Airwindows

CStrip

TL;DW: Airwindows channel strip.

Sometimes, Airwindows dabbles with what you might call ‘the normal’ plugins: for instance, CStrip. I was asked to make a channel strip, and while I usually prefer to do things in a more modular sense, it seemed like a fine idea, and so now there’s an Airwindows channel strip, with sort of the usual things you might find there.

Sort of. ;)

It’s never quite that simple with Airwindows. So, you’ve got a three band EQ, but if you boost the top you get traces of the ‘Energy’ plugin just to add some aggressiveness to the extreme highs for heavy boosts. You’ve got crossover frequencies, you’ve got highpass and lowpass, but the highpass and lowpass aren’t normal algorithms either: they’re designed for ‘trapping in’ already bandlimited sounds to get the most out of them. There’s a gate, but it’s an Airwindows gate where the release is designed to pull the audio back in the sound picture, not just volume-ramp it. There’s a time delay control that exists only to give the track a micro-delay relative to other tracks for groove purposes. And there’s the compressor… CStrip uses the ButterComp algorithm plus a speed control that lets you do odd things like increase the speed hugely. ButterComp compresses interleaved samples in Class AB, so that’s four independent compressors per channel. If you crank the speed under heavy compression you can get artifacts (for normal behavior, keep the speed a lot lower).

The whole idea with CStrip was to do the channel strip, but take it out into stranger realms where it can be used for various sonic destruction. It may not be the last of such plugins: some new stuff coming out is giving me ideas for other ‘combination’ plugins, especially ones where the algorithms can be interwoven to produce effects you literally couldn’t have out of discrete plugins. (one day, I’ll be open sourcing all of that and telling other plugin coders all about it)

CStrip also uses a technique I came to rely on, where if a component of the plugin isn’t being used (for instance, the lowpass and highpass when set to their extremes switch off) then it gets completely bypassed, and not even the math of the component is used: this is sort of like how ‘unity gain’ in code isn’t the same as ‘bypass’. (if you’re in floating point and you’re multiplying by 1.0, you’re also doing a math operation at a given exponent and this can wipe out floating point values at very different levels of detail)

But that’s getting too wonky: I hope you enjoy CStrip. All this is of course supported by Patreon, and though we’re not up to ‘open sourcing’ levels, or even ‘bonus plugin’ from the list for December, trust me that I’ll have some nice surprises for your holiday season anyway :)

Date December 3, 2017
Author Chris
Comments 13 Comments

PurestWarm

TL;DW: Subtle tone shaper and warmth adder.

PurestWarm

Because my Patreon was over $700 this last month, we get a special extra plugin this week.

PurestWarm is a little bit like PurestDrive (anxiously awaited by quite a few people) but not quite as sophisticated… however, in its simplicity is part of its usefulness. It applies an Airwindows softest-possible-saturation effect (like what you can get out of Density, or Channel) but it’s polarized: you pick which side of the waveform the saturation applies to. For the other half of the waveform, it’ll pass through the exact bits that came in. So it’s half a plugin: I’m not sure there’s ever been anything quite like that, on one half of the wave a full Airwindows (noise shaped to floating point) ultra-quality saturation, and on the other half of the wave, ‘bypass’ and literal bit-identical pass-through. I made sure even the noise shaping wasn’t applying for the ‘bypass’ half.

The result is this: waveforms that need a little sweetening, can have that texture (not frequency or EQ, texture) subtly added to the track, in a way that utterly and totally maintains the integrity of the signal. In some ways this is ‘purer’ than any of the other Purest line, since by its nature it’s true bypass for literally half the time. It’s also one of the minimal ones, with just a switch: there’s no way to get the perfect integration of bypass and effected halves (they switch off like a push-pull power amp) otherwise, and it produces an obvious enough effect but one that’s harmonious and doesn’t get in the way. In some circumstances it hints at being like a ‘bass optimizer’ since it’ll push some second harmonic by its nature. You’ll probably find that for any given sound (especially an electric bass guitar) there’ll be one polarity that’s clearly better: I think for basses where the string swings near the pickup and produces extra voltage on that side of the wave, PurestWarm will saturate that side of the wave really well and it’ll give you an ideal bass tone with no extra fiddling or processing required.

It’s going to be a good holiday season, I have nice things in store. If you would like ME to have a good holiday season and you’re not already hooked up with my Patreon, consider it like a sort of ginormous sale: for years, I sold these plugins at $50 each to Mac Audio Unit users only. Now, I’ve got ’em coming out in great profusion, dozens and dozens and all manner of new things and PC VST too, and if you were to join the Patreon at $1 a month, that’s $12 a year, the equivalent of buying one every four years. Except you get to use them all with my blessing. If you wanted to treat it like you were buying one of the plugins each year (and still getting to use them all) you’d pay $4 a month, $48 a year, and it would still be two dollars off from what they used to cost. I’m more interested in having people give what they can, though, because I know what it’s like to be fussing over a dollar a month: right now, it’s me in that position, so obviously I understand better than anybody.

