bkFX v0.8.0 - Free Effects Suite - NEW down-/upward compressor

[miedex]

could you add a mid/side balance fader to bkChannelTool? I think that would be pretty useful

[karrikuh]

0.3 Beta (2013-4-15)

• new plugin bkEnsemble: ensemble chorus
• new plugin bkPassthrough: passes through audio unchanged. Useful e.g. for REAPER channel routing.
• bkDelay, bkPitch, parts of bkChannelTool: rewrote DSP code using SSE, more efficient.
• bkDelay: 2nd-order smoothing for delay time to allow truly artifact-free automation
• bkChannelTool: extended "Width" parameter range to 200% (enhance stereo image)

[RunBeerRun]

I like the ensemble chorus, reminds me of my old Behringer Ultra Chorus, but not as thick.

Tested in Reaper, crashes in Energy xt 1.4.

[cosmosis]

AWWWWBOOHOOO

Reaper tells me that it can't run them. Do these require SSE 1-2 or some Microsoft VS/NET runtimes?

I'm not complaining, but just curious. I love GUIless lightweight homemade plugins

[DuX]

Thank you, Karrikuh! I'll try them.

Crashes Energy XT 1.4 RunBeerRun? Which plugin, ensemble chorus? I'm going to test it, too.

bkPassThrough is a great idea. bkEnsemble sounds gorgeous!

Nothing crashed so far. EXT1, Reaper, XPSP3, Phenomenal AMD 4 core, RME ASIO.

Cheers!

[RunBeerRun]

I also got ensemble working in Energy xt 1.4 today. Yesterday was an error.

[DuX]

Sometimes other software interferes with the working of the DAW. It could be Firefox, antivirus, antidaw, whatever.

If you can pinpoint the problem that makes some plugins crash, that's always great to know.

[DiNFeVo]

I have a problem with bkDelay x64 in Reaper x64. When I turn it on the Delay Link then I turn it off, sounds like the Delay Link still holds on.

Note: When I click on the slider of Delay Factor R, the change on Delay Link can be heard now.

[karrikuh]

AWWWWBOOHOOO

Reaper tells me that it can't run them. Do these require SSE 1-2 or some Microsoft VS/NET runtimes?

I'm not complaining, but just curious. I love GUIless lightweight homemade plugins

Yes, some require SSE2, some SSE3.

[karrikuh]

I like the ensemble chorus, reminds me of my old Behringer Ultra Chorus, but not as thick.

Tested in Reaper, crashes in Energy xt 1.4.

Works for me in Energy XT 2.6.1 demo.

As a general tip for people having issues with various hosts: make sure that there are are only either the x64 or x86 versions in your VST folder, but not both. If you delete or replace some (even with newer version), let the host do a proper rescan of the VST folder.

[cosmosis]

Ahh thanks for the infos and the plugins. Hopefully I'll be able to catch up with technology soon

[DuX]

The Ensemble plugin is soooo goood. Combined with the delay, it's just such a pleasure to play with whatever you put through it, but especially pads, of course. ♥ It! What kids don't get these days is that you don't have to have 128 oscillators to play at the same time to get a nice, thick sound. And not everything has to be thick, too... If you want to mix the thing to sound good. Thick sounds stick out, and when you have 10 thick sounds nothing sticks out. We were able to get a thick sound in the early 90s just by using various FX, and the polyphony of the synths was mostly 4-8, with 2 oscillators per voice. it feels rather inspiring when you have to manage with only this number of voices. The knowledge of what various FX do is indispensable, for a musician as well as a mixing engineer, and mastering engineer.

Karrikuh, you're making a pretty good bunch of plugins here... and that's an understatement. d= yay!

The last time I was this excited was when Michael Gruhn AKA Loser was making his plugin suite about 4-5 years ago.

I hope you will always have a GUIless version of them available? I find such plugins just so much more easily manageable, and more flexible to use with Muse and other "hardware" VST hosts. GUIs just bring problems to the table. Of course, in many cases you just can't make a GUIless plugin when there's 50 parameters to tweak, but when you have like 5-10, then a GUI is just unnecessary. IMO, of course.

Cheers!

and Thank you so much!

[tl]

great plugins... thank you for these...
i agree with DuX concerning the link with Loser's plugins.
mainly using Audiomulch & Plogue Bidule i'm also a great friend of workin' with guiless plugs.
bkEnsemble sounds very good yet i have a problem with it on my machine:
it works without flaws in Audiomulch but if i insert it in a signal chain in Bidule sound gets muted completely within Bidule.

[ras.s]

Yes, these are some seriously good stuff.. Thank you!

I report that all of the plugins work well here, with 32bit Vista on AMD Athlon, latest EnergyXT and Studio One Prof.

Studio One has a feature on the mixer, 'expand', which expands the plugin options right there on the mixer. That doesn't work with these plugins, yet I tried with Gruhn's and MDA plugs as well -- they don't work either, so I suppose it's something with how S1 handles plugins without interfaces and not a flaw in the plugs themselves..

The pitch plugin has become my #1 choice for pitch shifting, I really like it. The delay and modfilter are fabulous as well. Really some great stuff.. And now listening and testing, the ensemble seems to hit a sweet spot here..


Regarding the passthrough plug.. I'm not a Reaper user and I wonder what is it good for in that host, how is it used there? I can't think of much use for it with the hosts I use.


As for utility plugins, something I could really find usefull would be a splitter. Basically a signal in -> two signals out. It could open a little bit of parallel processing in traditional style hosts; good for layering, doubling, etc (without actually having two tracks/plugin instances of whatever).. I can do it in S1 with the plugin version of eXT, but would be really sweet to just skip eXT at times..


Thank you!

[karrikuh]

The Ensemble plugin is soooo goood. Combined with the delay, it's just such a pleasure to play with whatever you put through it, but especially pads, of course. ♥ It! What kids don't get these days is that you don't have to have 128 oscillators to play at the same time to get a nice, thick sound. And not everything has to be thick, too... If you want to mix the thing to sound good. Thick sounds stick out, and when you have 10 thick sounds nothing sticks out. We were able to get a thick sound in the early 90s just by using various FX, and the polyphony of the synths was mostly 4-8, with 2 oscillators per voice. it feels rather inspiring when you have to manage with only this number of voices. The knowledge of what various FX do is indispensable, for a musician as well as a mixing engineer, and mastering engineer.

Karrikuh, you're making a pretty good bunch of plugins here... and that's an understatement. d= yay!

Thanks, glad to hear you like the effects! And let me tell you that I totally share your opinion about the creation of thick sounds. Apart from its overuse to turn everything into an impressive wall of sound, I consider unison mode in synths mostly a waste of CPU cycles given that I can obtain nearly identical results with a decent chorus effect.

The last time I was this excited was when Michael Gruhn AKA Loser was making his plugin suite about 4-5 years ago.

I hope you will always have a GUIless version of them available? I find such plugins just so much more easily manageable, and more flexible to use with Muse and other "hardware" VST hosts. GUIs just bring problems to the table. Of course, in many cases you just can't make a GUIless plugin when there's 50 parameters to tweak, but when you have like 5-10, then a GUI is just unnecessary. IMO, of course.

Hmm, actually I do not intend to keep GUIless versions once the GUIs are ready due to the increased complexity of managing all these different versions (managing various platforms is already a challenge). However, note that given my current time budget I suspect the GUI versions will take quite a while anyway and even if they are released you can always use an older GUIless version.