Airwindows CONSOLE8: Mac/Windows/Linux/Pi AU/VST

[jinxtigr]

TL;DW: Console8 moves to a channel/submix/buss topology and adds analog simulation.

Console8.zip(4M)

Yep. Told you I had stuff in the works!

These are subtle things, not meant to be wildly wildly more colored and different from regular digital mix buss. It's not like an amp sim. BUT, all the same, if you start to seriously listen to the texture and depth and how stuff communicates through Console8 relative to even Console7 much less a straight DAW mix, Console8 pretty much obliterates the rest. I made it because I needed it. I'm going to be using it, lots, and you can use it too: my plugins and digital things are free, Patreon-supported. These are tough times but that's still working and has become all the more important to commit to.

But what makes Console8 that much better?

Ultrasonic filtering at 24k, distributed among more stages than ever before in a Console version, for extended highs (and it switches off at lower sample rates when it wouldn't be helping, for lower CPU and more direct sound)

Distributed highpass filtering emulating real analog gear. This is a new filter that doesn't exist anywhere else and is only part of Console8. It's more a texture/attitude filter than a sound-shaping filter, and is quite low but its effect is strongly felt.

Distributed, gradiated treble softening across the whole mix topology. The idea is that your inputs are clean and low level, and as we go deeper into the console the levels rise as does the energy level, until the final mix buss is very powerful and pushing any electronics, transformers etc. quite hard. This gives Console8 the ability to do airy subtle sparkle and big roaring powerful energy all at the same time. It should just naturally happen through appropriate mixing. Think big, grand scale.

A new mix topology with much simpler rules for how to set it up, using six dedicated plugins in six places.

ChannelIn, SubIn, and BussIn go FIRST on your channels, submixes, and master buss.
ChannelOut, SubOut, and BussOut go LAST on your channels, submixes, and master buss.
All channels must go to a Submix with unity gain between the Out plugins and the In plugin on the submix.
All submixes must go to the Master Buss with unity gain between the Out plugins and the In plugin on the master buss.
The output of the BussOut goes directly to your converter, your file etc. and you're done

Don't use any added processing between BussOut and the file or converter. It uses a version of ClipOnly2 plus a new wordlength reducer that doesn't exist anywhere else and is a hybrid between my old Ten Nines process and Airwindows Dark. It only does 24 bit and if you must make 16 bit you can add a 16 bit dither (but you don't need to make 16 bit, this is 2022, come on). This wordlength reducer is specially optimized for Console8, so if you're using one of my existing Monitoring plugins that applies a wordlength reducer, switch it off when not in use (I'll produce a 'plain' Monitoring that doesn't interfere, though Monitoring2 is probably going to end up arriving at the same output as Console8BussOut)

I realize this is a lot to take in but in practice it should all just work and fall into place very naturally. The Out plugins all have faders, which are good to assign to midi controllers so you can adjust them with physical controls and not the mouse. I have mine working with a TX-6 They're designed so that 0.5 is unity: less than that fades down to zero, and more than that gives you about 12dB of boost in each stage. That's also true for the master buss, except it also drives into the ClipOnly2 so it gets a punchier 'slam' than the channels and submixes get if you push those.

It's not really intended for 'everything is louder than everything else' overloudenated nonsense but will probably do that better than anything else you can have, especially if you're trying to get a grand scale on things and not just ear-maiming grit

Again, 'In' goes first. 'Out' goes last. All Channels go to a Sub, all Subs go to the Buss, and you're done. Easy to explain

I may or may not get back to my regular posting and/or streaming routine but I'm inspired and have more great stuff coming so it should be good. More on that when it actually comes out: you know I'm full of surprises. Please do join the Patreon if you're sure that you can, we gotta stick together and I'll pull my weight. Console8 should still count as 'one plugin' unless you really feel you should support it as if it were worth six

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.

[jamcat]

Wow, really cool!
Will it work in Cubase 12 on Apple Silicon?

