AudioNewsRoom

Talking Sound with Matt Bowdler, of The Unfinished

2013-06-07T09:00:00.001+02:00

Matt Bowdler is a sound designer based in London, UK. He's recently been working on creating sounds for composer Trevor Morris for the film Olympus has Fallen. We took a little time to bend his ear about his work, what inspires him, and any advice he may have for people interested in getting involved in sound design.

Why are you called 'The Unfinished'?

My non-music past is littered with the ghosts of projects never completed. Because all things being equal I have tendency towards laziness. I drive myself very hard to stay focused, motivated and, most importantly, to keep working. So, when I decided to start taking music seriously, I figured I'd call myself 'The Unfinished' as a constant reminder that if I start something I should finish it! It seems to be working so far. Touch wood.

Tell us a bit about your background, about your musical history, and how you got into composition and sound design. Do you consider yourself a composer, a sound designer, or a bit of both? Wearer of many shirts?

I've always had an interest in music, but it's taken me a long time to realise it is my main love in life (apart from the girlfriend, obviously!). I was bought a little, rubbish Yamaha keyboard for Christmas when I was eleven, that I bashed out many terrible, improvised songs on. Beyond that, I wrote a theatre soundtrack on an old Kurzweil workstation at university, did remixes of Star Wars tunes using a bit of software called Play 2000 on the Playstation and eventually actually bought some proper hardware in the form of a Yamaha RM1X groovebox about fifteen years ago.

But, it's only really in the last three or so years that I've truly embraced music and sound. I've been a big fan of Hybrid, the Welsh dance duo, for years and they started working with a composer called Harry Gregson-Williams a few years back. I loved it and devoured every score Harry had done – being particularly impressed by Man On Fire and Spy Game. I decided then and there that that was what I wanted to do with my life – be Harry Gregson-Williams! I haven't become him, but I did get the chance to meet him earlier this year, which was great.

The sound design came about almost by accident. A good producer/composer friend of mine was designing EDM sounds for synths like Sylenth. He suggested I give it a go because he liked the synth sounds in my tracks... and about two years after (and following much badgering by him!) I finally relented last year and released a small set of free sounds for NI Massive. It was reasonably popular, so I released a full bank of commercial sounds for Massive and it all just kicked off from there really.

I still consider myself a composer first, even though I spend more time designing sounds right now. Essentially my projects are about designing sounds for myself to use, then I share them with everybody else.

...to think I could still be sat in my old office, doing my old job fills me with horror. There's nothing more exciting than waking up in the morning and switching the studio on. If you don't try, you'll never succeed and be full of regrets. So... go for it....

Who do you look up to in the SD business? Do you have any heroes?

There are artists whose sound palettes I admire and who I find a constant inspiration. Needless to say Harry Gregson-Williams's soundtracks are always full of inspiring sonics – the Hybrid guys still supply him with a lot of this, I believe, so they are heroes to me too. Also, in the world of electronica, I am continually amazed at the quality of sounds that the likes of Sasha and BT produce. I also like a lot of ambient music (my soundsets are usually awash with atmospheric pads and textures), so artists like Rhian Sheehan, Jon Hopkins and Sigur Ros are always on my playlist. Then there are the great 'hybrid orchestral' composers like Michael McCann, Cliff Martinez and Johan Soderqvist. I look up to all these guys.

You've just been working with composer Trevor Morris, helping create some of the sound atmosphere for the film Olympus has Fallen. Tell us a bit about that. Could you hear your sounds in the film?

I should start by mentioning that I was but one of a team of people helping him out, which included such talents as Mel Wesson and Steve Tavaglione. But to answer the question... I think so! With the cinema sound system punching the film audio squarely into my cerebral cortex, it was a little difficult to pick out individual sounds. Add to that the fact that I was enjoying watching the film. But there were a few places where I was able to say to myself “That's one of mine!” It was pretty amazing sitting in the cinema and knowing that all the people there were hearing something I had contributed to. A very humbling moment and I have to thank Trevor for allowing me to be a part of it.

