Airwindows Iron Oxide Classic: AU, Mac and PC VST

[jinxtigr]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g2nG6gAkdN4

TL;DW: Old school tape emulation, extra pure and free of grunge.

Iron Oxide Classic

As promised, here is the 2017-ized version of the pure, sweet, original Iron Oxide. No more grit or tape flutter or noise!

It's funny how this works. If you're a commercial developer, and you release a plugin that's real popular, one thing that happens is people begin asking for more. More features, more variations, this and that and the other. The flutter in Iron Oxide 5 came about that way: it migrated over from ToTape (which is also coming to free VST).

Every new thing added is something lost. But since I'm no longer doing strictly commercial development (it's steadily all becoming free, backed by my Patreon which allows all this to happen) I can do things like confuse the 'market' and release both the feature-full Iron Oxide 5, and the stripped-down Iron Oxide Classic. This one is just like the original: input trim, ips control, and output trim. Better yet, it has the pure unsullied tone of the very first Iron Oxide, only brought up to date so it noise shapes to the 32 bit buss etc.

Even if you liked the grunge factor of the very adjustable Iron Oxide 5 (more controls may be added but bear in mind I have a commitment to release plugins like BussColors, not just keep revising Iron Oxide!) you might want to check this out. And if later versions of Iron Oxide wandered away from what works for you, for instance if you're making electronic music and needed much cleaner handling of synthetic tones… this is your lucky day!

Hope you like Iron Oxide Classic. It is, truly, one of the Airwindows classics, now for free VST and brought up to date.

[cprompt]

Brilliant, just brilliant. I put this in my "just makes things sound better" category. Thank you.

Iron Oxide 5 is also excellent, this is just even easier to get a great sound.

[Armagibbon]

So it's saturation with a tilt filter kinda thing? Cool. But yea def not for the final sum.

[Tp3]

So it's saturation with a tilt filter kinda thing? Cool. But yea def not for the final sum.

Exactly my thinking.

Very hard to dial in the right tone, on 2bus or otherwise (try in on synth and you might suck the essence of it... try on on percs, and you might loose the vibe - or, what I call : "Bye-Vibe").

I'll wait To... Tape

[Tp3]

I haven't tried it yet on full blown content (only on snippets) but you MAY use it in a send/return configuration - dialing in the right amount of Hi/Lo bias, driving it as much as you want and then compensating.

EDIT:

Tried it... it DOES work but only when setting up less-then-simple config (Metaplugin with trim plug at -12dB going to two IOC - one at 1ips and one at 150; both driven 3dB and compensated on the same amount - then to output ; Metaplugin then placed as a return and you send stuff to it).

The color is there... and you can dial the IPS to taste (IMO, any setting the does not hover around the extreme sides, simply kills the vibe). but man, that's a long way to reach for that goal

[camsr]

to it).

The color is there... and you can dial the IPS to taste (IMO, any setting the does not hover around the extreme sides, simply kills the vibe).

Maybe try EQing afterwards? (I haven't tried this yet)

[Tp3]

to it).

The color is there... and you can dial the IPS to taste (IMO, any setting the does not hover around the extreme sides, simply kills the vibe).

Maybe try EQing afterwards? (I haven't tried this yet)

Tried it (e.g w Air to resurrect Hi frequencies). as with other Tilt EQs, it's just not the same.

As of now, making a "MetaOxide" seem to be my preferred solution (I made a preset in Metaplugin so it is a matter of recalling it, that's all) , I just don't know if the hassle is worth it (IO5 is a total no-go for my type of music, too).

I hope ToTape (or BussColors) is different.

[Autobot]

Nice plugin but I would prefer to have IronOxide5 without the hiss / noise.

[nineofkings]

In Reaper, every plugin has integrated dry/wet controls. The easiest thing for me is to match the output gain and then pull it back to ~50%. Works like a charm. This way it's almost like a multiband saturator, isolating a frequency band and blowing it out.

This isn't supposed to be a hi fi 2-buss tape emulation. It's supposed to be gritty cassette-like saturation. Put a thin synth patch into it (synth1 works well) or a clean guitar, and a wow/slow pitch modulation after it and you get some really great VHS-like tones.

[Tp3]

This isn't supposed to be a hi fi 2-buss tape emulation. It's supposed to be gritty cassette-like saturation. Put a thin synth patch into it (synth1 works well) or a clean guitar, and a wow/slow pitch modulation after it and you get some really great VHS-like tones.

I just tried with synth1.

It totally obliterates the vibe of a lot of patches (some of them gloriously good. and extremely modern sounding both in harmonic content and level).

Isn't a simple Hi+Lo[Pass]+saturation more "chewable" ? (just askin'...)

I'm finding a lot of AW totally indispensable but thus far the tape ones.... lets say I'll wait totape

[camsr]

Why does changing IPS tilt the spectrum? It sounds a bit like a bandpass to me. I thought IPS only limits high frequency bandwidth.

[jinxtigr]

Trading off bass for treble is long known in analog tape circles: a lot of people have chosen to record at 15 ips or even 7.5 (more rarely) to get the fuller, more extended bass. And it's not really a tilt, it's Iron Oxide in its original form, brought up to date and made free VST. (for instance, if you have unity gain set on either gain control, it doesn't do the multiply at all: didn't used to do that, I learned that more recently). The reason is also, 'it was directly competing with another plugin of the era and that plugin has similar bandpassy properties' and I was trying to get a better tone with similar behavior. The other one had set IPS options, so me putting a slider with continuous variation was already adding more features

It's going to make more sense to revisit Iron Oxide 5 and tack another control on (please be aware that you'll have to write down your settings and re-set them: otherwise the noise volume would have to go under the inv/wet/dry, and that won't work). I can do that as an update without another version number.

Anyways, you shall have both, but I'm keeping Iron Oxide Classic in its purest form, because it moved too far away from its essence.

To me if you're talking about 'sucking the essence out of synths and percussion' and needing to radically boost highs, you're using the wrong plugin. That's not what Iron Oxide Classic is even for (did you try Capacitor, for instance?). I'm sure there's percussion that doesn't sit right with Iron Oxide Classic, but how about a loudly barking snare, or some kind of dirty loop? It's a bit like saying a wah pedal is too midrangey Iron Oxide, in its original form, was ALL ABOUT the midrange and making individual tracks sit in the mix a lot better, WHEN they worked with that treatment.

That's where you should be looking. This is not a plugin to study how it sounds in solo, and measure how much highs you lost, and I've been saying for years and years this isn't the 2-buss one. This is an isolated-track tape-slam effect and should be heard in the mix, ideally on something that needs to hit harder from its midrange frequency zone without getting in the way of the lows and highs.

Try that

[bungle]

Crank the input on drums and use the filter (Whatever it is called, doesn't report names properly in the vst version on MacOS, same as all AW plugins) follow it by a delay, you get some nice dirty drums, no6 found much else to use it for yet though.

[jinxtigr]

Nice plugin but I would prefer to have IronOxide5 without the hiss / noise.

Wish granted (go find the Iron Oxide 5 post, or just go to airwindows.com: I've updated 5 to include a noise control, and it turned out to be a great thing to do, it's way better now )