Airwindows

SweetWide

TL;DW: SweetWide is a strange grungy stereo widener.

SweetWide in Airwindows Consolidated under ‘Stereo’ (CLAP, AU, VST3, LV2)
SweetWide.zip (490k) standalone(AU, VST2)

It’s experiment time! This is a really good example of the sort of thing I do for Airwindows, and for the folks out there.

You may well find this horrible, lame and useless. That is OK, it’s not going to be for everybody.

But if you like the sort of weird grunge this produces, we’re talking signature sound, secret weapon town, bigtime… and NOBODY else will be bringing it, and no AI will arrive at this unless literally told to copy it (in which case they should credit and say it’s SweetWide they’re using).

This plugin comes not from the world of Srsly or EdIsDim or Wider (plenty of other things I’ve made to do stereo widening nicely). It comes from my experiments with ring modulation. It’s really a very simple algorithm though it does use square root functions: that’s next to nothing, as far as CPU is concerned. It’s doing terrible things to the stereo signal coming in, for the purpose of exaggerating side-channel information, but in a way where it’s tending to produce asymmetric modulations. That’s more along the lines of ‘second harmonic, fourth harmonic etc’ rather than ‘third harmonic and normal distortion’, and that’s why Sweet is part of the name: we tend to hear even harmonics as more ‘sweet’ than odd harmonics.

Even then it’s not acting normal because it’s using that Soar control to govern how the square-root reacts to subtle sounds. It serves the purpose of bringing up a gnarly compressey grunginess, except for stereo widening. If you crank it out all the way it’s very obvious, but you can dial the Soar setting in that way, and then pull it back if you’d like it to still be unique but not so obnoxious.

It’ll also do a stereo narrowing effect that’s maybe even more obnoxious, by turning Un/Wide all the way to Un. It’s basically the same thing as an Inv/Dry/Wet control. The whole thing runs without any stored variables, and the setup of controls is hilariously trivial: without the square roots it’d be about the most CPU-efficient plugin you have.

The reason you don’t have this already is, it sounds terrible. But it’s terrible in kind of a wonderful way. I demonstrate it on a full mix, and you should never use it on a full mix. Instead, I think it’d be a great widener on a heavy guitar buss, or certain synth tones, or maybe it’s a really interesting way to narrow a drum room sound and bring a lot of grungey color to things. Any sound you can get from it, you can tune with the Soar control. I’ve managed to bring the totally weird Soar control from my ring modulators to a stereo widener/narrower, in case that’s handy.

If this is the plugin for you, you’ve probably already started throwing it on things and enjoying its unique gnarly space-distortions, and if this isn’t the plugin for you, I don’t know how much more clearly I can warn you. You’re welcome :)

Airwindows Consolidated Download
Most recent VCV Rack Module
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.

Date January 11, 2026
Author Chris
Comments 2 Comments

ConsoleX2

github.com/airwindows/ConsoleX2Channel/releases
github.com/airwindows/ConsoleX2Buss/releases
These are the Channel and Buss plugins that make up the ConsoleX2 system
github.com/airwindows/ConsoleX2Pre/releases
This is just the tone shaping of ConsoleX2, standalone and dual mono, to be used as additional tone shaping or with other Console versions

ConsoleX2.zip (2M) standalone(AU, VST2)
This is a set of standalone retro/generic ConsoleX2 plugins (AU, VST2).
It includes the upgrade to TapeHack2: the original plugins as released are available at ConsoleX2Original.zip (2M) standalone(AU, VST2)

Surprise! Not a very long wait for ConsoleX2. This is the one I’m going to be using for stuff. It’s got SmoothEQ2 everywhere which is trickier but more powerful, it’s got the same dynamics as in ConsoleH, the same trim/discontapeity section (labeled ‘More’) as in ConsoleH, the same metering as ConsoleH, the same summing as in Console9/X/H/X2 (these can all be swapped and interchanged! I typically use a Console9Buss on tracks getting sent auxes from other tracks, and then another ConsoleX2Channel instance after the reverb or whatever that’s on the aux.)

You’ve already seen a lot of this on ConsoleH. There’s also the same ‘generic plugins in a zip with more controls than I can fit into Consolidated’, so ConsoleX2 supports retro systems going WAY back, and has an alternate GUI-less Linux build, and supports Raspberry Pi (for certain really basic computers you should be OK with just running the GUI-less version which doesn’t have things like the meter). It’s everything amazing about ConsoleH, again, with a different configuration that trades HipCrush on every track, for a much more powerful EQ on every track and the buss.