Let's talk a bit about the technicalities of designing patches. When you approach a sound, how do you start? Do you think of a sound that you want, or are you just messing around and see what comes out?

Very much both approaches. At first it was more the 'messing about' angle. As I've learned more and more about synthesis and sound design, I am more confident exploring the sounds in my head and trying to transfer them to whichever platform I am using. But, even when I take this approach I still allow plenty of room for happy accidents. I frequently create 'save point' sounds, from which I know I can then take off in many different directions, but always return to the original sound that inspired me to take these imaginative leaps.

It is hugely important to have a 'blueprint' for how your collection will sound though. You have to have some idea of what the sonic raison d'etre of the collection is, otherwise you will end up wandering down endless sound cul-de-sacs that leave you with no usable presets and a three hour-long chasm in your studio time. I do still occasionally save completely 'off-topic' sounds that I really like, with the hope of using them in another soundset – but I've managed to minimise the likelihood of this happening now, thankfully.

What's your favourite software to use when designing sound? Why?

At the moment, I absolutely love creating sounds for Spectrasonics Omnisphere. It's a brilliant synth. The available soundsources are vast in their range, it's hugely intuitive to use and the synth engine is pretty decent too – which often gets overlooked. I have a particular soft spot for the waveforms that have been sampled from classic Roland, Moog and Oberheim gear. It's every bit as brilliant as a synth designed by Eric Persing (the king of synth sound design) should be!

I also have great affection for Native Instruments Massive. It's the synth I essentially learned sound design on, so it has a special place in my heart. It's also a hugely capable synth. Much maligned as being only for dubstep and bass noises, it's quite capable of some wonderful and evocative synth pads and dense, dynamic soundscapes – which you'll hear a lot of in my soundsets for Massive. I do like its aggressive tones too though. Some very punchy and gritty arps and synth sequences can be created. And, again, it really is very simple to use – complexity doesn't need to be walled off in endless menu options and matrices.

Outside of synths, there are a number of plug-ins I use over and over again. Paulstretch is a work of genius, for instance – you can turn anything into a soundscape with it. I'm also a huge fan of plugs by Audio Damage, Camel Audio and Fxpansion. Plus, I must give a shout out to the genius that is Bootsie (Variety of Sound) who creates far and away the best free effects plug-ins that money can't buy!

What three things would you recommend to our readers who are thinking about getting into composition and/or sound design as a career?

1) Enjoy it. You have to enjoy what you're doing. I imagine a lot of people who want to work in this industry have an element of 'desk job avoidance' going on. Well, if you don't relax and enjoy working in music, then essentially you might as well be doing any of those jobs that you hope to have avoided. So, don't make yourself ill working to deadlines that are so tight they can only be described using mathematical formulae. And don't take on so many projects that you can't focus on the ones that are most important to you. Do go to sleep at a reasonable time, take regular exercise and remind yourself what daylight and fresh air are like.

2) Do not worry what everybody else is doing. It's really important for your soul, your ego and your mental wellbeing that you try and ignore what everybody else is doing. You can very quickly become engrossed in how successful your contemporaries are being, and it's madness. Because you never see your own successes in the same light as you see others – the grass is always greener. So, applaud them, admire them, support them, and move on. Equally, don't get too wound up in what the most popular sounds and genres are. Everyone, but everyone is making epic trailer music these days. If you enjoy making that kind of music and are good at it, then all is well. But if you don't, don't waste time being an also ran. Keep working on your own sound, it's time WILL come.

3) Practice practice practice. And practice. Well, hopefully this goes without saying. Always keep writing, always keep designing sounds. You will hone those skills as you go and, hopefully, have a nice backlog of usable work waiting when opportunity finally knocks.

What's are some tips and tricks for a budding sound designer who's looking to start?

