Airwindows Energy2: Mac/Windows/Linux AU/VST

Folks who aren't Airwindows fans from way back might not know what this is. My video demonstrates a lot of it, but let me try to sum up…

Energy2 is energy boosts. Mostly treble, but you can also bring out aggression in the high-mids. These are NOT done through usual means. They're a weird little algorithm that's tied to the sample rate, and the big deal with Energy2 as an update is that it's using my undersampling (which I just recently improved) to function as intended at high sample rates: it's also more CPU-efficient than the original, but otherwise it's the same (the original Energy might still be preferable for some, for instance if you absolutely must work at 48k and find it works better for you than Energy2 at that rate).

When I say energy boosts, what I mean is: this is not a normal EQ. You could not make the Energy2 sound happen by mimicking the frequency curve using a pile of biquad filters, or worse yet phase accurate EQ. It's an entirely different algorithm, and this is what you get. Energy2 has enormous edge and focus around attack transients, not smearing them with pre-ring or high-Q traditional filtering, even though it produces very steep curves and isolates specific tones. Energy2 also has a definite color in how it adds frequencies: if you're boosting upper mids with one of the lower sliders, you also get a bunch of highs along with it. Part of the sound. Probably shouldn't struggle to remove those overtones too hard.

You can combine the sliders in weird ways to get very striking tone colors, but I think Energy2 is at its best when you focus on one color at a time, perhaps with a little of another color added or subtracted (less than zero means taking that tone color out: but remember, this is Energy2, it's never completely tame or predictable). The breakthrough with Energy2 is that it's designed to run at elevated sample rates, undersamples its boosts, but unlike the original Energy, it mixes that with a NON-undersampled Dry to get best of both worlds: the exact tone colors it ought to have, but against an unaltered, hi-res background. Since Energy's generally able to get obnoxious levels of boost, the thing to do is get sounds where at least one slider is cranked out as far as it'll go, and then use Inv/Dry/Wet to use only as much of that added energy as you need.

You get high and upper mid boosts, all the way up into the highest of air bands, that are more like they're part of the original sound and not even added using EQ at all… but complete control over how much of that is added to the fully high-resolution sound at elevated sample rates. (and at CD rates, it works just like the original Energy, but with the CPU enhancement from not processing unused bands, plus the Inv/Dry/Wet is run at a higher word length than before, and uses modern Airwindows dithering to the floating point buss: that's how old the original Energy was)

If I make a special Airwindows 96k mixing kit, like Starter Kit but more for experts adopting my mixing system rather than beginners, Energy2 almost defines what that would be like. It's a very strong way to get a more Airwindows-y sound. (It's also a nifty sort of anti-Soothe: nothing will pop out vibey overtones, intensity, and sonority like this plugin)

Hope ya like it. It's one of the special ones. :)

[TheOniProducciones]

This Guy is a Mad Scientist. I love it.

[Vospi]

Energy2 is a lifesaver that I immediately adopted; being able to boost these things without phase shifts (combined with Acceleration to level highs and Air to boost them was extremely helpful a) for guitar DI pre-processing b) for EDM design where you want to boost/tame energy without smudging the texture.

Thanks a ton.

[carlosclaptrix]

It so great to see such a creative and dedicated spirit who likes to share what he creates.

[jacquepierregee]

Love Energy v1, thanks for the great update!

[brandontuzio]

Chris, you're a legend. Thank you for your work and transforming my ears, mixing confidence, and desire to learn even more.

[briancase]

This is revolutionary; you can tell just by trying it. It feels like an enhancer, like an exciter. I don't use regular EQ nearly as much now! THANKS!!!! Also, and I hope I'm not being redundant (as I haven't watched the whole video or read all the comments), but if you turn down all the knobs, you get a nice boost that you can then tweak by slightly turning up a few knobs. It's maybe the same as turning knobs up, but I think it's slightly different. In any case, any way I use it, I get amazing results. So cool. Can you do this for bass? Sub bass? :)

[eren]

we need an airwindows delay plugin with pitch and filter modulation! that would be dope af

[KOSMIKFEADRECORDS]

MASTERFUL. Your demo here.. I missed all the obvious good you were explaining a year ago because i never understood what you were saying. I think i now get it way way way beter and as usual my mind is blown. Another airwindows gem.. is there a way to give these bands dynamic response? it could end up making aweful sounds... or... when that muted trumpet hits the plugin, it turns all highs into butter. Is that a crazy idea?. Ive been playing around with daw routing and mixer track chaining to make parralell dynamic processing on varius bands, so understand if its a royal pain seperating the bands, but with point and pressure to both "soak up" certain peaky or muddy frequencies but keeping an insane level of punch and detail, im getting such a good result that commercial youtube things are starting to sound tooo dull

[nersonangelo]

Wow we have a very cool yet simple to use tone shaper here.. Thnx much Chris

[djcrote]

Happy 4th of July Chris. I was wating to try this in 96k! Thanks, i think it would be a good treble booster before a virtual amplifier.

[unfa]

ASMR makes me uncomfortable, but I totally loved the other voice demos :D

[someoneacomputer]

sounds very good :) will definitely try it, thx and congrats !

[nickmessitte]

Hi Chris, if you move inverse dry wet all the way to inverse, will it isolate the processing bands and subtract any dry?

Very glad energy is available at all sample rates now! I love the OG but yeah, i was kneecapped before by the 44.1 kHz limitations, so this is fantastic

[wazzpqazzza]

i didn't realise this cigarette had DMT in it someone help

[KILLSTEP]

Anyone have compared The boost beetween The two? Big fan of energy 1 sound lire langevin eq

[lngl]

Really helpful but we totally need translations :p

[matthijshebly]

Energy is great.
But your code fundamentally needs to be sample rate independent...
Having plugins that require a specific sample rate to run properly doesn't make any sense in 2021.