I know it seems like a lot for one person to do for the holidays, and it is (plus that same one person also does all the video and editing work, which is why on the ConsoleH Xmas video I forgot to turn on the modular-synth blinkylights, the ONE DAY of the year where they are totally justified :) ) but bear in mind this is how it happens: steady gradual work all across the year, sometimes producing side plugins along the way, and all converging on a big grand project that continues my explorations into making original GUI-enabled plugins that can be recolored, reskinned, and resized way beyond what people normally let you do. You can make my Console GUI plugins functioning postage stamps, or channel strips, or humongous flashy giant hi-res things (if you go big enough you see the pretend milled slots around the thumbs of the knobs), at this cost: you can also make them bad, or ugly, or unusable due to tiny size, or put a terrible texture on them or pick a ridiculous font for all the Airwindows GUI plugins to have. (that’s done using Documents/Airwindows/AirwindowsGlobals.txt, and you don’t have to do it if you don’t want to, but it’s there for those bold of spirit)

I’ve still got a nice backlog of plugins to put out and I’m still thinking of new ones to make, so I should still be here every week. Just not with a massive flashy mixing system. You’ll probably be able to spot when one of those is in the works.

The synth I spotlit in the video is by Sudara, who made Pamplejuce and thus made these GUI plugs possible. I bought the one I’m using, and expect to keep doing cool things with it that aren’t covered by other softsynths I have (like my beloved Surge XT and Six Sines). It’s in early access and you can buy it too if you like, at melatonin.dev

(ConsoleX2 doesn’t fit in Consolidated or the Rack plugin, so there’s no link to those for ConsoleX2)
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.

Date January 4, 2026
Author Chris
Comments 6 Comments

SmoothEQ3

TL;DW: SmoothEQ3 is the most approachable EQ.

SmoothEQ3 in Airwindows Consolidated under ‘Filter’ (CLAP, AU, VST3, LV2)
SmoothEQ3.zip (509k) standalone(AU, VST2)

By request from a patron, here’s the EQ section out of ConsoleH, to use standalone in whatever way you like.

What makes this special? It’s a combination of tech things and design things. The idea for ConsoleH is to combine very tricky and complicated things like a four-band version of HipCrush, with a very basic approachable EQ of unbeatable quality so you can fall back on something that’ll always sound good and work in an obvious way.

SmoothEQ uses the technique from AngleEQ of constantly reconstructing the original sound from crossover filtering, which I originally came up with to deal with the weird phase behavior of AngleFilter. When you use that on more well-behaved filters like biquad filters, you’re sort of protecting from issues that aren’t there… but people noticed pretty quickly that the sound was there. SmoothEQ2, which is the backbone of the upcoming ConsoleX2, ran with this technology to allow for much steeper filtering, and created shelving filters that act like sweepable parametrics but still converge on ultimately clear, accurate EQ.

SmoothEQ3 steps right back again to simplicity, approachability, with another twist: it goes for the combination of low CPU and steep crossovers. Working on other filters, I did a livestream where mathematically inclined viewers pitched in to set me up with the most accurate way to calculate the perfect IIR filter to match a Butterworth biquad filter. This takes the simplest form of configurable filter without extra resonance, and adds one layer of an even simpler filter at the exact frequency you need to make it steeper without it being obvious. Combining the two filter types kind of blends their sounds, between ‘Butterworth’ and a softer cutoff that’s better for transients, to optimize both.

Since it’s not crazy steep it’s a little bit like my Baxandall filters (a slow transition where transients are great but it’s hard to tell where it transitions), so I was able to pick fixed frequencies to cross over at. Since the cutoff frequency is a little ambiguous thanks to the IIR section, it doesn’t stand out, but since it’s also steeper than a regular Butterworth filter you get to latch onto bass or treble and really boost or cut it without interfering with midrange. You end up with your basic three bands, immediately accessible, and they just do what you want without fuss.

And since the IIR filter is very simple, SmoothEQ3 ends up being the most efficient way you can get a steeper-than-Butterworth EQ of this quality. Nearly anything else you could do, would cost more CPU to do the job. And that’s also part of using it for ConsoleH: I’ve done everything I can to let people get big ConsoleH mixes on a potato if they have to, and SmoothEQ3 is the way to get ultimate EQ tone quality under those conditions. Something like SmoothEQ2, for ConsoleX2, is still not that expensive, but it’s still doing 192 operations per sample per channel to do its four sophisticated bands of EQ.

SmoothEQ3 does 59, including assignments (equals). That’s more than three times as efficient than SmoothEQ2. It’s partly because if you make a second-order filter this way one of the multiplies ends up being by 1.0 and you don’t have to do it… the point is, not only does this EQ sound great but it’s also incredibly efficient. And now that it’s out in generic-plugin form, it’s in Consolidated and in the VCV Rack version and you get to run it on whatever is even weaker than a potato: a lump of coal, maybe?

