Airwindows Monitoring REDUX: Mac/Windows/Linux AU/VST

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sKpdRKXarpo

TL;DW: Monitoring is your one-stop shop for final 2-buss work!

Monitoring.zip(414k)

Oh, hey, new camera! And I bent my glasses so they don't blind you! (They still work for reading stuff though!)

But also… new MONITORING. So this outright replaces the previous one, 'cos they're basically the same, but with the following changes:

-Aurat now has mono-summed versions that come out of either the left or right speaker, so you can get a true mono grot-box single speaker mix check even if you don't have one
-Phone's now mono (no special single-speaker tricks, it's more an afterthought but sure enough, you don't normally get stereo cellphones)
-TWO new Cans algorithms, Cans C and Cans D.

Cans C is just 'stronger, but basically still normal', as requested. Cans D is something else again. It's for really messing up the stereo, like when someone wanted to listen to old Beatles tracks and 'fix' the weird dual-mono mix (which I don't normally approve of). But, since it uses SUCH a strong allpass stereo crossfeed, what you get has also got some characteristics of Peaks, without the exaggerations. So, if you can't work with Peaks or find it disorienting, there's a new 'headphones energy redistributor' in town and this one attacks exaggerated stereo too. Try it out and see what you think!

Patreon pays for a lot: it helps me upgrade my gear so people can take my operation more seriously. But it also leads to other stuff: not only all the livestreams, but also side-projects that can bring you new stuff in their own right. I've been building eurorack-module kits. I made four Radio Musics (also known as Chord Organs) and they all work great. Not only can I put out dedicated drum samples that are dithered correctly for the Radio Music (current ones are OK at rhythmic sample triggering, especially if you're doing a backbeat that might lay behind the click anyway), but I'll tell you now that I am going to be trying to write alternate firmware for the Chord Organ/Radio Music platform. Because they're soooo nifty, and very affordable if you can solder up a kit. And I'm still aiming to do things with the Axoloti… so those of you who build stuff, that is your cue to take interest in the Radio Music and Axoloti if you're not already interested.

Much like Émilie of Mutable Instruments, what I'm doing is compatible with other people running with it. So, look on it this way: if you support Airwindows so that I make some kind of amazing firmware with stuff that you could then turn around and design a faceplate for and build yourself and sell… hey, win/win as far as I'm concerned. I've done a lot towards trying to manufacture hardware but it's becoming clear that I'd rather be a lighthouse: nothing would make me happier than to see my ideas out there getting used. (And since it's all open source it keeps ya honest if you do mean to go into business on the back of my stuff: if you can, so can someone else, so be good! :) )

Talk to you later (or indeed sooner, as in 'Monday at 11:00 AM EST' for my Q&A stream!)

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Thanks!
I was actually using a mono plugin before your previous version of monitor to have it all summed to mono and then used the "Auratone" setting. With the new additioned feature you take it even a step further.
proud to produce warezless!
my Trap beatz:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC4J14A ... -FzS9TNa2w

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Would be happy to see your take on some Eurorack projects, and how digital fidelity concepts are applied to this platform :-) At the moment there are some interesting lo-fi and hi-fi things out there: it's hard to know what can properly handle audio-rate modulation and what is just an inferior plugin in a handy box.

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imrae wrote: Mon Oct 14, 2019 8:19 am Would be happy to see your take on some Eurorack projects, and how digital fidelity concepts are applied to this platform :-) At the moment there are some interesting lo-fi and hi-fi things out there: it's hard to know what can properly handle audio-rate modulation and what is just an inferior plugin in a handy box.
In that light I'm having a fun and interesting time trying to invent a really good bass for Eurorack. Right now the best I've been able to do is three Doepfer A-110-4 all wired together. They're analog through-zero-FMable sinewave oscillators, and I've been coming up with ways of normalling all their pitch CVs together and then making a simple three-operator analog FM bass synth. The key element there is, having produced the big full analog-osc-only FM bass note, I'm using a WMD DVCA to apply gates/envelope, so it can have a clickless abrupt attack. Ideally I can get into a purely-analog psytrance zone that way (usually not possible as you must have sample-accurate attacks on things that are incredibly sharp)

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adl wrote: Mon Oct 14, 2019 5:54 am Thanks!
I was actually using a mono plugin before your previous version of monitor to have it all summed to mono and then used the "Auratone" setting. With the new additioned feature you take it even a step further.
Talking of mono plugins.

I needed one the other day after using an old pair of cans with just one side working. I was just messing about doing a beat. I put a delay on it and it sounded great. Then I plugged in a working pair of cans and the stereo image was just insane, bouncing around all over the shop. So I thought I'd put on a 'mono' plugin to bring it 'back in to shape'. Keep the echo but not have it ping-ponging so crazily across the stereo field. Mmmm... where can I find one of those 'mono' plugins then?

