Wind Crusher Development Notes
Development notes from the early stages of Wind Crusher, including the AIR control, texture experiments and the search for a useful space between clean and crushed.
Wind Crusher is currently taking shape and the choice of FX and controls is stabilitising a bit. I've spent the last few days tuning the different parameters with the aim to get a silkier and gentler wind sound out of the prototypes.
The current direction
The immediately visible uses for this are adding air to pads and uplifting fragile vocals, to do this then super silky textures are required and thats what is currently being worked on.
The AIR control
The air mix control is the central dry wet knob, with the presets I've been dialing it in quite high so a user can hear it; but in the field this would be dialed back a bit to make the effect sound natural.
Experiments in texture
The idea started with having algorithms that used quanitsation or dither to provide a more granular bit crusher, as i have gone on though it has become more and more about getting a silky texture, using grain, saturation, exciters...
What still needs solving
- How can i get super silky wind like sounds?
- Stability consideration
- Preset selection user experience
Next steps
Get a super silky texture working.
Wind Crusher is being developed in the open as a niche plugin for particular tasks. Although usage is not limited to pads and fragile vocals, they are the identified and tested areas. As with any plugin you can experiment and create in ways that were never considered, and that sometimes results in the best sounds.