Airwindows Stonefire: Free Mac/Windows/Linux/Pi AU/VST/Rack

www.airwindows... / airwindows
There's a reason people have never turned to using Kalman filters for audio purposes.
They're tricky little buggers, unpredictable, with a 'filter slope' that makes no sense at all. They'll take the crossover point and bounce it around wildly, they'll throw in weird gatey behaviors, they'll turn what's supposed to be a 'smooth' 'filtered' sound into an edgy growl and sputter. They're meant to pull real data out of a pile of noise, not to take real audio and give you anything sensible. Nobody would want a Kalman filter for audio purposes.
Stonefire uses two different kinds of Kalman filters for audio, as crossovers. The top crossover is the same as what's in Air3. The bottom crossover comes with a range control (even though that won't give you a 'frequency') and is the same as what's in Kalman.
And when used properly, Stonefire gives you unprecedented levels of tonal control over the texture and presentation of your sound, in a way that almost doesn't even have to do with frequency.
There's three bands, plus the Range control. Air, Fire, and Stone. Each can be cut back to zero, or boosted (Fire and Stone match, while Air has a lot more gain on tap but will match from 0.5 down to 0.0.) If you cut them back to zero you'll get the weird Kalman behavior, but it'll help you set the Range control appropriately. You can set it so Stone covers the lowest lows (never JUST those, it will always do other stuff too) or up to the high mids and lower treble.
Then, if you keep everything balanced and make smaller adjustments, the secret of the Kalman filter emerges. You have to use it as a crossover, and let it apply its incredibly strong character to texture, not frequency. It utterly fails to be a 'filter', but it's an extraordinary texture-shaper, and it's what I'm going to be building the upcoming ConsoleX system around.
Use the Air control like you would in Air3. You can cut back super-highs while seeming to not affect the brightness at all, with a strikingly natural effect. Or, boost it to bring that sparkly aura and light up the sound. It's a custom algorithm that deals with high sample rates by just ramping up the boost: treat it with respect, but it's there to serve your needs for glitter or lack of same.
Use the Fire control like it was an attitude knob, as much as a midrange. You can get a lot of wildness out of this one with careful settings of Range. Between Fire and Stone, only one can be louder: it's a crossover. If you're boosting Fire, that means you want your sound to command attention.
Use the Stone control like it's the bedrock of your sound. If you lean entirely on it and kill all the Fire, you'll get a monumentally heavy, sputtering, gatey foundation that zeroes in on the lowest lows, but also tries to put backbone behind anything it thinks is heavy and powerful. This includes lower midrange. Cutting it can control unwieldy bass, but adding it isn't the same as adding a 'bass boost': it'll zero in on things like kick weight and try to present them with unnatural isolation. The secret to adding weight with the Stone control is to let it not seem to be that much of a boost: you can transform the feel of a sound well before you hear 'added bass'. You can also dial the Range up and use the same effect up into the midrange, for an intensely solid punchy character anywhere a sound seems flimsy.
God help you if you try to measure this thing with PluginDoctor or SPAN. I don't even have any idea what will happen. It's all made out of Kalman filters, which are not for use with audio.
Except… when they are ;)
Enjoy the new tone shaping. If it's too ugly, use way less, see how it treats you :)

[@MrSpasticdancer]

i really dont know how you do it. NOBODY ELSE in the whole industry of vst plugins would've thought of this. you're a hero

[@airwindows]

That is actually not true: back in 2011 there was a plugin maker, 'Crysonic', who said they used 'Kalman filter based smoothing of transients' in a limiter they did. I'm not doing anything like that, and it's the only example I found, and I don't think that would actually work at all :)

[@BeeDotEee]

I didn't realise how much I struggled with GUI overload until I discovered these a few days ago. Then throw in abstract controls that force you to use your ears to work out what they do. Perfect.

[@meronyach.]

I love this kind of outside of the box thinking. Thanks for just being you, Chris! 😊

[@rattfink9]

Thank you, Chris. I cannot tell you how much I appreciate not only the work but the fantastic ethic behind you doing it. I am in full agreement, and I believe the world will get better and better the more folks do the same in every aspect of life.

