Airwindows

StarChild

TL;DW: A weird digital ambience!

For all that we try to make plugins have natural, acoustic or electric, retro vibe qualities, sometimes there’s a thing which breaks the rules by creating a distinctive voice that has nothing to do with naturalness. I’ve got an old Alesis reverb like that: very primitive, but deep as anything. There have always been odd little boxes with a style all their own, like the Delta Labs Effectron, which is low-fi but uses delta-sigma modulation like an SACD (but much more crudely!)

In that spirit, here’s StarChild. The inspiration came from the old Ursa Major Space Station. That said, StarChild sounds nothing like a Space Station, but it does sound like it’s out of this world. Like Space Station, it produces series of echo taps which aren’t perfectly regular. Space Station has little rhythms that it does, while StarChild works on prime number sequences: that produces a sputtery sort of delay line in which it won’t reinforce any one frequency.

What you get is a curious delay/ambience effect, in stereo (it’ll widen stuff that’s only in the middle). It can work kind of like a natural ambience that’s a room in a horrible shape, or you can crank out the duration and get weird stretched textures with a variety of granularity. It’s an odd little plugin: didn’t sell that well in its earlier incarnation, yet this revised newer form is hotly anticipated: a bunch of people really started wanting it when Kagi (my payment processor) went out of business and suddenly it couldn’t be sold.

Now that doesn’t matter, because I’m using my Patreon to live on (granted, it’s sort of crisis mode but it will grow in time) and the plugins are being given away for free. I hope you enjoy it. If the Patreon reaches $800 a month, I will begin open sourcing the plugins one by one, and StarChild could be one of those plugins. (Please, stay within an order of magnitude or so of the $1-$2 that the Patreon is designed to ask: I have no wish to depend on individuals giving… or withholding… vast sums just by themselves)

I hope you like StarChild. I know quite a few people who eagerly awaited this one.

Date August 16, 2017
Author Chris
Comments 3 Comments

Desk4

TL;DW: Distinctive analog coloration.

Desk4

Though I’ve put out BussColors to mimic existing audio hardware, it was always my intention to create analog-ifying plugins that weren’t about cloning existing gear: that produced their own distinctive sound. The first Desk plugins (Desk, TransDesk, TubeDesk) were made in this way, using audio DSP which isn’t typical.

As this line of experimentation evolved, it led me to what we’ve got here. Desk4 is the latest refinement of the Desk line, now for Mac and PC VST (as well as AU)… and free.

The drive control is a boost as you might expect. Turn it up for more slam and dirt. It’s very soft, textured, rich-in-nutrients dirt, but it’s basically ‘distortion’.

Treble Choke is more unusual: don’t overcrank this control or you’ll generate artifacts such as uncontrolled DC. It’s not a normal algorithm and not a traditional EQ or even a saturation: as you can tell from the weird behavior when you crank it. Use it subtly and you’ll have a brightness conditioner not found outside quality analog gear. Since it’s a plugin, you can also push the extremes of the behavior, just don’t get too carried away. It’s designed to let you break it with extreme settings, so it’ll be flexible across different kinds of audio.

The power sag and frequency controls are the heart of some behaviors in the earlier TubeDesk and TransDesk: you can make your imaginary analog hardware overload its power supply. Cranking the frequency slider moves the area of interest down, for tube power supply sag behaviors. Tiny settings work over a tiny range of samples, causing the effect to hit higher frequencies. If you hear an obvious effect, you’re probably applying too much… unless you intentionally want to crap out the audio, in which case this is a uniquely aggressive way of doing that. It’ll add grunge in an entirely different way from simple distortion, so you can do both.

These things are made possible by my Patreon. If I get it to more than $800 a month, I’ll begin open-sourcing these plugins, and that’ll open up the world of plugins in a whole new way. I’ll also make available my templates so that people can more easily begin coding their own stuff (which doesn’t mean it will BE easy, but it’s a way to help new coders and people like me who have more DSP ideas than systems coding expertise). Currently, I’m putting out one a month from my Greatest Hits list, an extra from the more obscure and unsung end of that list, plus additional plugins out of my library of successful AU plugins.

Also, if the Patreon gets some more patrons (not money so much as just new patrons), I can appear in the top 50 of Graphtreon.com’s Gamer charts! I’m currently at 51 on that list, and it’s possible being more visible would help me and Airwindows, so I’m excited to see what’ll happen there! I will be by far the lowest income creator on that top 50, because I give people more while asking less. But it’ll be great fun to know I’m in the top 50 of something Patreon-related :)

Date August 6, 2017
Author Chris
Comments 5 Comments

TapeDust

TL;DW: Just a special treble-erode noise.

TapeDust

Sometimes it’s good to have just a little specialty plugin that does a useful thing. Hard to do that in the commercial plugin biz, where everything has to be the biggest hype to date: but hey! Thanks to Patreon I’m free of all that, and can follow my vision.

It helps that I put out a lot of plugins: it’d be weird to do this as my only plugin for the month. But, while I work on Desk4 and StarChild from the greatest-hits list, I thought I’d sprinkle a little TapeDust for you.

This is slightly different from the tape noise in Iron Oxide, though it’s the same general principle. It is a slew noise plugin. What that means is, the noise ONLY hits high frequencies or anywhere the signal’s moving rapidly (there’s a teeny bit of other noise added at high settings, but it’s mostly that).

