techniques shown in the video. These don’t exist in plugins, and you can’t get them elsewhere. That metering was done before I did plugins, and won’t run in any DAW. I’ll talk about everything I know, regarding the album we’re analysing: two solid hours of tips and tricks and research from every conceivable angle. And then, the next Wednesday, I’ll do it all over again with another album.

If I can earn $2000 a month which probably won’t happen right away, but that’s what goals are about… I will continue this, but I’ll begin including one minute clips from my own patrons who are supporting the Patreon at $50 a year or more. It’ll be the same two hour show, but I’ll be devoting my attention to your music. Kind of like a production session: bring your fans and treat it like a showcase, because when I produce my goal is to find what’s amazing and desirable about your work, and dive into that with encouragement and enhancement. I’ll tell you stuff about your music that even you might not know, and will guide you towards music that is a better you. That starts happening at $2000 a month.

Oh, one more thing: since I’m using one minute clips and will be talking over them some of the time, I am prepared to play audio from the classic vinyl that created these evergreen cultural artifacts. These studies go back to the source. This is what got people excited about this stuff in the first place, and much of it will come across even over an internet stream. It’s exactly what I’m trying to teach people to do in their own music production.

I’ll be doing this live and there may be instances where the record companies nuke the saved livestreams and threaten my channel, because they do not care about fair use at all, so tune in to the actual livestreams if you’re in doubt. If all else fails I can talk about the measurements without playing audio… but I intend to let you hear what this stuff sounds like, though you won’t get the whole song (just the one minute as shown on the chart).

There can be more goals beyond that, but no sense being too concerned with them until they’re in striking distance. The point is, I’m doing a free plugin that is open source every week, and pushing the boundaries of digital audio, for less than $1500 a month. To earn more, I need to do more. I can’t put out more plugins because the market can’t even absorb what I produce right now, so I need to spend my time actively engaging with people and helping the struggling musician: bringing back the Hundred Hits study and then opening it up to patron content makes sense, and it’s something I can actively do to earn that higher sum. I’ll continue to try to think of more than I can do, and since I understand audio things for a living, Hundred Hits is an obvious choice to start with.

Join me and reach that goal, and we’ll learn how to make sounds that sell millions… or at the very least, learn a lot more about the sounds that HAVE sold millions!

Date March 16, 2019
Author Chris
Comments 1 Comment

BlockParty

TL;DW: BlockParty is like a moderately saturated analog limiter.

BlockParty.zip(359k)

What do you get when you cross an Airwindows compressor, with OneCornerClip?

Pretty much this. Okay, so it wasn’t a very difficult riddle, was it?

BlockParty acts like a somewhat distorty limiter. It’s not at all about lookahead (in fact it doesn’t have any) or preserving tones pristinely. Instead, it takes the onset of sounds that would compress, and manipulates the attack in the way that OneCornerClip does. The threshold gets kicked way down, and gradually expands to full scale, and since the threshold’s determining compression, that means BlockParty doesn’t have a stable compression threshold. It’s interactive with the audio you’re giving it.

Because it’s on the OneCornerClip model, that means it’s a mostly-compressor with OneCornerClip-like behaviors. That means bass which blooms and has fullness even under heavy load, and highs that don’t poke out or distract. The result is a thing that sounds real analog-y but not super clean. You can use very small amounts of it (there’s a lot of gain on tap) to do peak limiting for loudness maximizing, or you can slam things into it for effect. It’s called BlockParty because heavily limited stuff sounds like blocks of loudness: it’ll get you some of those sounds, but not as cleanly as your classic ‘loudness war’ limiters. It’ll also smash drums and things in its own distinctive way, which might be its strongest suit. On the end of it is a clipping stage to make sure nothing you do will ever produce overs. The clipping stage is AFTER the dry/wet, so to get a true dry you’ve got to turn it off: this is because raw digital clipping is another style of loudenating, so if you were going super-hot into BlockParty and wanted to dial in some pure digital clipping you could use the dry/wet to do it (or, if including some dry would have given you overs because your direct buss signal includes overs).

BlockParty is a fierce loudenator with a voice and style all its own, using techniques that are distinctly Airwindows. It might be just what you needed, or it might be a little too grungy for you… but either way, there’s nothing quite like it, so check it out. It is open source and completely free, because I get paid through Patreon. The idea is that if you would’ve bought this at $50 for perpetual license on all your computers for life plus you get the source (heck of a deal for $50 really) then you should jump on the Patreon if you can, and add $50 a year to whatever you’re patreoning. That keeps me developing, and the only way you get new Airwindows developments is if I’m still developing. (stay tuned for some more goals I’ve got: since I am already doing open source and plugins as fast as the world can stand to see them, I must find new ways of giving more time and attention on top of that if I want the Patreon to get bigger faster. I’ve got some plans that are worth being goals, and that’s next on the agenda besides the plugins I’m already doing.)

Date March 10, 2019
Author Chris
Comments 3 Comments

PurestSquish

TL;DW: PurestSquish is an open-sounding compressor with bass bloom.

PurestSquish.zip(355K)

This time, the video’s enormously long so I’ll be brief: PurestSquish is a compressor, with its own sound. In the video I compare it to Pressure4, Logical4, and SurgeTide, and also show how it can be used in conjunction with SurgeTide (a real ‘sleeper’ plugin not easily understood) to produce amazingly transparent dynamics control.

I also spend some time torturing it with sine sweeps, showing how Pressure and Logical are more like ‘analog emulations’ and produce harmonics, while PurestSquish instead does a weird thing when you turn off and on signal generators. So if you’re looking for ways to say ‘this is broken forever!’ watch those parts of the video :)

If this doesn’t worry you, PurestSquish also has a bass bloom control that lets you pass subsonics or bass notes through uncompressed, to taste. If it does worry you, chalk it up to PurestSquish running simultaneous two-and-three-sample-interleaved compressors, much like Capacitor runs two-and-three-sample-interleaved filters, and use one of the other compressors I’ve put out, perhaps one of the three also featured in this video.

Patreon is the reason I’m able to do stuff like this, including this weird trick of releasing odd plugin designs that other people don’t let you have (for very legitimate reasons). I wouldn’t be able to put out PurestSquish as it is, under strictly commercial conditions: I’d have to sand the rough edges off, and that might ruin it (much like the bugfixes for the original Console5 fixed the tendency to DC offset at the cost of its special tone, resulting in re-issuing of the rawest original version later). In this case, PurestSquish ought to be good under most conditions, but it’s one of those plugins where the magic tone comes at a cost, so if it starts throwing 15K artifacts at you, consider using one of the other compressors for that sound. And don’t feed it test tones after midnight :)

Date March 3, 2019
Author Chris
Comments 3 Comments

Chris

Compresaturator

Patreon 2: More Stuff More Often

BlockParty

PurestSquish

handsewn bespoke digital audio

Kinds Of Things

The Last Year

Patreon Promo Club