Airwindows Plugins Starter Kit (AU/VST, Mac/Win/Linux)

[jinxtigr]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WT_Q_V7hYkU

StarterKit.zip(4.5M)

This is the Airwindows Plugin Starter Kit. It contains 11 plugins (if you count Console as its own kind of plugin) and you should be able to make 'em do just about anything musical you could want. This includes many forms of 'analog emulation' and a great deal of creative mix exploration. There's a video explaining many things you can do, and I've got two tracks up on SoundCloud (featured at the top of the page) that demonstrate a heavy rock song mixed entirely on my fully analog system (MOTU>Heritage Audio>Heritage Audio hardware buss comp>Lavry ADC) and then the same thing done entirely ITB using the Starter Kit (not even all the plugins). It's not meant to be an utter and exact clone, but the Starter Kit is basically just as good as the expensive analog rig tonally, even on a mix designed to get the most out of the analog approach (no sound is so much as touched digitally in the analog mix: it's basically using Logic as an iZ RADAR)

The downloads of the full songs are FLACs of the 24/96, on the one hand the raw capture from the Lavry and on the other hand a simple bounce from Logic using the Starter Kit. So if you want to subject these claims to extreme scrutiny, that's possible. (maybe I should have a mix-off and put the Logic project file up somewhere: a mix-off where you can ONLY use the Starter Kit. We can see how extreme the variations can become!)

These are the plugins included in the Starter Kit: the video goes into detail on why these perhaps audacious choices were made. It's not arbitrary: this is meant to serve professionals and also to guide newbies towards mix enlightenment.

EQ: Baxandall, Capacitor, Focus
Dynamics: Pressure4, ClipOnly, DeBess
Utility: PurestGain, Monitoring
Analogifying: Interstage
Ambience: MV
Console Version: PurestConsole

If you've never gotten into Airwindows Console, or Airwindows Plugins, this is the time. I'm demoing this kit on Logic Pro X, which is now available from Apple on a 90-day free trial, but the plugins are provided in AU and VST2.4 form for Mac, Windows and Linux. It shouldn't be that hard to translate everything I'm doing to any DAW that supports generic-interface plugins. Most importantly, if you looked over the hundreds of plugins Airwindows produces, and wondered where on earth to start, here is your answer! Start here.

Note there are no tape plugins or any name-brand 'emulations' of anything. You should not be starting with that stuff. Fight me

If you have other questions you can post to this thread about the Starter Kit, or show up to a Monday Q&A session, or get in touch with me some other way and I'll try to help. The Starter Kit is meant to be very approachable, so it should help you start to get pleasing results provided you know what kinds of sounds you want to make!

All this is made possible by my Patreon. If it turns out that these free and open source plugins help you out a lot, and especially if you start wanting other more special-purpose 'kits' or still more plugins, you might want to support my Patreon! That's how I'm able to do this full-time.

Thank you, and I hope you enjoy the Airwindows Plugins Starter Kit! If you want more plugins, there are hundreds, but this is a good start.

[Winstontaneous]

Hi Chris, very cool idea to share your "kit" concept of which Airwindows plugins work well together!
Would love to see other "bundles" in the future...what would you say Holt goes well with?

[dark water]

Good idea Chris

[SoundPorn]

Finally although i really feel like BusColors and FromTape should be in here.

[Joi Polloi]

Many thanks Chris, it’s great to see the starter kit, any chance of the video being downloadable, so I can watch it at my non online computer?

[jinxtigr]

Many thanks Chris, it’s great to see the starter kit, any chance of the video being downloadable, so I can watch it at my non online computer?

I do have the video still on my computer, but it is 10 gigs in size. Be careful what you ask for on the other hand, I'm really happy if it's more useful than usual. That's a good direction for me to be going

[Joi Polloi]

Many thanks Chris, it’s great to see the starter kit, any chance of the video being downloadable, so I can watch it at my non online computer?

I do have the video still on my computer, but it is 10 gigs in size. Be careful what you ask for on the other hand, I'm really happy if it's more useful than usual. That's a good direction for me to be going

Yes, I think I will keep the YT video in favourites, as 10gb would take a few days to dl.
Have to say, seeing the Vst’s like this gives me a good understanding, I’ve read most of the beatdruid ideas and they help to think of other uses for your devices. I like MV as a thickener and density for snares

[El°HYM]

Certainly a good Move by Airwindows, to provide Bundles for different Purposes & Adding an in Depth - Video to those.