[@AlenFekonja]

This is something beyond. 😮 Tried it as drum parallel FX bus. Blew me away!! It just works, as if I have made a elaborate chain of fancy plugins. Just one? Can't wait to see the growth of this stone to gem. ❤

[@marcovelez-rios8602]

Airwindows... Shaping the future of audio manipulation theory and practice

[@fullcircleaudio]

This could dirty up my dub techno productions nicely

[@gameboyz7497]

as always amazing stuff Chris , on snare and perc amazing stuff

[@eren3390]

amazing as always chris

[@kendanzan8088]

I just discovered this guy not 30 minutes ago. I think this guy's tools are about to elevate my sound to a whole new level.. and also, am i to understand that he gives all of these effects out for free ?!?!

[@airwindows]

Well, there's a Patreon, but it's kinda like Reaper. I'm never gonna MAKE you pay or take anything away from you if you don't, because part of it is me making effects for people who have good music but CAN'T pay :)

[@kendanzan8088]

@@airwindows let me take some time to get to know some of these tools and implement them first, and if they prove useful, ill absolutely support :)

[@winterland3253]

The console for this sounds like its going to be amazing. There's a sound I've been hunting recently, the energy and "realness" of old rock recordings (mostly 60s) combined with the insanity of highly distorted modern glitch music...I'm messing around right now but I bet ConsoleX is gonna help achieve that. Thanks for all your hard work!

[@sorryguys1090]

I end up using this thing a lot to shape individual tracks of my mixes, in kind of "magic equalizer" manner. It helps tracks to cut through easily and to give room to each other at the same time

[@airwindows]

That's why the dynamics in ConsoleX are designed around 'multiband' but with Stonefire :) turns out it works well for use with compression and gating too. Works very well with individual tracks and you already have Stonefire :)

[@sudaramusic]

Stonefire sounds great! Thx for the shout 🎉

[@airwindows]

Get used to it. I'm gonna buy your synth when it comes out, too: it looks nuts. Would love to talk GFX optimization at some point, I've seen how well you have that thought out. I'm pretty sure I'm drawing my chart very inefficiently and should keep it as an offscreen bitmap.

[@MantasticHams]

This things is sick, Chris, i really love this kalman thing. Super excited to see what you're gonna do with GUI stuff in the future, and i love to hear how happy you are to be contributing to the growth of accessible and unique audio tools.

[@fabriceallain]

I just mixed few tracks using StoneFire as main Shape/EQ for every elements. It is incredible !! this plug in became quickly very natural to control. it feels like something my brain always needed but never found until now. Thank you for your genius idea.

[@DarkTrapStudio]

Yes, because we want to increase the volume of highs low and mids, but eq doesn't really do that only !

[@FotisandStuff]

My friend M. Hebly of Shameless Plugs proposed an idea for resizable plugins: instead of only having a shrinker/grower on the bottom right corner of the plugin (which would be invisible in small screens anyway), you can also add another shrinker on the top left corner of the screen! Please, consider adding this feature on your upcoming GUIs. Thanks for (Air)Stonefire!

[@airwindows]

I'm not sure, I think I would rather have just the resize in the traditional place :)

[@balancetvi]

you are a gem ---

[@Fire-Toolz]

i love when you make stuff that sounds broken. it's my favorite.

[@airwindows]

Given the choice I will always let you adjust the settings too far until it sounds broken :) makes it easier to hear what is being done when it's something unusual, too!

[@Zvrra]

I love this plugin it's so good for taming sharp frequencies!

[@odmusicman]

Stunning thank you. We all have a million choices for EQ's, but this goes far beyond the stars sir!

[@diodebridge]

It's so awesome you're continuing to experiment with Kalman filtering! Air3 is just unrivaled. I'd love to see more "midrange" plugins in the future!

[@CGFun82]

Love airwindows!

[@OptomodMix]

I was expecting "water" for the lows :) Very interesting Chris.

