Airwindows Zoom: Free Mac/Windows/Linux/Pi CLAP/AU/VST3/VST2/LV2/Rack

This is a little piece of what could become a new Mastering plugin, but I've got a lot of testing to do to work out whether that should happen. Zoom is waveshapers: as many as five stacked up for high gain levels, and most settings will use at least a couple. They're applied sort of in parallel: the basic idea is a lot like Density, but handled very differently.

The purpose is to try and alter, very strongly, the peak energy and only the peak energy of the sound, while leaving the loudness more or less alone. That's why the 'negative' settings, below 0.5, don't get as much quieter as those in Density. It's taking the hottest peaks and further boosting them while cutting back quieter stuff. Boosts still work as in Density, except the character will be a little different.

So, you might find the sounds of this interesting, or find that it's an amazing overdrive or 'weird expander', or whatever, but those are all obvious changes that you can hear because they're modifying the RMS loudness of the signal. And that's fine too. I'm just saying, for the last month I've been on a deep dive into Meter and the concepts around it, and I'm working towards something specific. I would like to see whether you can take an already good track and make it significantly better by heavily modifying just the PEAK energy and getting that exactly the way I want it. A new version of Meter is coming out and I'll be doing more 'vinyl hit record videos' to demonstrate what I'm talking about, and to do that I have to write new plugins that specifically master audio to work with Meter and work on the stuff I 'can't hear'… at least, not directly. If I'm right, perfecting this stuff will cause tracks to sound inexplicably amazing (and they will have to start out with the potential for amazing: some don't need help, and for others it's very obvious what must happen.)

For instance, I might have various 80s hit records where, due to the taste in mixing and mastering, there's constantly stray peaks 6 to 12 dB hotter than everything else, and I'd need to remap them to be a more continuous range of peak energy. Or, the area is too dense and could use being opened up subtly, allowing the hottest peaks to 'un-saturate' slightly without it being really audible, again to get me an area of peak energy that's as evenly distributed as possible.

And that's what Zoom was coded to do, and why it's hard to hear what it's doing until you crank it up to the point of obviousness. It is also a simple waveshaper so you can do that while oversampling it in the DAW, which of course I won't be doing because used normally it'll barely create any harmonics at all. It's a 'zoom lens' for audio: everything is still in focus and looks the same, but the presentation has shifted in the desired direction, probably only discernable by Meter.

I might still be working on Meter and far from ready to put out a Mastering that's entirely based on my untested theories, but the new Meter should be coming up just next week, and if you wanted to experiment as I am experimenting (or just slam stuff, I'm not your Mom) then here is Zoom. Have fun!

[divehalfway]

after thoroughly playing around w this thing it has become my new favorite plugin

[bAvt_xyz]

This is the place you come when you think you know everything about audio engineering but want to be humbled and proven otherwise.

[Roland_Tr_Swing]

You are like an engineer who builds his own tools for the job.

[dropLove_]

We appreciate you and your tireless efforts! Meter and Zoom and everything else... You da coolest!

[FotisandStuff]

You're ON FIRE, Chris! I've never seen you so excited, so passionate, so committed before. Zoom is brilliant. I didn't know I needed this until you created it! This toy will definitely be useful in the playground of Peak Energy Land :D

[orenfisher]

"Intentionality" - very cool concept.
You present Zoom as a a tool that will help us to express this characteristic, subtly yet effectively. I agree - there seems to be great potential here - thank you!

[Hordebarraged]

Great! This Zoom thing works for me! Even been getting some higher meter scores putting one instance before Tape and another after with subtle settings on all. It seems to make things sound easier on the ears and "wider" without being too obvious or overblown. Thanks again for your brilliant work, which I've only recently stumbled across.

[BigDrahma]

This is just what I need! I’ve been using TDR Nova’s expansion ability (wideband at 0.9:1) to expand some dynamics to undo some tape compression on existing material but finding the right triggering loudness was really finicky. This does what I wanted that to do: expand the entire waveform just a bit mathemagically. This will instantly go into my toolbox!

[cmdfvvoice]

This is a really cool plugin for mastering IMO. I have some ideas on where I'd use this to liven things up and retain some limiting I've already done. basically, trying to keep dynamics but make things uniform at the same time.
I already used this on my latest album as a kind of exciter. There was an Avalon plugin and then Zoom, finally a very gently used limiter to make the level right and catch any stray peaks. It all worked out great. Kept everything very separated and distinct in a subtle way. I think I was at 0.55 or something with a little dry/wet blending.

Thanks for all the cool plugins. I'm stoked to try Mastering2 and the new verbs in more detail. There's so much good stuf I can't keep up. lol.
cheers

[anechoicmedia]

AI can't do intentionality -- exactly! thanks for that insight and your wonderful plugins!!!

[LeanBearMusic]

I am not very technically minded. Usually I get the gist of what your tools do and then twiddle the sliders or knobs until they make intuitive sense. This explanation made a lot more sense to me than most others. I "get it" before I have even gone to install it. And by the way, speaking of sliders vs. knobs, I think that BassDrive should be bundled into Consolidated. It is such a useful tool for bringing distinction to individual tracks, even at the point of insertion, without so much as tweaking a single slider. Those sliders should be knobs! But that's just my tenth of a cent ;*)

[RyanofRose]

This is so cool, thank you for your plug-ins and insights!

[Jrel]

Take your time on (Airwindows) Meter - don't burn yourself out over it.

[BullyMaguireever]

I don’t understand the captions as on the screen we see one slider and that’s it. Yet the captions talk about all kids of colors and knobs and such.

[Schneekardinal]

I will definitely abuse this in interesting ways.

[nickmessitte]

Very interesting. Full negative on this thing sounds almost like the delta signal of a clipper, which made me wonder what a clipper that gave those artifacts as its delta would sound like.

Is there any room in future iterations of this plug-in for an inverse dry wet? Or a way to influence the frequency weighting of the effect? Just curious.

[ESHz]

Hey Chris, I wanted to say thank you for your plug-ins! It would be really helpful to have a mix knob and auto gain in each plugin. Your work is much appreciated!

[inigoloyolamontoro]

Hi chris, thanks again for another amazing tool. I was wondering if there is a way to get the lossless audio files of your videos. Im currently working on a project and need voice samples to work with and i love your voice. I would only use short samples and you won’t be able to tell its you. Let me know what you think :) i would love to put you on my music. See it also, as thank you for what you do with your plugins

[Odihmantich]

I can see myself putting a slight lfo with this on almost every sound)

[petecarney]

We need a third monologue - you can display it at the bottom of the screen. 👍😊