[bungle]

Many thanks Chris, it’s great to see the starter kit, any chance of the video being downloadable, so I can watch it at my non online computer?

I do have the video still on my computer, but it is 10 gigs in size. Be careful what you ask for on the other hand, I'm really happy if it's more useful than usual. That's a good direction for me to be going

Download it from Youtube (Creators can do that no problem) and it will be fully compressed already, so will probably be a couple hundred meg.

[Russell Grand]

Thanks, jinx!

[cantaloupe]

This is a very good idea, i'm looking forward to more kits! It made me rediscover the power of MV as a mixing tool.

One question: I assume the Starter Kit would be partially for beginners starting out with Airwindows and mixing. So why do you include Capacitor in it when it contains DC offset issues? And also that 13k thing. Both happen here pretty much every mix. I'm not running through Console though.

[jinxtigr]

This is a very good idea, i'm looking forward to more kits! It made me rediscover the power of MV as a mixing tool.

One question: I assume the Starter Kit would be partially for beginners starting out with Airwindows and mixing. So why do you include Capacitor in it when it contains DC offset issues? And also that 13k thing. Both happen here pretty much every mix. I'm not running through Console though.

The only DC offset thing I can think of is if you're violently automating Capacitor and take the highpass from some active use during heavy bass content, to zero, which would stop new information coming into the IIR filters. That would happen with any correctly designed IIR filter that could go literally to zero/DC. In normal use you'd either not be using that highpass or you'd be using it, so either you wouldn't be introducing new information or you wouldn't be keeping it. As for weird little cancellations at 13K that's down to the lowpass (and highpass) using interleaving including three-step interleaving, and the point of Capacitor is not to be a scientifically accurate filter for data processing, it's to make a filtered sound that I normally describe as more 'synthy', making the approach fair game.

If a newbie stumbled into this stuff they would need to learn enough to decide if the sonic benefits from these VERY different algorithms were enough to justify keeping that plugin. You say it happens pretty much every mix, so I'm guessing it's worth it to you? (dunno how you're automating Capacitor every mix to 0, seems like you should avoid dropping the highpass to 0 if you're regularly using it). Also, when I use it at 96K it's no longer a steep 13K notch, it's a different frequency out of the audio band entirely. Also I think Interstage cleans up minor DC bleeds?

I stand by the choice of Capacitor. Newbies do always have the choice of just being told what to do by plugin rental people who'll sell them a pile of fake brand-name stuff and totally mislead them

Makes me extra glad I didn't pick Biquad: while that is a more scientifically correct algorithm, if you automate biquads violently they go BOOM and I think newbies would find that even more disconcerting

[ElevateAudio]

I found your use of multiple Interstages on the masterbus to be enlightening. Thanks Chris!

[cantaloupe]

Aha! So since i have the default preset for Capacitor set to non-zero for both lowpass and highpass (using it like a bandpass), and then reduce the highpass to zero whenever i use bass material (after i added the plugin in Reaper), i get DC offset? I do no automation, so i assume that is it. I guess a newbie wouldn't save non-standard parameter settings as default

Anyway, i'm a big fan of the kit concept. It gives the plugins a much needed context and it gives people some idea about what you think is the "go to" within a certain category of actual usage. Previously i thought of MV as a sort of crazy sound design reverb wall of noise thing (which it absolutely is), but presented in this context, i started to explore it as an 'invisible' space-creating mixing tool, where it really shines. I guess this would be the case with many of your other plugins as well, ambiguous as they often are.

Thanks for explaining the DC thing i was seeing, and for the plugins itself

[jinxtigr]

Yeah, Capacitor with the highpass at zero means 'stay right there!'. I'm pretty sure if you start it at zero it'll contain zero. I'm also pretty sure if you're playing audio through it and then set it to zero, things will be strange

Nature of an IIR: the speed of change is a pretty simple interpolation algorithm, and if you set it to 'don't change' you retain everything in the input signal but you're also keeping what's in the IIR as you're telling it not to use any of the input signal