I'm wrapping up a pile of Console7-framed projects and then I'm moving to the Tascam 688 for a bit, so I don't know when I'll get to play with the Console8 structure. But the built-in dither/clip stuff kind of makes me want to stick with Console7.
I also completely lost track of the idea that I was going to make a little Airwindows guide for people. But in the meantime Chris revamped the
Starter Kit. My post was going to be a lengthy version of "Starter Kit + Pyewacket," his take on the Pye PWM compressor. Since then he's released Pressure5, included in the Starter Kit now, which has a new "paw/claw" control to let transient peaks through (possibly because I asked for an update to Pyewacket on one of his streams). Airwindows Pressure5 is my favourite compressor on the computer.
So my Airwindows guide is now simply get the
Starter Kit and play around.
But I thought maybe I'd share some track templates and just talk about how they work for me and maybe that'll serve as a slightly more in-depth Airwindows guide. Not as in-depth as that txt file.
Nothing I've used these on has come out yet, and some are coming out on Real Labels so I can't link to samples unfortunately. But whatever you see me link in the Promote section for the next year will surely have run through this (not counting Tascam records).
As you can imagine, if it defaults to on it's probably always on (Console instances should always be on), if it doesn't it's a case-by-case thing. There are certainly more plugins I will use but that's as you get into the Space Echo Hell portion of the record, if there is one. This is just some nice technical framing, so even if every single person on here started using these exact chains for everything from now on, our records would still sound as different as they already do. Which is why I figure why not share. These chains, with probably ReaDelay for room mics, will let you make, say, a Bismarck record.
BitShiftGain is an emergency pad/boost in case I or one of the Google Drive homies was sloppy with the levels while recording, just to make sure it's hitting the subsequent things at a good level.
(sometimes between BSG and Interstage I will use an
ultrasonic filter, e.g. on a vocal)
Interstage is just a little guy with no controls, tough to explain, but I make sure each mic signal hits one instance and the cumulative effect saves me from having to do almost any demeaning "NeveWarmthGlueSaturationEmulator" work.
Capacitor2 is a HPF (and LPF) that is "fun" somehow.
Baxandall is a Baxandall EQ,
Pressure5 is that compressor I mentioned (in my template it's set to 100% Claw always).
CStrip is a terrific all-purpose channel strip, maybe the #1 Airwindows plugin to start with that isn't in the starter pack. Though tbh the main reason it's there is in case I ever have to use TimeLag, which I wish was available on its own.
On the master, Baxandall is generally lifting the high end a little.
Tape, default settings, just adds the 15ips head bump. Probably the best example of an AW no-bullshit non-emulation emulation.
ToVinyl4, that's possibly optional, just know it isn't at all a kitschy crackle-pop LoFi vinyl simulator—it sort of gives you a set of tools that would be relevant to putting music physically to vinyl.
Monitoring is a complex mix-check tool that you turn on for a bit and listen through and shut off. I mostly use Peaks (with my monitors) and CansD (with headphones) modes. I think there was an update but it only changed the dither option. Speaking of that.
PaulWide, we'll worry about the name later, is a dither plugin.
You know you should be applying dither whenever you're reducing wordlength, right? Which includes every time you render an output file, even a 24-bit one? and also every time you send something OTB to an outboard effect?? Motherfuijcker???
For real that is literally true though. All the DAW calculations are being done at a greater wordlength, so if dither is absent even at 24 bits you get truncation distortion. (For sending things to outboard effects I would use something like
TapeDither instead). But for real, if you take nothing else away from this post, get a dither plugin and leave it as the last thing on your master. Obviously not critical when you are sending preview mp3s to the homies but technically in that case you'd dither to 16 bits (and indeed 16-bit is usually the one place people think of dither). And when you are sending the files to your mastering engineer you'd slide it to 24 bits.
Word!
Relevant to that and possibly decent as a closing note: a lowkey entertaining and illuminating Airwindows plugin is
Ditherbox, a now-incomplete collection of his dithers that you can scroll back and forth through. It really helped me appreciate these ultra-ultra-minute things AW specializes in getting right. Especially as someone who ignored all his dithering stuff at first because it was boring/seemed too golden-ears for me. It's not like you can hear a song in the wild and correctly guess what type of dither was applied. But I've loved playing with Ditherbox because it really is like "if this is so microscopic and golden-ears and who-cares, then why am I able to notice the differences and how am I developing preferences?" And indeed I've figured out I prefer, unfortunately not Chris' non-dither reducers like NJAD/Dark, but the "Paul" (as in Frindle) family which I think is PaulDither, DoublePaul, and PaulWide. Of course, there is obviously still a big "who cares" element in terms of every other part of the process being more important, which is why I've settled on PaulWide and am kind of not going to think dither stuff for the rest of my life ideally.
Hope this helps someone!