A good way to get stuck into synth sound design is to pick one synth (one that has a nice clear GUI and is capable of a reasonably wide range of sounds) and learn it inside out. Learn it till you are able to recreate sounds you like with it from scratch. And only then move onto other synths. What you learn with that synth will stand you in good stead for understanding the architecture of most other synths – as long as you don't pick something obscure, or something pant-wettingly complicated like FM8! Seriously, FM synthesis is evil. :)

There are a great deal of excellent tutorials and videos on the internet, especially on YouTube and Vimeo. Take a look at the work of great sound designers like John 'Skippy' Lehmkuhl and Diego Stocco. They are very generous with their knowledge and hugely talented.

Also, another useful trick is to buy soundsets for synths you're familiar with (or check out the bundled presets) and 'reverse engineer' them. Look at what oscillators, waveforms, filters they use. See how they're connected up. Look at how changing the available parameters very slightly changes the sound. Then use what you've learned working backwards in this way, to reproduce those sounds from scratch. What goes wrong? What goes right? Do you like how the sound is made? Can you do something different with it? Or even recreate the same sound but with different parameters?

What's been the most important thing you've learnt over the last year?

Go for it. I quit my full-time job last year to pursue music professionally. I am lucky that, so far, it is working out. But, to think I could still be sat in my old office, doing my old job – and I had quite a nice job in a very beautiful setting – fills me with horror. There's nothing more exciting than waking up in the morning and switching the studio on. If you don't try, you'll never succeed and be full of regrets. So... go for it.

What is the next year looking like for The Unfinished?

Lots of projects on the horizon. There are new soundsets either finished or under way for Massive, Zebra2, Absynth and Omnisphere. I have just purchased Diva, and also have plans for a project using both Alchemy and Absynth (sample-based synthesis drawing on my collection of ethnic instruments and drums). Plus I have a really exciting collaboration project with a very very talented composer which should be released pretty soon – but that's all I can say at this stage!

I'm also looking at releasing some sample libraries. I'm already part way through a soundscapes library for Kontakt. And I'm also planning a multi-platform percussion loops collection.

Music-wise, I'm working with a few music libraries, producing a range of interesting tracks that are helping to remind that I do write music! Plus, I am trying to clear some space to write an album. I've wanted to do this for a while and am drawing up a list of vocalists and instrumentalists I want to work with on some tracks. Oh, and I also have a very cool game soundtrack project waiting in the wings.

And last, but not least, I'm planning a little shopping for hardware synths. Time for some shiny knobs, sliders and lights in the studio!

To have a look see what's going on in Matt's world at the moment, and to check out his sound packs, go to these websites:

The Unfinished
Matt's Website

Interviewed by Andy Dollerson

Sinevibes Switch, Shift and Sequential

2013-05-10T10:31:00.000+02:00

Sinevibes is an indie plugin company hailing from the Ukraine. Founded in 2006 by Artemiy Pavlov, they make creative and fun sound manipulation plugins for use within DAWs. I got the chance to play with 3 of their latest releases, and here are my thoughts..

Shift

Shift is a frequency shifter that takes different components of the audio frequency and shifts them, using a 32 step sequencer to modulate the shifts. There are 8 separate envelopes to shape the modulations. The shapes include square, pulse, saw and triangle variants.

As with all Sinevibes plugins, the GUI is simple and effective. It's very clear what's happening. You can choose the length of the steps from 1 to 32. You can change the rate from one shift a bar to every 1/64th beat.

The frequency shift is portrayed as sliders. If you raise the slider, a plus sign appears, and the pitch is shifted up; downward shift shows a minus sign, and it's shifted down.

Shift uses the Bode Frequency Shift algorithm. Unlike a regular pitch shifter, it moves all the harmonic elements of a tone equally - which changes the relation between them. A pitch shifter multiplies the relation between harmonies, keeping the harmonic relation the same. So the tonal character of sounds coming out of Shift are always changing. Instead of the pitch moving, it sounds more like a dirty ring modulation, or frequency modulation.