[jinxtigr]

Wow, really cool!
Will it work in Cubase 12 on Apple Silicon?

I've got AU and VST2 versions, and I'm supplying those in signed Mac versions. Those signed versions are native Apple Silicon so it's a question of whether you're using something that runs the plugin formats I use

[teilo]

Wow, really cool!
Will it work in Cubase 12 on Apple Silicon?

Nope. Unless you are running Cubase 12 under Rosetta.

[TBlake]

[jinxtigr]

On the contrary, I have always made plugins for the peculiar Jim. Average Joe has always gone for stuff with fancy GUIs as far back as I can remember. And Console8 specifically switches out its ultrasonic filtering at sample rates under 48k and adjusts other parts of its algorithms to deliver the correct behavior.

If you remember when Airwindows made plugins that ASSUMED you were running at 44.1k and didn't deliver the same behavior at higher sample rates, I remember that too, and I fixed those plugins more than ten years ago

If you mean, I should focus on making stuff for everyone working at 44.1k when I seriously think taking a distributed filtering approach at a higher native sample rate delivers way better audio, I'll make fun of you right back all you would have is EXACTLY what you already have anyway, out of Console8 at 44.1k. Just without the extra stuff designed for 96k.

If you're committed to that and I'm able to make people at 96k have way better sound and you still need to run 1000 tracks at 44.1k, that's none of your business I'm chasing a vision and won't let anything get in my way. Anyhow you could get an M1 mac and then you could run lots of Console8 tracks at 96k too

[TBlake]

Not making fun of you. There are still far more of us grappling with making 44.1/48K audio sound better than it should and I was lamenting that we no longer have you on our team. Airwindows was a big help toward that end. I miss seeing the new AW release that would help in that quest.

[Glitch Doctor]

On the contrary, I have always made plugins for the peculiar Jim. Average Joe has always gone for stuff with fancy GUIs as far back as I can remember. And Console8 specifically switches out its ultrasonic filtering at sample rates under 48k and adjusts other parts of its algorithms to deliver the correct behavior.

If you remember when Airwindows made plugins that ASSUMED you were running at 44.1k and didn't deliver the same behavior at higher sample rates, I remember that too, and I fixed those plugins more than ten years ago

If you mean, I should focus on making stuff for everyone working at 44.1k when I seriously think taking a distributed filtering approach at a higher native sample rate delivers way better audio, I'll make fun of you right back all you would have is EXACTLY what you already have anyway, out of Console8 at 44.1k. Just without the extra stuff designed for 96k.

If you're committed to that and I'm able to make people at 96k have way better sound and you still need to run 1000 tracks at 44.1k, that's none of your business I'm chasing a vision and won't let anything get in my way. Anyhow you could get an M1 mac and then you could run lots of Console8 tracks at 96k too

As long as it still works in 44.1 or 48k, it really doesn't matter, The biggest problem however is there are DAWs that limit you to 48K or less, so plugins that are EXCLUSIVE to 98k or upper sample rates, then people can complain about it.

[jinxtigr]

Not making fun of you. There are still far more of us grappling with making 44.1/48K audio sound better than it should and I was lamenting that we no longer have you on our team. Airwindows was a big help toward that end. I miss seeing the new AW release that would help in that quest.

But I'm already doing as much as I can toward that end… including having Console8 not apply useless lowpass filtering that won't be used properly, so what you've got is not overprocessed. The thing I can't do is fix aliasing when working at 44.1k, as that's intractable and oversampling isn't a great answer because you're still processing many more samples than just a raw plugin would.

I would say, use simpler plugins that aren't doing too much to the sound so you're not overprocessing, and that would help you get results out of 44.1k. That's what I would do, and did do. I could also go over my entire website and label all the plugins that would respond positively to oversampling applied by a host plugin or the DAW: would that help? It'd give you a selection of plugins that ought to take oversampling gracefully (knowing that some of them won't do what you expect: for instance, oversampling ADClip or the original ClipOnly would actually stop it from working)

[jamcat]

Why are people using 44.1kHz in 2022?
Are you targeting CD audio?

