Airwindows Discontinuity: Free Mac/Windows/Linux/Pi CLAP/AU/VST3/VST2/LV2/Rack

[jinxtigr]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hr5ps88wa_o

TL;DW: Discontinuity models air under intense loudness.

Discontinuity in Airwindows Consolidated(CLAP, AU, VST3, LV2)
Discontinuity.zip(498k) standalone(AU, VST2)

This might be the most important subtle sound effect I've ever done.

Air isn't linear. That's why DAWs don't sound like reality: they are literally too perfect, in that their transients, their sound combining, every aspect of their operation has no error at all. One would assume this would produce perfect sound, but some of us have never shut up about our grievances with it. (we just lost a titan of that grievance in Steve Albini, but he's far from alone in that.)

If you have sounds in air, they sound real even while the air itself distorts them. Much like my recent work with capacitors modulating their values under voltage pressure (up to 80% in some cases!), air modulates the speed of sound under AIR pressure. This makes incredibly obvious and intense crackles on loud sounds like rocket takeoffs, but many of us have heard this crackle at things like rock concerts, especially in a really live room like a hockey rink.

Discontinuity simply adds THAT distortion. At loudnesses from 70 dB to 140 dB. That's all it does, and at loudnesses below 110 dB or so it's quite subtle… but I've found use for it as quiet as 71dB (the voice tracks on my last two videos!)

I won't say it's correct and accurate at 140dB: I include that because people will enjoy it so much, but I'm not using that much. I just have to… because people will enjoy it, and because it's impossible not to hear when cranked that high.

How to use Discontinuity? At any point in the mix where there's a sound, apply it so that the loudest possible sound (typically 0dB, or clipping) matches the loudness you need. If your sound peaks at 10 dB quieter than clipping, and the sound needs to seem like it's 102 dB, set Discontinuity to 112 dB. And listen! There will be an obvious sweet spot where it starts to seem exactly right, and you can dial in the apparent loudness as if it was a tone or EQ move.

Discontinuity does its frequency modulation using sample buffers. For that reason, it permanently has a bit of latency and it's never quite the same latency because it's frequency modulated by the track it's on. For that reason, you could put it on every track and drum mic as long as you give up the idea of phase coherence. It's better on minimally miked things or possibly submixes, and on distinct sounds that don't need to keep perfect phase alignment with each other.

Depending on who you are and what you've dreamed of being able to make sound do, you might immediately not care about any of that, and immediately start using it on everything and never stop. That's me. It's like when I invented Console, only more so. The interesting thing is how useful I find the quiet, subtle settings when getting a mix to gel and come alive like it's a real sonic event happening. I can set very delicate and quiet, against super loud, and have them all just work.

Discontinuity is a fundamental part of ConsoleX, which I'm still working on. I hope you like getting a little piece of the mixing revolution early, so you can learn about it

Airwindows Consolidated Download
Most recent VCV Rack module
download 64 Bit Windows VSTs.zip
download Signed M1/Intel Mac AUs.dmg
download Signed M1/Intel Mac VSTs.dmg
download LinuxVSTs.zip
download LinuxARMVSTs.zip for the Pi
download Retro 32 Bit Windows VSTs.zip
download Retro PPC/32/64 Mac AUs.zip
download Retro PPC/32/64 Mac VSTs.zip
Mediafire Backup of all downloads
All this is free and open source under the MIT license, brought to you by my Patreon.

[Jonathan Shepherd]

Very cool! Chris, you are the man as always. Tbh I haven't yet tried it, but now I'm wondering if it's like the airy sound around the bassline at the beginning of this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=faa9HkgK8uQ
And it's not the slight breathing sound around the chimes either, I'm still wondering about that. Anyhoo, I'll try it later. Good day-

[ampetrosillo]

The behaviour is odd. It's essentially a saturator with a sloping THD response, but I'd expect the slope to be reversed, stronger in the lows and weaker in the treble. Instead it does little at low frequencies and distorts the treble much more.

[bitman]

I tried it first on a vsti drum bus - hmm..... yeah
So I put it on the electric guitar bus..... uh huhu.

I left it there. sure can't hurt.

[jinxtigr]

edit post is duplicating them, scuse me

[jinxtigr]

edit post is duplicating them, scuse me

[jinxtigr]

The behaviour is odd. It's essentially a saturator with a sloping THD response, but I'd expect the slope to be reversed, stronger in the lows and weaker in the treble. Instead it does little at low frequencies and distorts the treble much more.

Ampetrosillo… it's a frequency modulated delay.

Honest, that's what it is. Three of them stacked and set up just right, specifically. There is no filtering and there's not supposed to be saturating in it. It just so happens that when you push the algorithm hard enough it freaks out.

This is MIT licensed code. You can audit it if you don't believe me. It really is modulated delays with no filters in them. (that will be Distance3, which I'm being asked for)

It's a frequency modulated delay, tripled. The frequency is the same input signal that's being fed into the delay.

edit: following up on a question at dogsonacid I checked out the code again, and I'm glad I didn't say 'that's ALL it is', because there's a hardclip in there. But it's not at the end… it's at the beginning! And it's there because if it isn't the plugin crashes: it's just as I described it, but since it's a delay modulated at audio rates, if your input signal makes the delay go beyond the delay buffer, it will crash.

But it's not designed or intended to be used only at those levels or above. Some of my most useful uses of it have been much quieter. On my videos I'm using it on the voice mic at 71 dB and it's perfect, and that's unbelievably far from distorting the plugin