I'm on an unfamiliar computer but I got the Airwindows bundle installed - must be one in there right? But couldn't find one. Looked under 'M' found 'Monitoring', and something called 'MoNoam'. Didn't appear to be what I was looking for (more on this later). So I searched under 'S' for 'Stereo' instead and found 'StereoFX'. http://www.airwindows.com/stereofx-vst/

Mmm... Read up on it on the Airwindows site. The plugin did the trick - it really narrowed down the wild stereo field, but still, I wasn't sure I was getting a strict narrow-band mono signal and nothing else. My meters (Wavecandy) were telling me the same thing as well when I plugged them in. Almost but not quite pure mono. No complaints though, did the job.

But surely Airwindows must have a 'MonoIZER' plugin somewhere?

But on the StereoFX page they mentioned a plugin called 'Wider' http://www.airwindows.com/wider-vst/

So I gave that a go as well. Chris mentioned something about 'cancelling in mono' on the StereoFX page so I thought I'd try and use this widening FX to cancel out again and bring things down to a mono image. Worked. Got a pure mono image when cancelled out with this one.

But the variations of just these two plugins were absolutely sublime!

So subtle. So controllable.

There's a lot of plugins in that bundle. And it's hard to know what does what. You would expect that you should be able to find a 'monoIZER' plugin quite easy, and I did. But still, as elegant and as sublime as these plugins were, surely there must be an even more elegant and utilitarian 'monoIZER' in the pack somewhere?

And as serendipity would have it...

I kept searching on Airwindows web page to find this enigmatic 'monoIZER' that I knew must exist somewhere, but where? And there it was, under the 'Monitoring' entry (which I looked at again quickly for my mono needs, but it wasn't quite the 'thing'). Yes there it was: 'MoNoam'.

Pure and perfect in form and function.

Could hardly believe Chris hadn't done such a pure 'monoIZER' like this before. He only released this like a week or so ago! About time too!

Now this plugin is also very elegant and every bit as sublime. But most important of all, it did what I was looking to do in the quickest and most no-nonsense fashion: 'monoIZE' a stereo signal. Perfect.

http://www.airwindows.com/monoam/

And maybe you might have tricky situations having to do with mid/side, or you’re doing odd things

Well, making up a funky drum loop while 'monitoring' on a pair of cans, 2 feet from your head (with only one of the cans working), might be considered 'odd' - I don't know. I managed to get it sounding though how I 'thought' it sounded when I was monitoring in that strange way. All thanks to the brilliant Airwindows plugins.

Have fun. I don’t think this is going to be a popular plugin, but it’s nice and clean and convenient and simple. What’s not to like?

I did have fun! I just bought a few new plugins from SKnote and I was getting really carried away. Who would have thought such simple plugins would have ended up distracting me and leading me down another extremely interesting rabbit hole. I ended up forgetting about my new plugins as I experimented with all things mono and stereo, widening, flattening, adding, canceling...

Truly sublime.

What with StereoFX and Wider and MoNoam (not to mention Monitoring) - that makes a pretty comprehensive bundle of stereo and mono tools that are just so quick and easy to use and work absolutely perfectly across a range of hosts (Cubase in this instance). But you don't just get the standard tools, you get these really interesting and utilitarian variations on a theme as well. The fact you can make 'Wider', 'Narrower' is such a simple thing, but...

And it doesn't stop there.

I was looking to see if Chris did something along the lines of some kind of Transformer plugin (Kazrog True Iron and SKnote Marconi1). Just out of curiousity. I found one plugin on the site that returned a result: Single Ended Triode (catchy name).

http://www.airwindows.com/single-ended-triode-vst/

But first I came across two suggestions on youtube videos (iirc) when searching for alternatives to True Iron. One was Airwindows Thunder, the other was DrumSlam.

http://www.airwindows.com/thunder/
http://www.airwindows.com/drumslam-vst/

I can't remember exactly how I found them - it was just in passing. But I'm glad I did. I whacked them on that crazy drum loop I was trying to monoIZE earlier. Again, so subtle, so simple, but when used in combination, whole new sonic territory opens up. Spicey!

I can see these getting a whole lot more use now I've discovered them. The whole Airwindows bundle is pretty overwhelming and so far I'm just dipping in to it as and when needs be. Using the search function on the site, reading through the excellent and thorough notes. Following up the references to other plugins...

And so I ended up back at 'Single Ended Triode'. I didn't really expect anything to replicate the excellent Kazrog plugin, but still, I was curious. It certainly did shape the sound of the drum loop further in very interesting ways, and in one way in particular I wasn't expecting: De-Reverberation!

This thing is a really superb little De-Reverber. I had a nice dollop of Verbtone on my drum loop, sounding very very lush. But on a certain setting on Single Ended Triode, it just stripped away the reverb tails while still leaving the body intact. Very clever. Very handy. When I took the reverb off the drum loop, it became very dry again. So it didn't quite make the reverb signal totally invisible, it just 'edited' it. I tried it with quite a few settings and on different reverbs as well. This thing can definitely be used for De-Reverbing purposes.

Single Ended Triode does three things, and you don’t have to do them all at once (in fact you probably don’t want to).

