Airwindows Spiral: Mac/Windows/Linux AU/VST
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- KVRian
- Topic Starter
- 1311 posts since 7 Apr, 2007 from Bellows Falls, VT
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fdrujiFsJo0
TL;DW: New best smoothest distortion algorithm.
Spiral
What if… the building-block sine-based saturation routine I build so many things on, which I thought was the smoothest distortion you could have, is NOT the ideal distortion?
I was watching a youtube video by Brady Haran, on his 'Numberphile' channel. It was about the golden ratio, and it showed the little drawing you've maybe seen, where you take a golden rectangle, and then make a square on it and put a circle segment (like when I use sine curves for my distortions), and then make a smaller square next to it and a circle section on that which connects, and so on ad infinitum. A 'spiral' like a seashell, a golden ratio spiral.
And Brady says, 'of course this isn't actually a spiral' and my mind: blown.
Because of course it isn't. It's circle pieces butted up against each other, and only looks like it's connected because it's pretty flat going through those points. But the rate of curvature changes really suddenly and drastically at those points… and does it the same way, at the zero crossing of ConsoleChannel, Density, PurestDrive, PurestWarm, Channel, and lots and lots of other plugins I've made. It's part of the 'fatter, smooth' sound of some of my distortions. Seemingly really fat and analog-sounding, but there's a discontinuity as you go through zero, which is why it makes the audio sound obviously different.
People do like making the audio sound different, but people HATE the sound of discontinuities. An old version of Channel where I hacked in a 'flat' undistorted section, got me a huge blowback of dismay and outrage until I put it back to the simple sine-based one. People are incredibly sensitive to second order discontinuities, where the output number will be 0 but the direction things are changing will suddenly be the opposite. That's what made the old 'New Channel' be such a failure: the center of the wave was flat no-distortion, and then without making a visible discontinuity it would suddenly change to 'tighter sine-based saturation curve', both on the negative and positive sides of the wave. It would look perfectly normal but people just hated the sound. Now I know why. And now it turns out the sine based one HAS a discontinuity, at the zero crossing, right where you'd get class AB and B distortion, and it never occurred to me.
And I can fix it, and turn the code for that part into ONE line of reinvented original code, which will be open source because I'm Patreon-supported and don't have to stop people using my good audio code (they only have to credit me when they use it: it will be very possible to tell when they do. They don't have to pay anything since it's an MIT license, and they don't have to open their own source, just publically credit that they used my Spiral code).
And of course I did: here, have Spiral, free. You can just install this and listen to it, if the video and the post are too long. This is the proof of concept which can be used in several useful ways. There are no controls, at all. You can gain stage into it and do stuff with it and sit it on the top of every track like it was PurestDrive or Channel, or use it as a 2-buss clipping stage, where it will clip to around -1.4dB with about -0.4 intersample peak maximum (so it is Mastered For iTunes friendly, used as a final clip). It also has a 'freak out mode' if you massively overdrive it, and you can do that with things like uncompressed drums, and it makes noises you've never heard before, or when used more gently it just sounds like the ultimate analogification.
I really had no idea I could do a basic saturation algorithm (which still uses long double precision sines as part of it) that was that good. It's a considerably bigger sonic improvement than the new noise shaping technique, because what it does is on a far higher level… though of course it also is using the new noise shaping, for good measure. All the latest everything, right here.
Bear in mind, the original sin()-based one in Console5, PurestConsole etc. is still optimal for Console5 encode/decode because it can be lossless and has significant effect at low levels. My tape emulation stuff uses the 'fattening' effect of that on purpose. I can't just go through and replace everything because all the sounds will change. I have to re-voice everything that would take advantage of the new code, and I'll do it, and it'll take time and effort, and probably become new versions of things so you can still have the 'sine fatness' versions if you want them. I don't like taking sounds away from people, and old tones shouldn't be removed or made inaccessible.
But what if there's a WAY better analog-sounding distortion effect based on the way that the 'constructed' golden ratio seashell/spiral made of circle sections in boxes that get smaller, is NOT correct because much like the simplest sine-based overdrive, it doesn't start with zero distortion but with the same tiny distortion the whole time (which, in joining to the opposite pole, makes a discontinuity you can't see much like the golden ratio 'spiral' has discontinuities you can't see?) …and I fixed it?