Have fun with the EQ and I’ll see ya in 2026 :)

Date December 28, 2025
Author Chris
Comments 3 Comments

ConsoleH

github.com/airwindows/ConsoleHChannel/releases
github.com/airwindows/ConsoleHBuss/releases
These are the Channel and Buss plugins that make up the ConsoleH system
github.com/airwindows/ConsoleHPre/releases
This is just the tone shaping of ConsoleH, standalone and dual mono, to be used as additional tone shaping or with other Console versions

ConsoleH.zip (2M) standalone(AU, VST2)
This is a set of standalone retro/generic ConsoleH plugins (AU, VST2) and also includes example files for using AirwindowsGlobals to configure the main (JUCE-based GUI) plugins.
It includes the upgrade to TapeHack2: the original plugins as released are available at ConsoleHOriginal.zip (2M) standalone(AU, VST2)

An Xmas miracle! ConsoleH is here, before 2026 (as promised), and it’s pretty much ready to go!

It works like other Console versions: channel plugins on the channels, unity gain between channel and buss, buss plugin on the buss. It can make even small track counts sound enormous, but the big thing for ConsoleH is really adaptability. You’ve got multiple plugins that aren’t out yet (Dynamics3, SmoothEQ3, X2Buss if you count the separate buss compression as a standalone plugin, DarkMeter) all developed for THIS system. You’ve got highpasses and lowpasses out of Cabs2, a turbo version of TapeHack, the recent PurestSaturation on the buss (set up so the softclip threshold ends up at around +2 dB, so it makes it more forgiving to get near 0dB!). There’s a wild array of displays: pan lights that show at a glance if the channel you see is panned hard left or hard right, blinkies for every single slider in the Dynamics section, a near-clip light for the buss (on the Pan trim control) that can show you both whether you’re near maximum peak, and whether you have enough dynamic swing for an aggressive punchy sound.

This is also the first place you can use DarkMeter: developed to do Airwindows Meter over a black backdrop for dark-mode lovers, adapted so the slew-versus-peak ratio it measures (in Meter, drawing blue dots as the height of sonority) instead draws a wide variety of colors, from blues and reds for bassy dark tones, through green for that sonority zone, then cyan for post-80s ultra-hype that’s still classic, to white dots for the brightest of the bright. And it’ll draw this rainbow of dots across the peak meter so you can measure and dial in exactly the aura of hit-record you need, on peaks that are supposedly impossible to directly hear… but we feel these, and know when they are wrong. And underneath this display, the zero cross meter that tells you where your bass is at, whether it balances and shows up in the mix, ehether it’s just right or too low for the biggest bassbins.

No guesswork. It just shows you. Turns out that is very helpful.

And the great thing about ConsoleH is, just about everything in it can be bypassed when set flat or turned to zero. The compression, the speaker-cabinet-like highpasses and lowpasses, the isolator-DJ-filter versions of those on the buss, the vaguely-tapelike overdrive on the front of the channels: these all drop out of circuit when not in use, and so to an extent way past last year’s ConsoleX, ConsoleH forms itself to YOUR sounds. If you pull out the whole bag of tricks, it’ll really sound like everything all at once. If you clean stuff up, or take a particular direction, it’ll emphasise that direction and reward it. So, ConsoleH sounds like you, or like whatever new version of music you’re interested in making.

Whether you’re sculpting compression and gating boldly (or delicately!), or virtually re-amping everything, or bringing in sampler voices or strange glitch effects, ConsoleH can let you make those sounds. It’s hilariously good at reinventing any old thing you’ve got for tracks, whether you have awesome tracking abilities or whether everything’s coming out of free softsynths and you haven’t even got a mic.

If you want the broadest possible range of studio sound, ConsoleH is the free, open-source, retro generic antique plugin OR latest flashy-GUI plugin for you. I’m still producing generic builds for retro PCs and Raspberry Pis! But thanks to Sudara’s ‘Pamplejuce’ project (and his valiant last-minute help!) we have a modern JUCE version that should be good to go even as screen displays travel towards 5k or 10K monitors. And it reads the same ‘AirwindowsGlobals.txt’ file that worked for ConsoleX, so now there’s a whole new mixing system where if you customized the color, texture, font of your ConsoleX plugins, exactly the same applies for ConsoleH. In fact, if you made global changes they will automatically be applied.

ConsoleH is my gift to folks who like this sort of thing. I hope you have as much fun with it as I will :)

(ConsoleH doesn’t fit in Consolidated or the Rack plugin, so there’s no link to those for ConsoleH)
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.

Date December 25, 2025
Author Chris
Comments 7 Comments

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