I did want to! Don't tell me what to do! I had to De-Reverberate! And I'd do it again too!

Everything whacked up, just about.

Image

I did quite a few variations, but this is one of them. Some are more subtle than others, with just a topping of the tails, to a chopping and lopping off of the tails. Both a utility effect and a dramatic effect, and everything inbetween.

This is the drumloop with the plugin being turned on and off so you can hear what it's doing:

https://soundcloud.com/codex_pert/de-reverbed

Wasn't really expecting that.

In between learning the SKnote Shadow Hills compressor (which is just about as oddball and involved as you can get in compressor land) and getting great results with it, it was a pleasure to have such nice 'building blocks' from Airwindows to help me sculpt and shape the sound (and add a bit of spice).

Come to think of it, and I've only just realised right now, I could have used that Monitoring plugin to send a mono signal to that one good ear piece in my broken cans.

I could have also used MoNoam as well. And I could have also monitored the mids and the sides as well from that one single ear piece.

It's all the variations of mono you could possibly want.

MoNoam is such a wonderfully useful plugin as well. It's a work of art. I think it's going to get a lot of use out there in the wild.

Chris is a genius really.

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No YOU'RE a genius :D

Never thought of that! Turns out Single Ended Triode can indeed de-reverb the right kind of track. Learn something new every day :)

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Heads up: instead of the usual plugin this weekend I'm working on Monitoring again. There are some ideas around the Cans stuff that could be a big win, and I'm getting talked into some new stuff around bass handling that, if I'm correct, won't hurt the accuracy for translating to loudspeakers. Watch this space :D

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Great! Looking forward to any news and an update.
proud to produce warezless!
my Trap beatz:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC4J14A ... -FzS9TNa2w

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Monitoring.zip(419k)

OK, how's this? I learned something. Turns out, it's extremely relevant to mono-ize bass 'cos with real speakers at those frequencies you end up pressurizing the room and always have both ears involved. When I started implementing that change it helped a LOT, I felt.

We've got some revisions on the intensities of the various Cans. I feel like with the bass-centering, Cans A and Cans B became more immersive. I dialed back Cans C and Cans D so that D wasn't too insane, and C might still be the optimal one for folks who don't find B is doing enough. Hope this was worth the wait :D

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I hope this is working out: I'm getting so lambasted on another site that it feels like shenanigans. It did seem to me like the bass-side-filtering helped.

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I started using this plugin today and I love it, mostly because of Cans. But given I've never mixed on speakers so I don't really know how they would sound. What do you people (and Chris) think is the best Cans option for mixing and mastering?
Last edited by heavymetalmixer on Sun Feb 09, 2020 1:58 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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heavymetalmixer wrote: Sun Feb 09, 2020 3:37 am I started using this plugin today and I love it, mostly because of Cans. But given I've never mixing on speakers I don't really know how they would sound. What do you people (and Chris) think is the best Cans option for mixing and mastering?
It really depends. Cans A is subtle, Cans D is agressive, but keep in mind that these Cans just narrow the stereo image, which isn't that bad, but still not a real "crossfeed", even though Chris says it is one
It is really transparent, so it doesn't affect spectral balance. But if you need "speakers to headphones" try some real crossfeed plugins (112db Redline Monitor, Goodhertz CanOpener, RJStudios Cans2Cones)

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The whole subject seems weird to me. Fortunately since it's open source I can say exactly what it is :D

It is content from L fed to R through some allpass filters that act a bit like a reverb, and content from R fed to L through some allpass filters that act a bit like a reverb, plus highpassing the side channel.

If feeding L to R and R to L isn't 'real crossfeed', I'm not sure why not. If you want to just narrow the stereo image you do that by turning down Side, and don't need to do anything with allpasses, so that's weird. But it is Cans, hopefully people like it.

I never intended Cans to be considered better for mixing and mastering than the regular un-effected signal. Seems like any such plugin would be bad for mastering :)

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jinxtigr wrote: Sun Feb 09, 2020 12:07 pm . . . I never intended Cans to be considered better for mixing and mastering than the regular un-effected signal. Seems like any such plugin would be bad for mastering :)
Because it more or less changes the frequency response? I've been mixing in headphones for 3 years already and even though for many practical reasons I think headphones are better than speakers, the lack of that "more realistic" center than speakers provide, tends to mess my mixes sometimes (detecting phase issues is easy, but getting the balances right isn't).

Would using a Mid/Side processor to reduce the sides give a more faithful sound enough to master with it?

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jinxtigr wrote: Sun Feb 09, 2020 12:07 pm If feeding L to R and R to L isn't 'real crossfeed', I'm not sure why not
Alright, check for yourself: put some stereo white noise, then any Cans after that, solo the side signal and sweep with any bandpass filter, you'll see that the side signal stays consistent throughout the whole spectrum, even at the bottom, so there is no actual allpassing going on. Check with M/S analyzer (SPAN for example), check with M/S impulses. So yes, this is really transparent side dimmer

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