Try Spiral, and I will get to work incorporating this into my library of audio plugins that I make available using my Patreon. I've put out more than 100 plugins for you to freely use, since I started doing it. If even one of them is so useful that you'd have paid $50 for it as a commercial plugin, please join my Patreon at the equivalent of $50 a year. Or, you know, if you think I do good work and I'm better off continuing to do this stuff full-time with awesome resources, and not taking a day job or trying to fix my own porch with time I should spend coding stuff for you. It's as simple as that.
And yes, my porch is still broken, but this has been a good day.
TL;DW: New best smoothest distortion algorithm.
Spiral
What if… the building-block sine-based saturation routine I build so many things on, which I thought was the smoothest distortion you could have, is NOT the ideal distortion?
I was watching a youtube video by Brady Haran, on his 'Numberphile' channel. It was about the golden ratio, and it showed the little drawing you've maybe seen, where you take a golden rectangle, and then make a square on it and put a circle segment (like when I use sine curves for my distortions), and then make a smaller square next to it and a circle section on that which connects, and so on ad infinitum. A 'spiral' like a seashell, a golden ratio spiral.
And Brady says, 'of course this isn't actually a spiral' and my mind: blown.
Because of course it isn't. It's circle pieces butted up against each other, and only looks like it's connected because it's pretty flat going through those points. But the rate of curvature changes really suddenly and drastically at those points… and does it the same way, at the zero crossing of ConsoleChannel, Density, PurestDrive, PurestWarm, Channel, and lots and lots of other plugins I've made. It's part of the 'fatter, smooth' sound of some of my distortions. Seemingly really fat and analog-sounding, but there's a discontinuity as you go through zero, which is why it makes the audio sound obviously different.
People do like making the audio sound different, but people HATE the sound of discontinuities. An old version of Channel where I hacked in a 'flat' undistorted section, got me a huge blowback of dismay and outrage until I put it back to the simple sine-based one. People are incredibly sensitive to second order discontinuities, where the output number will be 0 but the direction things are changing will suddenly be the opposite. That's what made the old 'New Channel' be such a failure: the center of the wave was flat no-distortion, and then without making a visible discontinuity it would suddenly change to 'tighter sine-based saturation curve', both on the negative and positive sides of the wave. It would look perfectly normal but people just hated the sound. Now I know why. And now it turns out the sine based one HAS a discontinuity, at the zero crossing, right where you'd get class AB and B distortion, and it never occurred to me.
And I can fix it, and turn the code for that part into ONE line of reinvented original code, which will be open source because I'm Patreon-supported and don't have to stop people using my good audio code (they only have to credit me when they use it: it will be very possible to tell when they do. They don't have to pay anything since it's an MIT license, and they don't have to open their own source, just publically credit that they used my Spiral code).
And of course I did: here, have Spiral, free. You can just install this and listen to it, if the video and the post are too long. This is the proof of concept which can be used in several useful ways. There are no controls, at all. You can gain stage into it and do stuff with it and sit it on the top of every track like it was PurestDrive or Channel, or use it as a 2-buss clipping stage, where it will clip to around -1.4dB with about -0.4 intersample peak maximum (so it is Mastered For iTunes friendly, used as a final clip). It also has a 'freak out mode' if you massively overdrive it, and you can do that with things like uncompressed drums, and it makes noises you've never heard before, or when used more gently it just sounds like the ultimate analogification.
I really had no idea I could do a basic saturation algorithm (which still uses long double precision sines as part of it) that was that good. It's a considerably bigger sonic improvement than the new noise shaping technique, because what it does is on a far higher level… though of course it also is using the new noise shaping, for good measure. All the latest everything, right here.
Bear in mind, the original sin()-based one in Console5, PurestConsole etc. is still optimal for Console5 encode/decode because it can be lossless and has significant effect at low levels. My tape emulation stuff uses the 'fattening' effect of that on purpose. I can't just go through and replace everything because all the sounds will change. I have to re-voice everything that would take advantage of the new code, and I'll do it, and it'll take time and effort, and probably become new versions of things so you can still have the 'sine fatness' versions if you want them. I don't like taking sounds away from people, and old tones shouldn't be removed or made inaccessible.