However, there’s a special kind of wealth in being able to generously give to the community that’s found a place for me and appreciates my coding (if not my music! :D ). I hope you like PurestWarm, and there’s a lot more where that came from. And we’re going to have a fun holiday season, let me just say :)

Date November 26, 2017
Author Chris
Comments 4 Comments

HermeTrim

TL;DW: Very Fine Adjustments.

HermeTrim

If you’ve seen EveryTrim, you know how this works: it’s the all-possible-trims trim. +- 12dB of left, right, mid, side, and master volume. By request, and a handy little tool for all manner of stereo tweaking. It’s very nearly as clear and accurate as PurestGain, which itself is very nearly as accurate as BitShiftGain (and most people will find any of these more than acceptable, because this is uber-pickiness land and none of you are likely to be able to tell these from your standard utility gain plugin from your DAW, ten out of ten. I just know I’ve implemented mine with extra rigorousness)

Thing is, the person who’d requested this is the same one who requested Hermepass… and in this case, I fumbled it a bit. On many DAWs, and all my Mac Audio Unit stuff, you can hold option to get tiny fine adjustments. But my user with the enlightening (and accessible) requests isn’t using a host that can do that… and needed to have much, much finer adjustments on tap.

So, now Hermepass has a companion, HermeTrim. This is exactly the same as EveryTrim, only it’s 1.5 dB plus and minus. It’s more a mastering tool: make tiny little tweaks to get the master just right. EveryTrim will sound just as good, but this one’s geared towards non-mixing purposes. Hope you like it.

Also, it’s a chance to test out a different view of Airwindows for an interesting reason: I am gearing up to do a music-making stream where I dig into some of my inspirations, and try to come up with a new sound for things. When I say inspirations, I mean ‘analog gear’, and I’ve built up a studio setup that might shed some light on why I do plugins the way I do. If my plugins enter into this, it’ll be hosted in Renoise most likely: it’s been months and years getting all this up and working, and the studio mix runs through the Magneto-Dynamic Infundibulator before being sent to Twitch… where I will be live (at some point), at
https://www.twitch.tv/jinxtigr/

I will not be offended at giving live support for Airwindows stuff on such occasions, though I might be preoccupied with trying to get twin Bastl Kastles to patch into strange places on twin Xoxboxes. I did say that I was into the analog thing, and I think this preoccupation will lead to some cool-sounding techno-prog weird music. Might even play an instrument or two :)

Date November 19, 2017
Author Chris
Comments 3 Comments

NC-17

TL;DW: Dirty loud!

NC-17

This one needs little introduction, but it’s been a Mac-only secret so I will introduce it anyhow :)

NC-17 was designed as the loudenator-killer. It uses the same technology as ADClip’s energy redistribution stuff, but on a soft-clipper, and instead of just feeding the energy back in, it uses it to modulate a Chebyshev filter: sort of complicated, but it’s definitely one of those Airwindows things. First to use such a soft clipper as the primary loudness maximizer, and secondly to use such a weird technology after it. Why a Chebyshev? To produce second harmonic. Why do that? To feed deep bass back in despite the loudenating. Okay, so the whole idea is pretty strange.

What happens?

Firstly, the whole tone changes, whether you’re pushing loudness or not. Check that first. You might immediately dislike the result, or if you seek ‘glue’ maybe you’ll like it, or use it to replace some other ‘glue’ effect. If you’re still with NC-17 after checking that, proceed to turn it up (or mix hotter into it). You’ll find no specific ‘break point’: instead, it just gets dirtier and dirtier the harder you push. The whole texture of loudness dynamics is altered, so you get the loudness cues of distortion but with a bass foundation mere distortion won’t permit, and a continuous spectrum between ‘more or less clean’ and ‘impossibly too loud’.

This one will also handle cleaner synthesizer tones, EDM, the kinds of sounds that reveal the artifacts of other loudenators ruthlessly. With NC-17, instead you get a slight ‘grungening’ but then it refuses to break up in the normal sense, just stretches to fit. (this one might be the one you want on drum submixes, too)

There’s nothing quite like it, and now it’s Mac and PC VST, and free.

By free, I mean that it’s supported by Patreon. I’m happy to say that this month we got back up above $700 (it might not look like it but that’s what they sent me, so it counts) so there will be an extra plugin from the list (with total sales under $700). Next week we’ll have the ‘1.5 dB’ version of EveryTrim (aka HermeTrim, for a supporter who asks for stuff I can do :) ) and then I’ll find something nice off the list to include.

The next goal after that is open source (I sincerely hope I can get the LinuxVST working by then) and I expect the Patreon to get there somewhere around the New Year. Help that happen by spreading the word in an informal sort of way, about all this! Keep it appropriate, but remember: I don’t advertise, spam, or bug people, so word of mouth is the only way this works. It doesn’t work nearly as well as bugging people, but it does work in its way, and that way is my way :)

Thanks for being there for me, and I hope you enjoy NC-17!

Date November 5, 2017
Author Chris
Comments 19 Comments

Chris

CStrip

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NC-17

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