There is a swing slider, and essentially a dry/wet slider, enabling the sound that emanates to change from a subtle phasing to crazy tweets and bleeps.

Sequential

sequential is a 32-step sequenced multi-effect machine. There are a total of 16 effects that you can apply one of to each step. Each effect has one slider to change an element of the effect. The effects include: Sine oscillator, low pass filter, FM oscillator, noise, freq shift, saturation, etc. and you can change the cutoff of the lowpass filter, for example. I like how the parameters are slightly limiting - it means you don't get ensnared in fine tuning every element of the plugin, but are having fun experimenting within those limits.

The top line of steps is the dry signal. A simple click on the grid of the step you want, and the effect you want, will apply the effect for that step. You can change the rate of the steps, swing and dry/wet balance of the effects. You can also change the length of the steps to less than 32 if you wish.

This plugin is a ton of fun. just clicking away can really mess with your loops or samples. The sounds are perfect for glitchy type percussive loops, and other percussive stuff. Again, as with other Sinevibes plugins, the GUI is totally simple, and you're up and running within seconds, creating complex glitches and loops. Using the dry/wet slider, you can again choose how subtle you want the effect to be.

Switch

Switch is a 32step gate sequencer. You can really play with the rhythm of the sounds you're using with this plugin, creating rhythmic interest to previously static or boring sounds. The interface is again intuitive and creative. You can create 8 patterns of up to 32 steps, and you can choose to either play or mute each step. You can save up to 8 different patterns for the gating, and automate the pattern choice. The potential for differing rhythm is almost limitless! You can choose how sharp you want the gating, with intensity and gate time sliders, to change the rhythm from a gentle pulse to sharp percussive loops. You can change the swing amount, and the step rate with simple sliders, also.

Here's a track I whipped up, using Switch on the bass, shift and sequential on the pad and drums.

Conclusion
These are fine plugins from Sinevibes. I would recommend them as super fun sound manipulation tools that get you messing with your music immediately, with zero learning curve. Start clicking, and sounds start changing in a musical way. There are a couple of elements that I found myself looking for. Namely, I think it would be excellent if there were presets available on the plugins. After messing around, and creating patterns, I found myself wanting to store and reuse them. *EDIT - after chatting with Artemiy, he told me that you can store presets via the DAW. So you can have presets! However, it would be nice to have them directly within the plugin for us lazy music makers!! Another element that I found myself wishing for was a way to use patterns at different step rates. For example, have one pattern running at a step rate of 1/16th, and then have the next one at 1/32nd. This would have been very useful for fills, or builds. It's easy to work around this, by just loading up two instances of the CPU light plugins on the channel, but it would be great if this was a feature of the plugin itself. Most of the features of the plugins are automatable, which is excellent. I did find a couple of small bugs, which could well have been just the recently released version of Live 9, but if not, I'm sure will be ironed out in upcoming updates.

Price
between $19 and $39, although there's a 50% discount if you purchase all 16 available plugins

...super fun sound manipulation tools that get you messing with your music immediately, with zero learning curve...

Product page

PROS

creative and fun
Won't break the bank
CPU light

LOVE IT OR HATE IT

These are fun plugins, although fairly bare bones. If you're wanting to get into deep sound manipulation, these prob aren't for you. If you like small plugs that can add something interesting to your instruments, these are well worth checking out

CONS

Audiounit only. Sorry VST fiends

Andy Dollerson

Crush it with Bitcom

2013-05-06T23:15:00.000+02:00

Audiodamage keep cranking out little goodies to mess with your music.

Bitcom is a step sequencer that sends signal to a bit crusher, and a simple synth. Sounds odd, but it can quickly destroy even the most pleasant of sounds. Think Nine Inch Nails destroy.

