The Song Fight Bulletin Board

So I wrote my first VST plugin today, a stereo expander (in other words, a plugin that does fake take doubling). I like to believe that it sounds better than MDA's Stereo Simulator. Right now I've only got a Windows version but once I figure out how to build stuff for OSX, I'll do that too.

Info and download: http://bit.ly/jstereopan

Anyway, that's not really the reason I started this thread. I actually think I'll write a couple more plugins, and I'd like to get ideas from you guys. Basically whatever you can think of. I won't promise to implement even five percent of your ideas, but the more useful or crazy ideas I get, the better the chances that some plugins will come out of it.

To get the ball rolling, here are ideas the guys in the chat came up with (by the way, come visit us there!):
- A tempo-sensitive volume/pan/etc. LFO with a nice selection of oscillation functions.
- Tempo-sensitive flanger.
- Demelodifier: input melodic content, output content fixed to a certain pitch. Basically poor (as in broke) man's Autotune.
- Weird experiments with formants.
- Harmonic tweaking.
- Pitch detection with MIDI output.

Side note: I have no access to expensive effects that I could model. I don't even know how to do that right now (well, actually... but never mind that), so don't ask.

How about a degu filter?

Generic wrote:How about a degu filter?

You mean a filter that makes your audio squeaky clean?
(You know, two can play this game...)

How about something to make a regularly played note sound like a pinch harmonic. I don't play with a pick very often so can't get those cool squeely pinch harmonics. It would be a nice cheat to be able to do it in the mix.

I would guess it would ... what .. mute the fundamental and really add gain to some upshifted overtone???

jast wrote:

Generic wrote:How about a degu filter?

You mean a filter that makes your audio squeaky clean?
(You know, two can play this game...)

Isn't "Squeaky Clean" an oxymoron when it comes to audio?

Else I wouldn't need a degu filter...

pegor wrote:How about something to make a regularly played note sound like a pinch harmonic. I don't play with a pick very often so can't get those cool squeely pinch harmonics. It would be a nice cheat to be able to do it in the mix.

I would guess it would ... what .. mute the fundamental and really add gain to some upshifted overtone???

That's a fun idea, and a gentle reintroduction into frequency domain mangling of sounds, I guess. It ties in nicely with the harmonic stuff I wanted to try, too, so that's even better.
Were you thinking of a threshold-based activation or MIDI-based?

I'm not too good at playing pinch harmonics myself, to be honest. On the other hand, I may get a lot better soon, now that I know how to do it on purpose. Thanks, Wikipedia!

I vote for weird experiments with formants! Woo!

yeah, formants are cool.
-bill

I haven't made any progress with the experimental stuff, but here's an update to the stereo expander. It now has a second, more subtle mode that adds less metallicy artifacts to the sound (but is also less expandy). Info, examples and download: http://bit.ly/jstereopan2

Jast, I used your plugin for my "Back to the Well" SongFight song. I liked it, and will probably use it in the future.