penningtron wrote: Tue Sep 21, 2021 9:55 am
6 months later we had accumulated more songs, so decided to mix them all together and thru a Trident console this time. Just pulling up the faders on that thing sounded better than the demo ever did, even though we hadn't done anything else yet!

When we were finishing Heathers last record I was just bussing stems through the faders on my little board at unity back into the DAW as a 2trk file and Heather was asking me why and I did a little A/B for her of the Analog bussed 2 track vs the DAW bounce and she could hear the Analog version every time and preferred it hands down. My console isn't even a cool old board but it definitely seems to give some weight and stereo space to the mix that doesn't seem to just come out of a direct render. It literally sounds like you spaced the speakers a little farther apart. I haven't tried the Airwindows version of this process yet, but I find the basement hermit sensibility of that dude to be pretty fantastic.

Kniferide wrote: Tue Sep 21, 2021 5:49 pm My console isn't even a cool old board but it definitely seems to give some weight and stereo space to the mix that doesn't seem to just come out of a direct render. It literally sounds like you spaced the speakers a little farther apart.

Yep, exactly. Also the attack on the drums seem to get a little more crisp.

So here is a fun barebones airwindows setup for those thinking about leaping in. I have included three types of plugin chains. One for regular track/channels. That is, for those that are not busses of any sort. A second one for all sub-busses (so all busses with the exception of the master/2Buss). Finally, a third one for the Master/2Buss. Basically all that you will have here is a little transformer trim and a two band EQ and a fader for each track. The 2Buss has a couple more goodies. See how far you can get with this before you start adding your usual plugin chains. Here goes:

REGULAR TRACKS: Coils -> Baxandall -> Console7Channel

SUB-BUSSES: Console7Buss -> Coils -> Baxandall -> Console7Channel

MASTER/2BUSS: Console7Buss -> Channel9 -> Baxandall -> ToVinyl4 -> Tape -> Acceleration2 -> Monitoring -> Dark


NOTES:

Do not touch your DAWS faders. Leave them at unity gain. Instead, mix everything using the faders on Console7.

"Coils" mimics transformer saturation. Wonderful on material with long transient tails.

"Channel9" is a desk-mimicer

"Baxandall" is a 2 band EQ that is a great "tracking" eq. Tiny amounts do wonders.

"ToVinyl4" lets you do wonderful things to the whole soundstage. God bless ToVinyl4. Just fuck around with it and you will get the idea.

"Tape" does what it says on the box.

"Accelleration2" will shave off the the common spikey-yuk that digital recording can deliver, whilst leaving the highs intact.

"Monitoring" Lets you do all sorts of things that are very handy when monitoring, like listen only to the peaks, or mimic auratones, and whatnot. Turn this off before you print/export.

"Dark" is a dither, so you want to switch your DAW to "no dither". Choose the bit-depth in Dark that corresponds to the bit-depth to which you are exporting (either 24 or 16).


OTHER AW GOODIES THAT ARE WORTH TRYING SOONER RATHER THAN LATER:


Energy2, Air2, ToTape6, Tube, Tube2, and Srsly2

The first two are fine-grained high-end sculpting tools. Instead of frequency bands, the faders are named in terms of how we hear their effect. "Hiss", "Air", "Glitter" etc. : ) This is fucking great. You want less hissy noise? Forget sweeping, just dial down the "Hiss" control. Genius.

The next one, ToTape6, is a monster. Put it in between ToVinyl4 and Tape on the 2Buss and go nuts.

The next two are tubey things. They are both great on various sources, either channels or busses. Feed Tube into Tube2 and go boom.

The last one, Srsly2, is a wild stereoiser. A teensy bit goes a very, very long way with this.


Have fun!

This all seems fun but it seems like a lot to build up just to mix in a DAW. I feel like it is a bit too fiddly for me.

It can seem like that at first, and the initial leap into AW is a bit of a deep-dive to be sure. However - each plugin window is teensy and you can use a whole bunch at once - this is nothing compared to setting up a patch bay - and most pedal boards these days are much more complicated.