Note the ‘or anywhere the signal’s moving rapidly’. This isn’t a crossover. If you put in a sine wave that’s low and loud, you’ll get very obvious noise only as it crosses through zero, and that’ll sound odd. In general, cranking this up is weird. It’ll depend hugely on what kind of signal you’ve got… but that’s the beauty of it if you can master where to use this plugin.

Basses? Probably no way. Full mix? Getouttahere, no chance outside very low settings. Guitar? Hmmm. Drums, loops? A pattern emerges.

TapeDust can convert ugly sharp treble attacks on pointy percussive atonal sounds to pretty much any degree of dense, noisy, natural-sounding crunch. It’s a type of noise, so it also gives analog-style variance to repeated samples that might sound over-digital. And the less tonal, or the less ‘pure clear note’ the signal is, the more TapeDust you can get away with. Since it’s a slew noise, it hits the treble of your signal HARD, but since it’s a noise, it’s not filtering or softening the sound as much as it’s just eroding it, weathering it, making it more natural. Anywhere you’ve got bright highs on a nonpure sound, you can grind them off with TapeDust.

Of course, if you’re cool with using super-low settings, you can do that anywhere: it’s just important to register that this very specialized and dedicated tool is super picky about what it likes to work on. It’s a beautiful example of taking your production skills deeper: use something that can sound horrible and wrong, and find places where it’s in its element. You can do outlandish textural things, taking something like a clean electro mix with deep clean bass, and sticking heavy TapeDust on just one element in the mix to contrast with the un-grungy elements. I hope you like TapeDust. It’s the kind of plugin I love to make.

Date July 23, 2017
Author Chris
Comments 3 Comments

FromTape

TL;DW: A minimalist analog tape emulation.

FromTape

Here’s something more… refined.

FromTape was originally conceived as a ‘bump-less’ ToTape. It appeared with the original ToTape, and then with ToTape3, as a stripped-down version without the head bump, intended as very much the same thing but less bass. In some ways that’s still true.

But, as ToTape grew to version 5, it developed many unusual traits. There was always that untameable head bump code, and its desire to throw DC everywhere (ToTape’s head bump literally doesn’t want to settle on 0, it wants to be either a positive or negative offset voltage by preference). There was the flutter. There was the built-in highpass, coded in a curious way to get a resonant quality around the corner frequency without any actual resonance applied. ToTape grew into a rich and strange effect, with many curious qualities and many fervent fans. And it’s out.

And then there was FromTape.

This FromTape draws on what I’d learned from the Purest plugins. It’s like no previous FromTape: elements have been rearranged, deleted, rethought until it became just this: the ‘unusual’ highpass (which accumulates tiny alterations in a buffer and then applies them in a single add for purity reasons) and THEN the Softer control, accentuated, but ONLY the Softer code and not the ‘Airwindows saturation’ that’s a major part of ToTape and allows for the ‘tape drive’ and saturation effects. The highpass is called ‘Weight’ and wired backwards so as you increase it, more bass comes out.

So, this new FromTape does the very transparent treble softening, but has no real ‘distortion level’ because it has no distortion outside of Softer. It has the highpass (over a far broader range, and adjustable) but not the head bump the highpass was designed to handle. Instead of going after the other effects, the highpass goes first, and then the Softer works on the output of that.

It’s capable of clipping to a set level only if Soften is cranked totally, and then it’s not a good sound (still available, though, in case you want it). Anything else will let peaks through largely undiminished. The highpass cuts bass, but in such a way that clean unclipped bass pre-FromTape might well turn into over 0dB output after FromTape: it cuts the bass in such a way that it might end up 3dB louder. Go figure, use the output level control to buffer it. Rather than loudenating stuff by ‘slamming it with tape saturation’ it’s more likely to reshape the tonality of the sound so it sounds quieter for whatever peak level you’re reaching.

It sounds amazing. It’s also way more CPU-efficient than ToTape, and eats much less in terms of delay buffers and things. You could use it everywhere, certainly on channels where ToTape would be too heavy, but even on channels plus the 2-buss. You could use it in mastering if you wanted to soften digital edge while retaining total clarity, or if you wanted to take an overlimited mix and make the bass rounder and more open, giving a little crest factor back.

I got lucky. FromTape sounds amazing, it really came together in a surprising way. You might like the added thickness and fullness of ToTape, or the bells and whistles, but if you want to call FromTape superior, you won’t be seeing an argument from me. Surprise! This might be your new best tape plugin, especially if you like subtlety and have ears like a bat.

Wouldn’t exist without Patreon. I think it’s possible that I’ll reach the $700 goal this month, and if I do, you get not only Desk next month, you also get my pick of the ‘end of the list’ (stuff that sold less than what the Patreon’s currently at), and I think I will pick StarChild first, just FYI. So, let’s go $700, and I do have something lined up for next week, as well :)

(This plugin has been updated to fix an excessive-CPU bug. If you need the original version as it was first released, you can download it at FromTapeOriginal. Don’t try to use both at the same time, apart from the CPU fix they are identical and will retain all settings etc. without any change in sound or behavior.)

Date July 16, 2017
Author Chris
Comments 5 Comments

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