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Hi ColinP,

yes this is the official documentation from Chris Johnson (Airwindows). every plugin also has a video about it by airwindows.
there is also an unofficial interactive online documentation: https://airwindowscheatsheet.aboni.dev/

every one of my ported module has the key notes on the shoppage. so that's a good starting point to get an understanding of these modules.

i am trying to consolidate plugins into modules when it fits. e.g. all three versions of slew are consolidated into AW_Slew. But at the same time i'm trying to embrace the modular, build-your-own-fx-from-building-blocks style that airwindows has.

Cheers Chris, Yeah I came across that cheat sheet before but was wondering if there was anything kind of half way. Something in tabular form perhaps. Like category, name, parameters, I/O, brief comment, link to more detail. But it's academic.

Comprehensive merging was just a thought. My guess was that it might be fairly straightforward grouping the algorithms from categories like dynamics, EQ, reverb into modules with menu selection of the algorithm and having a set of dynamic parameter knob assignments. But it was just a guess.

It might go against the modular concept but I'd be much more likely to patch up one dynamics processing module and flick through the algorithms than add, patch and remove 27 different modules to try to get that snare sounding just so. In fact I'd never dream of doing that as deciding whether the 15th one was better than the 23rd one would be impossible in practice. So I'm never going to use the vast majority of the 241 Airwindows plugins (assuming you are planning on working through them), which seems a pity.

Just edited to add... And there's no reason why you coudn't still get same the modular approach when needed as you'd just patch together multiple dynamics processors or whatever. In fact it would make experimenting with having modules in series far easier to do. You'd still have a combinatory explosion but flicking through menus or hitting < > buttons would enable one to discover novel setups more easily. I don't see any downside to comprehensive merging of similar functioning algorithms into a manageble set of say 10 different modules instead of hundreds.

I tend to agree with Colin on this one. Whenever I want to use a module I haven't used before, or very often, I have to spend time going through the help files, and then spend more time patching and repatching. When the effects are similar or related, I'd much rather have an omnibus module that has multi-state buttons than a slew (poor pun intended) of separate modules.

Which isn't to dump on what you've already done, Chris. Far be it from me to look a gift horse in the mouth; I very happy that you saw fit to do all that work for free.

Reid

If you haven't looked at the original airwindows videos, you might find them interesting. Generally I don't, but I have looked at parts of several and even watched 98% of the Pockey2 video yesterday.

With all of his work with the airwindows VM ports, I also wondered if someday Chris (or anyone else, I suppose) might be inclined to merge a number of them. VM does have some mixers, so maybe there could be a airwindows console (or console lite). See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ju6U2Jj ... airwindows.

For the time being, there are several VM modules that could be used to route/mix audio through several VM FX modules. I have played with one that allows for up to eight per instance, but I haven't tried it with some of the VM airwindows ports yet.

Now that you mention it, my Poly SideChain module will let you set up sixteen trials at once; I didn't think about that, because I wasn't thinking along those lines in my earlier post, which was more about general ease of use than a hypothetical testing scenario.

Reid

Steve W wrote: ↑Sun Mar 12, 2023 12:23 pm With all of his work with the airwindows VM ports, I also wondered if someday Chris (or anyone else, I suppose) might be inclined to merge a number of them. VM does have some mixers, so maybe there could be a airwindows console (or console lite).

i am working on a console8 port with included eq and dynamics section (so a combination of modules ), but it's massive (it's cooking for 3-4 months on and off now). i have like 80% of the backend, but designing a working gui with decent UX and getting all elements to work seamlessly is a tedious and time-consuming task unfortunately. that's why it'll take some more time for that to be finished.

The problem with combining different plugins into single modules oftentimes boils down to the mismatching controls. there is oftentimes no easy mapping from the controls of one dynamic effect, for instance, to another dynamic effect. To give an example, when i ported Verbity2 i wanted to combine it with Verbity1, which i had already ported, but the controls had changed and i didn't like the thought of changing controls on the same module as it is very confusing if you don't pay attention to this detail.

but there is light! Airwindows is working closely together with some VCV dev. they created an all-in-one module for VCV that has each and every AW plugin inside of it. i think i read somewhere that it is also coming to Cardinal. so you'll be able to load that up in cardinal and have cardinal inside of a vm plugin host
apart from that, i plan on open sourcing my AW ports in the future. i don't have time to sort that out yet, but i suppose mid/end of this year i might be able to. all of these modules abstract the actual functionality from the UI, so you'll be able to mix and match different AW processors freely and combine that with your custom GUI to your liking.

i also do merge aw effects into single modules where it fits naturally:

• https://store.cherryaudio.com/modules/aw-ulaw is the ulaw encoding and decoding plugins combined into a single module
• https://store.cherryaudio.com/modules/aw-slew is slew1, slew2, and slew3 combined into a single module
• https://store.cherryaudio.com/modules/aw-zfilter are all zfilter types (except region) merged into a single module
• https://store.cherryaudio.com/modules/aw-dynomojo is aw dyno and aw mojo in a single module and even blend control between them
• https://store.cherryaudio.com/modules/aw-dirtedge is aw dirt and aw edge in a single module and also a blend control between them

Some AW effects group other AW effects and add functionality themselves. https://store.cherryaudio.com/modules/aw-focus is aw Density, Drive, Spiral, Mojo and Dyno in one with a fletcher munson eq curve applied.

@ColinP out of curiosity, which ones of the currently released modules would you combine?