For those interested in getting their hands on a bunch of freeware, there has been another developer challenge at KvR 
KVR Developer Challenge 2007
41 entries this year, up 10 from last year.
I’ve contributed 2 plugs - Betabugs DCDC, and RoughDraftAudio PanGloss.
Go see, there’s some fab stuff this year!
ATB
Duncan
Hey! Thanks Duncan! I’m still using the freebies from last year.
D
YAAAAY! 
Thanks, Duncan! Thank you KVR… 
The Pangloss plugin is outstanding on the Tight Buttocks setting. That sentence sounds silly, but it is true. That plugin is a keeper for me, on the strength of that preset.
Hi duncanparsons and Gents Over on that Board:
I used to spend some amount of time browsing around over there…
I should be spending even more time browsing these great Boards…
There seems to be less time in the day for some reason…
The days-and-weeks are screaming by so fast…
If I had a few ideas of a couple of plugs that might be interesting to see how they could be applied to Lets say “Vocal Tracks”
…
OR
…
maybe “Backing-or-Overdub Tracks” as I call them…
How could I bring them (These Ideas) forth to make them into a usable plug in?
A few years back I tried my hand at producing some Impulse Response Samples…
I’d like to take on the challenge of bringing my ideas forward to see what’s involved in the process…
I’d hate to surrender my ideas only to find that they’d have no practical application or the ideas have already been explored…
Bill…
If you are looking to make your own plugins
to manipulate your tracks - try
CPS
http://cps.bonneville.nl/
(they have some great examples:
like slowing down or speeding up the audio realtime)
SynthMaker
http://www.synthmaker.co.uk/index.html
If you pick up a copy of Computer Music mag (great)
it comes with a DVD with of a lot of free and excelent
plugins and VSTi’s
Hi sevenOfeleven:
Thanks for your reply to the post…
Some of the ideas that I’d like to incorporate in a plug in is a combination of Dynamics and Pan Positioning and Phasing Relationships of manually adjusting one track in relation to other tracks on the same timeline…
That would be in a “Nut-Shell” of the idea I’d like to present in a PLUG…
Bill…
Re: woxnerw phase relationships / dynamics
Sounds (mathy) to me.
Do you mean controlling the additive (in phase)
vs. subtractive (oposite phase) characteristics
when combining audio signals (mixer)?
For example additive phase
440 @ -6db
mixed with 440 @ -6db (in phase)
= 440 @ 0db (for a plus 6db gain)
while subtractive phase
440 @ -6db
mixed with 440 @ -6db (180 deg out of phase)
totally cancels out, thus no sound
440 @ -6db
mixed with 440 @ -6db (90 deg out of phase)
= 440 @ -3db (for a +3db gain)
That’s for sine waves
So you may be talking about a Fourier analysis
over a band of f’s to determine the peak frequency’s
and perform some dynamic EQ’ing or phase shift
based on the Fourier output.
Then again, maybe not.
The way I understand what Bill wants is a way to treat a stereo track as two mono tracks within the insert of the one stereo track. That would basically be separate pan and volume for each, as if each as truly a mono track.
Some plug-ins get close, but no seegar so far.
I’ve wanted something like that for a long time. It would be very useful in some scenarios. It would be especially useful for putting after plug-ins that take a mono signal, then pan the dry sound (no effect) to one side and the 100% effected sound (no dry) to the other, then send that out as stereo. There’s a bunch of guitar stomp box plug-ins that work that way (what a pain).
Hi Gents:
You are getting quite close to some of the ideas I contemplate…
As I read your replies sevenOfeleven and phoo I believe the process may very well be “Mathy”…
if that’s the term…
and the idea of treating tracks as mono plus delays versus panning and reflections and combining them to produce a stereo composite bandwidth track to the mix is another feature to add to the plug along with controlled dynamics is something that has occupied my mental energy for some number of years…
You know, when you go into a studio and the bed tracks for the project are produced and the musicians go into the the control room to listen what they’ve done, the guys look at one-another and all that energy passes between them, not a word needs to be exchanged…
The drummer looks at the bass player …
the bass player looks at the guitar player and so-on-and-so-forth…
They know almost exactly what needs to be adjusted and where the drummer needs to place his kit and where the bass amp needs to be moved in relation to drum kit and so-on-and-so-forth…
Then the interns go out in the studio during the lunch break and draw the sketches of the instrument and mic placements and do all the notes…
That sound (for short of another term) can be recreated in that room anytime or for the next project…
I’d like to be able to incorporate those ideas in a Plug-in…
Of all of the Phase/Dynamics/E.Q./Delay/Impulse Response Plugs I’ve seen yet I’ve not seen any plug that has combined any of these features in a “Mathy”/“Summy” algorithm yet…
I believe that once you’ve taken any one of these Algorithms outside of it’s “Doors” so-to-speak you’ve dis-allowed any further feed-back/communication to exist within the plug…
For example…
You mention a sine wave at some frequency…
Lats say 700hz…
You copy that frequency to two 700hz signals…
Then put it out of phase by 180 degrees…
We know…
NO Audible Sound
BUT
what about 135 degrees??
OR
220 degrees??
Now what??