[@airwindows]

Ah, but the lows you get out of this are clearly rocks ;) it actively un-waters the lows, in fact. Makes me wonder if I could do a 'water for the lows' plugin, but that's a whole other story (and wouldn't be a Kalman filter at all)

[@OptomodMix]

@@airwindows :) Good call

[@ES60Hz]

Your work is much appreciated! well done!

[@fabisound]

Love your work! Cannot wait to see your UIs. I did lots of SVG, so if you need help let me know

[@ricksnowden2150]

Thanks Chris. I’ll be giving this one a go. Much appreciated, as always!

[@TollsterMensch]

This is amazing, Chris! Thank you. Is the air band the same as in Air3? Or is the value mapping a bit different for this? It sounded a bit stronger for small increments in your demo here

[@airwindows]

It's very much the same algorithm, but the fact that I'm demoing at 96k might be affecting it. At 0.5 both should be exactly the same, and also from 0 to 0.5. I think.

[@LYSHEmusic]

Yeah, waited for this!

[@skriptico]

uh wow thats genius...

[@fftunes]

Sounds great!

[@moriqconlaq9264]

Please Chris add output gain and dry/wet😭. THIS NOT-EQ-EQ IS FREAKING FANTASTIC

[@cheesewave]

This rocks

[@mthomas1091]

Awesome idea Chris! 👏👏👏👏👏

[@nickmessitte1721]

Awesome! Thanks!

[@constantismedia857]

Amazing great job 👍

[@bldcarla]

Yeah dilla style compressor!!!

[@Schneekardinal]

Perfect!

[@adijames]

Seems like this would work well as a parallel bus?

[@buzzandjim4265]

❤

[@briancase6180]

Wow, this obviously needs some practice to use it effectively, but it strikes me initially as good for some mastering uses when used subtly. Very cool!

[@airwindows]

You can stick to Air3 for just the air band… and I suspect Stonefire will be more useful on individual tracks, as it seems like running a full mix through it can lead to weirdness. Which of course is why I demoed it that way, you ought to hear what happens :)

[@briancase6180]

@@airwindows right, I don't disagree that it might be especially useful on individual tracks, but used very subtly, I think it might be possible to get results that an EQ can't give. But I'll know better after I use it for a while. Regardless, I think it will find a place in my toolbox! Thanks.

[@3rd_eyevision]

No. 1

[@Makiguli]

is it possible to have access to the sources of your plugins ? (or of some of them ?) i am a sound engineer and trying to understand how to write audio plugins for my personal usage... your work may be a good starting point for me with MS Visual Studio Pro to understand programming audio plugins... Just let me know, thanks in advance Chris ! i love all ur videos, they are all magic and incredibly instructives ! Regards from France.

[@airwindows]

Yes, all of them. I'm an open source developer. I'm at github.com/airwindows :) I also livestream coding twice a week, Tuesday and Thursday from 9-5 EST… which is today, in about fifteen minutes from now…

[@DarkTrapStudio]

So it "think" like an MP3 compression ? And what about the phase ?

[@pac0re]

Bet ya everyone remembers this plugin as the stonehenge

[@taklamak]

Range === SFX = Stone/Fire/Crossover.

[@matthijshebly]

Instead of JUCE, why not use the liberally (MIT) licenced iPlug2 framework instead?

[@airwindows]

Well, for one, I don't know how :) I have been a paying Oli Larkin patron before, and he helped me get VST2 working for my plugins. I just ended up with JUCE because Sudara's efforts with Pamplejuce are both to support his own synth, and to bridge the gap to someone like me. Paul from the Surge Synth project also tried to help me with JUCE and it didn't take, but he's credited in my new code because the very first 'blank slate' from that, was his. There are a thousand questions and you never can tell what will end up clicking.

[@user-ss2zv9sv6d]

Many of your plug-ins have all the working frequencies when you increase the sampling rate. This is unfortunate This is not the way it should be

[@airwindows]

We may disagree…

[@0x44Monad]

how is sampling rate not all the frequencies

[@nathanielhamilton5841]

Explain why though, don't leave us hanging! 😂