Airwindows

GrooveWear

TL;DW: Scrubbing highs off mechanically like a stylus would.

Here’s something interesting! I revisited some pieces of ToVinyl4, one of ’em being GrooveWear. In fiddling with it, I discovered that I could put in a dedicated wet/dry for just that one part, and if I did, I got perfect high-frequency rolloff at 50%. In other words, as an effect it was working as intended (bit of overshoot available, like the needle was loose in the groove), but I could also redesign it as a tone-softener.

It’s all based on variations of averaging. I’ve got Average to soften just only sample values (it has some interesting quirks but I swear by that algorithm for naturally rolling off highs in a way that doesn’t sound digital). GrooveWear goes one step beyond that, and averages slews (not sample values). That means it’s averaging the rate of change. Then, later (and will be coming to VST) I did Aura, which is averaging the rate of change OF the rate of change… but that’s another story ;)

More importantly, I came up with a nice feature doing the revision. The GrooveWear contained in ToVinyl uses two stages of processing, since it can be a subtle effect. I worked out a convenient way to make the dry/wet control handle multiple stages so, as you increase it, you’re progressively adding stage after stage with the final stage going from dry to wet: it means you can start off with a very mathematically clean amount of effect, just one stage dry/wet, and then keep adding more. And in the spirit of that, I doubled the stages so now GrooveWear has four.

So, you can adjust the intensity control that specifies how much slew averaging the stages are doing (acts like a sort of frequency range control for the effect) or you can adjust the dry/wet to go from pristine to incredibly deep groove wear. It’s partly roll-off of the highs but it’s not JUST normal EQ, texturally it’s quite different because the effect doesn’t try to stop big transients like a square-wave’s sides, it tries to stop smaller-scale detail stuff while retaining the big harmonic content of waves. It’s averaging slew, not deleting it, so certain waveforms get through untouched… you’ll see.

Patreon is doing nicely which makes me happy: as you can see, when I start to get resources I do things like try to make Eurorack modules for people, and I’ve been super busy thinking up ways to do that which are (a) cool and (b) people can do for very little cost. That seems the best thing, and I’ve discovered some great tips and tricks and things. More on that later.

I’m also keeping an eye on the VCV Rack open-source virtual modular project: music made entirely in it seems not quite as good as hardware modular synth music. It’s almost like the modules and digital mixing in there could benefit from adding modules for making digital mixing sound more analog-like, stuff which can handle/elicit more in the way of warmth and vibe and depth and space and stuff.

I might just be able to help with that one ;)

Date January 28, 2018
Author Chris
Comments 5 Comments

Noise

TL;DW: The Airwindows deep noise oscillator, as a sound reinforcer.

Noise

Here’s a post from airwindows-land, just to show you I’m still working ;)

Noise started out as a plugin called Voice Of The Starship. It’s an algorithm that generates brownian-motion noise which won’t ‘wander’ into excessive DC offset, but without a highpass filter needed! The original Voice Of The Starship can be made to do any sort of deep rumble, including purely subsonic rumble that still works as an audio stream. When that one comes out, it’s definitely going to the open source repo.

Oh, did I mention? Airwindows Open Source is live. That’s been taking a lot of my effort as I’ve tried to provide the templates I use to make plugins, AND several basic starter plugins ‘as shipped’ (when my stuff goes OSS it’s strictly as I made it without alterations, but the templates should be customized so you can use them as yourself and not me)

And it’s still not really complete, and I won’t be able to help people get plugins compiling on their systems as that’s my nemesis in the first place, but it’s a start!

And I’ve also been putting in a LOT of work on a project (inspired greatly by Bastl) for helping people DIY Eurorack synth modules. I have some straight-up awesome ideas for Euro-stuff, including things people can do themselves, and I’m scheming up ways to get the necessary parts into your hands provided you can solder things together (always good). I want to get people making stuff for less than $100. You should be able to have a Eurorack hacker kit for very little money, and all the information you’d need to do as I do and make large amounts of stuff.

Thanks to a year (and more!) of Patreon, I’ve got just enough resources to run with this and learn what’s good, and even get into stuff out of my childhood. I had a Radio Shack Concertmate Moog when I was a kid. Now, I got my first Mother32, and am hot on the trail of the impending DFAM (which I think is going to be the ultimate modular kick for reasons I’ll explain later, having to do with both the sound of the thing and details on how the Moog sequencer tempo stuff works), and yeah: I’m exhausted. I have plugins ready to come out (including PurestDrive!) but I’ve had an awful lot going on (second funeral for Mom, and my gray cat is approaching the end of her life), and in some ways I’m taking refuge in this new stream of work. I think you’ll be interested. One thing about it, if it works we’ll suddenly be moving past the same old Airwindows demo music, in a good way.

Oh, right, Noise. Noise is like Voice Of The Spaceship, except it also triggers on input sounds. It can pretty closely track rhythms coming in, and you can combine it with underlying stuff with Dry/Wet, and the Distance control applies to both Dry AND Wet, to blend and darken them together.

Hope you like it, and next week I’ll give you a whole new take on Groove Wear (out of ToVinyl). :)

Date January 21, 2018
Author Chris
Comments 5 Comments

ToVinyl4

TL;DW: Elliptical EQ, acceleration limiter, groove sim.

