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Comments/opinions on Airwindows?

Virtual Virgin

Senior Member
I've been looking through the videos on his 200+ plugins and I am finding his approach and instruction to be convoluted. Some people rave about these plugins, but I haven't heard any clear examples so far. I generally dislike the program material he uses to demonstrate his plugins and I'm very skeptical of an "audio engineer" who does not spend any time working with acoustic/orchestral instrumentation.
Can somebody convince me that these plugins really are game changers?
 
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There is an Air Windows wiki page that someone did, which at least categorises the plug ins and gives a basic description of what they do.

But I agree with you - I've tried a few and not heard much effect. It could be that my ears aren't very good though, or that I don't know what I'm doing.
 
I'm still trying to get into it. I've watched about 20 videos now on different plugin designs.
While Chis is a smart guy and has one of the best explanations of aliasing I've ever seen, I still thinks he goes off into the weeds a lot and I generally dislike his choice of demonstration material.
About 70% of his plugins are focussed on saturation flavors, yet he almost uniformly demonstrates this on the 2-bus with audio that already seems to have multiple levels of saturation/distortion involved. He also seems to fidget/twiddle with multiple parameters without finishing a thought or really clarifying what each one is doing.
 
i think airwindows plugin are very great, but they're very specific such as dithering type style, saturation type style, specific analog character, wider etc. personally i used his plugin such as channel7, monitoring, capacitor, totape5, ironoxide5, and digitalblack.
 
About 70% of his plugins are focussed on saturation flavors, yet he almost uniformly demonstrates this on the 2-bus with audio that already seems to have multiple levels of saturation/distortion involved.

Yeah! I think many of these are supposed to be used in chains, and across all channels, to simulate a console experience. He does allude to this in some videos, but (And I could've missed it) he doesn't demo them in this manner. As such, many folk probably skip the explanations and end up in the 'can't hear any difference' camp. Not that i've gone through this setup, myself. It's just an observation.

I do like the way Chris is doing his bit to subvert the industry, and would love to support him. However, there are a few annoyances that stop me reaching into my wallet.
 
Maybe start with the more obvious effects like totape or ironoxide and see what you think. I've also had a hard time getting into his plugins, but I sense there's really smart engineering in them.
 
Tried ‘em. Didn’t like ‘em. No real UI means I won’t use ‘em. Ever.

I’m a UX designer so people who can’t bother to create a good experience for their music product better have the worlds best sound quality.... which these don’t. If you can get them to work and if you can tell they’re working. I also think he’s successfully cultivated a perception/brand of his self.
 
I've been looking through the videos on his 200+ plugins and I am finding his approach and instruction to be convoluted.
And his web site is horrific. I know he has a lot of fans and there may be some great stuff in there, but there's other great stuff around (including free) that isn't so "messy." Nothing against him or his stuff, but no thx
 
There are some gems in there. ToTape6, FromTape, IronOxide5, Desk, HardVacuum, and the Channel series are nice flavors of saturation/distortion plugins. The Console series are a bit weird to set up but can do interesting things to a mix, though the effect is subtle. He's got a few really weird compressors (ButterComp, PyeWacket). GuitarConditioner is a lovely little distortion for some crunchy lead tones, which I believe is Tube Screamer inspired. He's also got some other little utility plugs (Coils, PowerSag2 come to mind) that can help enhance some guitar amp sim tones. He's also got a number of one-trick things that can be fun for weird sound design stuff.

I personally don't mind the (lack of) UI; too often, eye candy can be distracting, and at worst, it can even trick us into thinking a plugin sounds better than it actually does. The lack of visual feedback lends toward actually making decisions with my ears (fancy that, huh), which aligns with his philosophy anyway (an old tagline was "In mix, no one can hear your screen").

I also appreciate that his stuff is open source with a very permissive license.

Too many dithers, though. Jeez.

He is on the autism spectrum, which may or may not be a contributing factor to his particular presentation/documentation style.
 
Sure, if the UI literally includes frivolous pixels/art, it can be distracting. But a good user experience is the sum of the parts ... including what you see. Airwindows, to me, offer a substandard experience, and I won’t use them. My DAW ships with a bunch of the free ones and they even put basic UI on them. Tried them all and never used them again.

But that’s me. I know others love them and rave about them, even though I can’t personally understand why.

I do applaud his licensing/payment approach, though.
 
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