[Wrong Eq]

Chris, could you please help and exaplain how I should set up (pre/post fader) sends ?

[jinxtigr]

Chris, could you please help and exaplain how I should set up (pre/post fader) sends ?

If you mean the basic structure of Console8, that's channel/sub/master buss.

If you mean 'how do I do reverbs', what I'm doing is putting that on a sub (which feeds the master buss like any sub), with the SubIn on the sub just like any other, and then I'm sending to that sub from any channel or any other sub, pretty freely. If I'm sending something full blast, the Console system will kick in, and if the stuff I'm sending is a lot fainter, it'll just be attenuated, which for a reverb send (or delays, whatever) should be okay, will work just like 'slightly more saturation at worst'. When you do things like send without taking into account the plugins, or pad the output with the channel fader, all you're doing is getting more saturation than intended for that volume level.

One reason I discourage this is because saturating stuff makes it bigger and more forward, and if you're padding stuff down you might be looking to have it sit back rather than get a tiny bit fatter. But in Console8 I have more saturation for effect so the system will never be 'totally transparent pass-through of isolated tracks when nothing else is playing' (for that, PurestConsole2) so I definitely am not worried about sends on Console8. Send to other subs, sum those into the master like they're just subs

[78deluxe]

Why are people using 44.1kHz in 2022?
Are you targeting CD audio?

I mix in streaming MP3 quality since that is the only relevant format in the industry.

[Wrong Eq]

Thanks for your answer Chris! As long as the channel setup is linear, everything is easy. If I remember correctly, the original idea of console was to have a dynamic system where the output and input kinda see each other and react accordingly in order to simulate impedances of hardware. Correct me if I'm wrong but console was about alot about the glue and the 3D space more than strong coloration. Like a hardware summing box. And I remember that with Console 7 and prior under some circumstance it looked like the channel plugin added a lot harmonics and the bus plugin removed them (partially depending on the inputs).

But anyways, the problem I have is that there has to be an output module infront of the input module (except channel in). Just to be clear this is not criticism of the concept at all. I just want to set this up as best as possible. So if I have channel like the one I'm going to show, I will break that rule:

Synthesizer
Airwindows Channel In
Effect 1
Effect 2
Send Signal from here to a parallel Reverb sub -->
Effect 3
Airwindows Channel Out


So I guess for perfection, I would have to setup the Reverb Sub like this:

Airwindows Channel Out (!!)
Airwindows Sub In
Effect 1
Effect 2 (Reverb etc.)
Airwindows Sub Out

Would that be correct ?

And if I would like to send the sub to another sub it would be no problem to then have chain like

sub in
sub out
sub in
sub out

?

I know if it sounds good it sounds good, but concept wise that would be ok ?

[jinxtigr]

So I guess for perfection, I would have to setup the Reverb Sub like this:

Airwindows Channel Out (!!)
Airwindows Sub In
Effect 1
Effect 2 (Reverb etc.)
Airwindows Sub Out

Would that be correct ?

Oh no no! Leave the channel plug off the sub chain other than that you're fine. And if you were going through multiple subs for the occasional thing (or some of what you're sending, because of convoluted routing, like a delay send ending up also part going to a reverb which also part goes to another reverb) don't worry about that. The main thing is that the channels and subs have what they're supposed to have, your sends can do pretty much whatever they want.

Note that for a lot of people their sends will default to AFTER all the FX. You're specifying sending from a particular spot in the chain. If it's for reverb in particular, all-wet, you definitely want to send from there and NOT have the channel out plug for that one particular spot in the sends (for the full mix, you will still have it: for other sends that are post-FX you will still have it)

If you've got a particular thing in mind ask and I'll tell you for instance, I told you not to have the channel plug out, on the beginning of the submix chain.