ToVinyl4

ToVinyl has several uses. You can use it to reshape the bass in your track, making it more mono or tightening up the center. It’s a special multipole IIR filter that acts almost like a ‘mega-bass’ plugin: it doesn’t just take away, it rearranges (so don’t expect it to act like a normal digital cut, you might see increased peak energy down low.)

Then, there’s the acceleration limiter. This algorithm is unlike any other Airwindows treble-reducer: it zeroes in on just the sorts of transients that’d burn up a cutting head, and zaps them ruthlessly. (if you own a cutting head you’re responsible for checking this, but some of you folks are still using Spitfish, and I’m pretty sure this will way outperform Spitfish.) The effect is treble softening without any obvious treble reduction, and it’ll make stuff sound like classic vinyl grooves very effectively.

But that’s nothing compared to the next control, Groove Wear. This one analyzes the virtual groove, and then sets up an imaginary stylus going down that groove, and gives it a tiny bit of inertia. It’s more slew mojo (and not tied to any particular frequency, it doesn’t even know what a frequency is) and the effect (should you choose to use it) is a very characteristic darkening and slight trashening of the most extreme highs. You can shut it off entirely, or turn it up, and you can combine it with the acceleration limiter to get pretty much any ‘vinyl LP high end’ you want. Some settings even bring a touch of moving-coil sparkle: it’s not all darken, in fact Groove Wear is very much its own thing distortion-wise.

Combine it all together and you’ve got ToVinyl4, the up-to-date version of a classic Airwindows for-pay plugin, that did quite well at $50. This time it’s free, because…

This work is made possible by Patreon, which is why you can simply download the latest ToVinyl and use it. If it’s super useful to you (and if you can), you should zip over to Patreon and act as if you’re buying it as a permanent license. Why? Because it is, and because if people who can still buy plugins choose to bump my Patreon by roughly $50 a year whenever they’ve added a bunch of new secret weapons to their arsenal, I’ll be able to continue what I do. Also, if you get crazy enough with it, talk to me and I’ll totally promote your music :) there’s a three/four/five plugin club on the Airwindows site, waiting to have people go listen to the fruits of all this freeness.

Date January 7, 2018
Author Chris
Comments 10 Comments

PurestConsole

TL;DW: Console 5 with the least coloration it can have.

PurestConsole

So. I think things may improve around here, as far as me reviewing the Console5 launch, and making sense of what the heck went on there. If I can, I’ll also give it the lushness of that original release while preventing the DC offset stuff… and there’s something to do with the AU/VST identities that needs examining. After this, ToVinyl is up for January, and I’ve got some useful variations on Console 5, and PurestDrive is February (I’m entertaining notions of a C5Drive that steals the technique from PurestDrive instead of doing the original C5 slew thing. It would be just ‘darker’, not encode/decode)

The reason I think I can get into all this (after probably being sick for a while) is I’ve got some closure. I’ve just returned from visiting family and attending my Mom’s funeral. It was very nice: I sat with my Dad, who built us the Heathkit television we played Atari 2600 on, and with the brother who helped me get the VST ports together, a year ago. I cooked my Dad a big hot curry, and I think he liked it. Got to be with my siblings, and there was some healing, and I’m pretty sure after I rest up I’ll be able to think again.

Good thing some plugins are so simple you don’t even have to think! :) (in other words, if THESE are broken just shoot me ;) )

PurestConsole is like the dynamics encode/decode out of Console5, without the slew mojo that’s so tricky to get right. It’s a good candidate for the first plugin(s) to be open sourced when I hit the $800/mo. open source goal, along with templates I work from, and my process so people can reproduce my work. In fact I can reveal the guts of the PurestConsole source, without the Airwindows denormalization code and noise shaping to floating point. Here’s the simplest purest form of Console.

Channels: inputSample = sin(inputSample);
Buss: inputSample = asin(inputSample);

Without all the mojo and tone changing, that is IT. Anyone building a DAW can include this (channels post fader! And do not allow the asin() to see values that’ll break it, you can get NaN out of math functions if you break them!).

PurestConsole has special properties, besides ‘being in the Console5 family so you can swap them out freely with any Console5 variation and get correct results’. Since the amplitude encode/decode is most important to the effect, stripping it down to THIS simple has an interesting property I demonstrate in the video.

If you have only one channel feeding the buss, you get EXACTLY that channel without the slightest alteration. PurestConsole cancels out completely and doesn’t touch the sound AT ALL unless multiple channels are mixing. If any one source becomes the only feed to the buss, it goes to perfect bit-identical fidelity to the extent of what the math function can provide. No previous version of Console can say that because I was trying to use simpler math to save CPU, but PurestConsole (and all Console5) goes for the math functions which include the complementary sin() and asin() or ‘arcsine’. That’s what arcsine is for. :)

You can use PurestConsole in its capacity for ‘expanding’ verbs, delays, and EQs. If there’s no change, it’ll cancel out to bit-identical. Then if you’re doing stuff, it’ll kick in. EQ changes are most easily heard in high-Q filters, and it’ll make filters more effective at a given dB boost/cut. Note that you can easily clip PurestConsoleBuss with boosts and peaks, but that might sound OK to you so don’t fear it.

I hope this simpler one is good right out of the gate, because I AM going to be sick for a while, but it might be something else to chew on, and if it is in fact so simple as to be flawless, you can work with this one right away :)

Date January 1, 2018
Author Chris
Comments 11 Comments

Chris

GrooveWear

Noise

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PurestConsole

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