But what if there's a WAY better analog-sounding distortion effect based on the way that the 'constructed' golden ratio seashell/spiral made of circle sections in boxes that get smaller, is NOT correct because much like the simplest sine-based overdrive, it doesn't start with zero distortion but with the same tiny distortion the whole time (which, in joining to the opposite pole, makes a discontinuity you can't see much like the golden ratio 'spiral' has discontinuities you can't see?) …and I fixed it?
Try Spiral, and I will get to work incorporating this into my library of audio plugins that I make available using my Patreon. I've put out more than 100 plugins for you to freely use, since I started doing it. If even one of them is so useful that you'd have paid $50 for it as a commercial plugin, please join my Patreon at the equivalent of $50 a year. Or, you know, if you think I do good work and I'm better off continuing to do this stuff full-time with awesome resources, and not taking a day job or trying to fix my own porch with time I should spend coding stuff for you. It's as simple as that.
And yes, my porch is still broken, but this has been a good day.
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heavymetalmixer heavymetalmixer https://www.kvraudio.com/forum/memberlist.php?mode=viewprofile&u=391539
- KVRian
- 692 posts since 8 Jan, 2017
You never stop surprising me dude, keep it on
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- KVRAF
- 2084 posts since 24 Jun, 2006 from London, England
I think I've found my new 2-bus clipper....
- KVRAF
- 2138 posts since 8 Feb, 2007
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Try :
GStage @ -3dB --> BC Gain (send) ---> Drive --> Spiral --> BC Gain (Receive) -->
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Try :
GStage @ -3dB --> BC Gain (send) ---> Drive --> Spiral --> BC Gain (Receive) -->
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Professional technicians are assessed by the abilities they possess.
Amateur technicians are assessed by the tools they possess - and the amount of those tools, with an obvious preference to the latest hyped ones.
(Gabe Dumbbell)
Amateur technicians are assessed by the tools they possess - and the amount of those tools, with an obvious preference to the latest hyped ones.
(Gabe Dumbbell)
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- KVRian
- Topic Starter
- 1311 posts since 7 Apr, 2007 from Bellows Falls, VT
Turns out if I get to work on this stuff full-time, I get new stuff out of it. And now, so do you
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- Banned
- 480 posts since 28 Apr, 2017
BC gain = BlueCat Gain??Tp3 wrote:-
Try :
GStage @ -3dB --> BC Gain (send) ---> Drive --> Spiral --> BC Gain (Receive) -->
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If so, wouldn't PurestGain ---> Drive--> Spiral --> PurestGain work as well??
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- KVRist
- 239 posts since 21 Apr, 2010
I think it's because the input/output compensationjbarish wrote:BC gain = BlueCat Gain??Tp3 wrote:-
Try :
GStage @ -3dB --> BC Gain (send) ---> Drive --> Spiral --> BC Gain (Receive) -->
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If so, wouldn't PurestGain ---> Drive--> Spiral --> PurestGain work as well??
- Banned
- 7624 posts since 13 Nov, 2015 from Norway
Liero wrote:Isn't there a special thread for that?bmanic wrote:This plugin is amazing!!
EnergyXT3 - LMMS - FL Studio | Roland SH201 - Waldorf Rocket | SoundCloud - Bandcamp
- KVRAF
- 1770 posts since 23 Sep, 2004 from Kocmoc
Tell us morebmanic wrote:This plugin is amazing!! Like.. I can't even put it to words how amazing this thing is.
Soft Knees - Live 12, Diva, Omnisphere, Slate Digital VSX, TDR, Kush Audio, U-He, PA, Valhalla, Fuse, Pulsar, NI, OekSound etc. on Win11Pro R7950X & RME AiO Pro
https://www.youtube.com/@softknees/videos Music & Demoscene
https://www.youtube.com/@softknees/videos Music & Demoscene
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- KVRer
- 18 posts since 18 May, 2018
It makes coffee...legendCNCD wrote:Tell us morebmanic wrote:This plugin is amazing!! Like.. I can't even put it to words how amazing this thing is.
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- KVRian
- Topic Starter
- 1311 posts since 7 Apr, 2007 from Bellows Falls, VT
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- KVRer
- 18 posts since 22 Feb, 2010 from TN USA
I saw the same numberphile video.
I am applying to everything new situation this week.
I am applying to everything new situation this week.