Go onnnnn…give it a go! : )

I may set up some reaper templates so it's a breeze to set a this up. It is pretty intriguing.

seby wrote: Tue Sep 21, 2021 10:53 pm So here is a fun barebones airwindows setup for those thinking about leaping in.

Thanks, seby, this is exactly what I was imagining when I asked you about your airwindows usage in another thread. I actually gave this a shot! Here's what I did in an hour over my lunch break:

I took an existing track that was pretty near done mixing. I left all the non-airwindows plugins (mostly EQ and compression) and didn't touch their settings. I followed seby's template and added the console channels, busses and other plugins in the prescribed order, including all the master bus stuff. I ended up bypassing Coils and Acceleleration2 as they added some noticeable fizziness, likely because I was messing it all up.

I unity gain'd all of my Reaper faders and re-mixed the track using the channel plugins. I tried to get the levels to sit more or less where they were pre-airwindows. I then messed around liberally with the master bus plugins. I did no research into how any of these work, just used my ears. Then I threw a brickwall limiter at the end of both tracks. and exported.

Pre-airwindows track: https://soundcloud.com/leetketch/210915 ... 1KvjD51Nyk
Post-airwindows: https://soundcloud.com/leetketch/end-in ... viVOtS9u12

Here's some takeaways after 30 minutes of tweaking:
I like what I hear. It basically sounds like I added a bunch of compression and low-mid cuts, but without adding a compressor or doing any EQ work (except for a slight low cut with Baxandall)

I actually think I'm hitting the master bus effects a little too hard and the "coloration" is a little too pronounced. With more tweaking, I'd start by laying off the tape and vinyl emulator inputs, I think. This reminds me of when I had a digital track run through a tape machine to get a "tape compression" sound. The transients ended up becoming too intense and I hear that same squishy/fried sound happening here with the kick drum. Wow, is it loud. That's just a mixing mistake on my part.

Changing levels with the channel plugins instead of the faders was the most annoying part of the process and it added complexity to volume automation (at least in Reaper). Maybe I could get used to it with some template tweaking?

I'm not sure I really got the "glue" effect until I started piling on the master bus effects. I honestly couldn't say the console chain did much, to my ears. I would need to get a little more forensic with it.

I could see myself adopting some of these plugins into a real mix that I spend a little more time on. I'll post an update when I actually put this music out and see if airwindows made the cut!

Thanks, seby!

Cool track!

Very "Airwindows" too - if you have heard any of Chris's skronk then you know : ) I am having a ball moving through your souncloud pieces as I write this. Shades of Arto.

The aw mix has more gel, and the low cut alone makes a world of difference. Baxandall does something cool tot he lowend that I like a lot. I think that you are right, and that backing off on the buss so that Console7Chanel nodes can be pushed further, hence do more, will be quite revealing. Using the sliders can be a pain if you have a lot of tracks. It's definitely a neck of the woods where are control surface will be worth its weight in gold I think.

Heh - I think of albums like Sonic Youth's Made in USA as the pinnacle of hi-fi in the sense that I enjoy it, so I am the last person who should be consulted wrt over-colourisation I fear!

I am looking very forward to the release quite irrespectively of what you use for the mix - your stuff is pretty great

Baxandall is my favorite. Beyond the sound, there's a certain psychological impact to barely moving a slider and the whole mix changes drastically.

I'll try a different track and try pushing more level from the Console7Channels into the bus to try and draw out whatever it is that Console7 is doing. I can see myself using the tape and vinyl emulators more often and pushing their gain. I didn't know until this experiment just how critical distortion is to analogue emulation.

Thanks for listening and for the compliments! Please share any other airwindows techniques you like, I'm looking for things to try.

Not the same thing, but Analog Obsessions is another tiny, single guy team, plugin dev that makes super great shit
His box eq is great. His trident eq is too. If you like ssl style comps, I can't seem to ever get them to work for me, His is my favorite. I. Totally down with patreoning these types so the can keep doing what they do.