AND…
There ain’t no instrument that produces a Pure Sine Wave…
That I know of…
I’m only lightly expressing some of the ideas that could be incorporated in this “Super Plug”…
If I went into further details, I would be delving into Intellectual Properties, that I think I possess…
Now…
non of these ideas I have are Earth Shattering or Copy protected or Patented…
But, together they represent original ideas that I’d be prepared to collaborate on/with…
well…
you know…
AND…
They could very well end up in the trashcan…
I don’t possess the ability to assemble or string CODE together…
But the people who can do that don’t seem to be able to come up with the “Super Plug”…
or I haven’t seen this plug-in yet…
I’d like to be part of this collaborative team that might be able to take this “Piggy” to market…
It’s sort ta like writing a song and the Key-Words in the verse don’t Rhyme…
Is that the idea ?
Bill…
Re: stereo to mono tracks
I’m not sure if you can copy an individual channel
of a stereo file to a mono file in N,
but you sure can in CoolEdit.
(Just did it to be sure)
So import stereo file (from N) into CoolEdit
Then make to mono files (Left and Right),
Import back into N, then you’re get to go.
Espescailly easy if you make CoolEdit your
default editor in N.
Well, no, I’m not looking for a mono file that’s simply a mix from stereo. The MDA Image plug-in handles that just fine. Plus, n-Tracks had functionality to split a stereo file into two mono files already. No need for an external wave editor for that either.
What I want is the same result you would get if you were to split a two channel file into two single channel files then import them into two separate mono tracks which are played as stereo.
(BTW: It can be done with plug-ins already, but it’s a bit involved, that’s why a single plug-in would make it nice and easy.)
You may ask, why don’t I just split them into two mono tracks? The answer is that I do, just about 100% of the time. But, the fact is, I wouldn’t have to all the time if a plug-in like that existed.
Some Background: Many times when files are sent to me there will be multiple tracks or takes coming my way. I’ll get four vocal parts – lead vocals and three backups, but they will be sent as two stereo files with the takes hard panned. Sometimes there will be a lead an rhythm guitar, hard panned in a single stereo file. Many times these are so close to mix ready that I don’t need to do anything to them except positioning and a little volume balancing.
Phoo
See if I’m reading you.
Track 1 - a stereo track
Track 2 - a stereo track of left channel of track 1
Track 3 - a stereo track of right channel of track 1
If so, you can automate that ( I believe ) with CoolEdit
using a script file.
Re: Phoo
I think I finally see what you mean.
I was playing around with MDA Image (thanks)
and I guess if you have (I don’t know how to say it)
stereo’s of your mono’s,
you can effectively change the mix (big time)
the whole image. Never done stuff like that
before. Very cool!
Hi sevenOfeleven and phoo:
That looks great…
I’ll bet there’s lots of options when creating that track when you bring that back to the timeline…
I do something similar to that on an n-Track timeline…
For example, I have a snare track that I want to process…
I’ll make a track by creating a track with the “Sample” I want to snare track to be…
I never remove the original “Guide” track…
But I’ll expand the "Sample Track by copy-and-paste’ing the “Sample Track” maybe 4 x’s…
Now, I can shift one of the tracks along the timeline by some number of samples…
Well, till it sounds right…
But not after the “shift” creates an echo…
But you know…
One-or-more
of those tracks will get panned and whatever…
I wouldn’t render the snare tracks yet…
I’ll place them in a “GROUP”…
controlled by 1-or-2 faders (strips)… Now…
there’s gonna be Dynamics/Verb/Delays on the Groups…
Well…
Whatever…
Who knows
?
You see,
at this point we are only talking about the SNARE Track…
in the Drum Group’s Strip…
on the
song’s timeline… If I do this to very many more tracks I begin to run out of resources with my P-111 Editing Machine…
And… I know…
Freezing…
NO…
At this point-in-time Freezing doesn’t enter the picture…
yet…
on these timelines…
Now…
This is where I’d like to convince Flavio to ADD GROUP RENDERING to the MIXDOWN Capabilities to n-Track…
BUT…
Alas…
The “Powers that Be” doesn’t see where this is necessary to write into n-Track’s “Code”…
If this were possible, the rendered snare track could then be re-imported onto n-Track’s timeline…
This would keep the project’s/song timeline from growing by leaps-and-bounds…
Bill…
Hi woxnerw,
When you do drums, does every [kit piece]
get it’s own track?
And also - a ‘guide track’. Is that say a couple
of measures or is it longer?
guide track here
sample here
sample here
sample here
sample here
then slide samples along time line to kind of thicken the sound?
what we REALLY REALLY want is OUTPUT TO ANOTHER TRACK -
ie, track 1 outputs to track 3, track 2 outputs to track 4 (as you can do in MACKIE TRACKTION - you can make a complex structured tree using this reature with only the last branches of the tree going to the soundcard -
each track retains its own input as well - ie, track 3 takes input from track 1 and from mic/line as well - THIS IS VERY HANDY, as you can add an effect to a blank track and have as many inputs from other tracks going into it as you like - also in TRACKTION you can have one track outputting to as many tracks as you want at the same time -
Dr J
Can’t just about the same thing be done using groups? As an example, I could submix to groups (such as just the tom tracks to a single group, and kick and snare to another group), then send those groups to another group (send the toms and kick/snare groups to a group). Then send those two groups to another group (and overheads to that group). That’s a bit extreme and unnecessary, but something like that is easily handled.
Sending a single track to multiple groups at once is slightly different thing. It’s a bit harder as it requires sending tracks via AUX sends and returns…but it can be done even if it’s a bit of a workaround.
I don’t have tracktion so I don’t quite understand the terminology of sending tracks to tracks is implemented there.