Each step shows a graphic button of each of the 8 bits. If all 8 bits are selected, the sound is the same coming out as it went in. As you start removing bits, the sound starts to crush. Experimenting with using different bits can really alter the sound of the crushing - so you do get some control on how the bit crushing sounds, which is useful.

There's a useful RAND button for each step, that once selected, will re-draw the bits once they've been played - ensuring that no looped phrase will sound the same if you don't want it to.

Sidechain Synth

The simple mono synth can be played separately via midi, or can be synced and side chained and the volume driven by the audio going through the bit crusher. It has two waveforms, pulse or triangle, which can be tuned finely and shaped.

Conclusion

Bitcom is a fun bit crusher with a difference - the addition of the mono synth adds some interesting elements to crushing the crap out of your sounds. I wouldn't recommend Bitcom as a playable synth - as it's very simple, and not really designed for that. But as a combination with the crusher it gives more options. Lots of fun for the price!

Price
$39

...Bitcom is a fun bit crusher with a difference ...

Product page

PROS

great control over the bitcrushed sound
Simple to use
Synth is a useful addition

LOVE IT OR HATE IT

looking for subtle analog drive? this isn't for you. Crazy nasty distortion? This is a great option at the price

CONS

no presets that I could find

Production Grand Piano review

2013-04-21T13:54:00.001+02:00

Production Voices is a relatively young company helmed by Jason Chapman, and hailing from London Ontario. They create beautiful piano sample libraries for whatever recording or multimedia productions you're needing a piano for.

Towards the end of last year Production Grand was released. It's a meticulously sampled Yamaha C7 grand piano, with 8 mic positions, in various sample and bit rates.

Jason lent me a harddrive at the beginning of this year, and I've since been playing the production grand piano on some of the projects I've been working on, trying it out for size.

First impressions of the company? Excellent. While you wait for the hard drive, Production Voices send you S3 links to download the silver version of the piano, so you can get going while you're waiting for the full drive. I had a few issues downloading the complimentary piano, and the support was very quick sorting it out, and ensuring that I was up and running.

The Production Grand sample library is set up for use with Kontakt, by Native Instruments. It is a whopping 430GB library, with 12 sample layers, pedals, 8 mic positions, all delivered anywhere in the world on an external hard drive.

The Yamaha C7 grand has been meticulously recorded with a wide variety of top notch (think original Neumann, Coles ribbon, API and Neve) studio microphones, pre-amps and converters. The samples have been divided into two groups of four microphone positions; a 'modern' and 'vintage' collection. Each collection has 4 stereo mic positions at various closeness to the piano - from an almost binaural position, to close mic'ed hammers, to room ambience.

SIMPLE

You quickly discover that this sample library is about the piano, and only about the piano. The GUI gives you no gimmicky convolution reverb or FX, just parameters that are related to the actual sounds of the recorded piano. The GUI is a simple, yet effective 2-page affair (plus an extra page which is a diagram showing where the microphones are positioned in and around the piano). Upon loading the modern or vintage edition, the first page presents you with a 4 channel mixer representing each of the 4 microphone positions. you can choose which of the positions to load, and then blend the positions of the mics as you desire. They're all clearly labelled, and run from left to right in terms of closeness to the piano. Furthest left, they're inside the piano, furthest right, they're room mics. The positioning differs slightly on the modern and vintage microphones, as the microphones respond better in different positions.

The instruments fill their titles well - the differences being clearly audible. The clean version is a lot more clinical sounding than the vintage. You can pick and choose what mics you want from what instrument - potentially having a really sterile clean sound for the close mics, to a really warm and rich tonal character for the outside and room mics. Or vice versa. By playing with the mics it's possible to get a lot of different character from the same piano. It is possible to load both instruments and use all 8 mic positions at once, as they've all been aligned phase-wise.

For me, a good sign of the quality of a sampled instrument is how long I spend playing with it when I first get it. From the moment I received the complimentary silver download, I was rather captivated by Production grand. The response of the piano is truly excellent, and I really felt like I was playing something real. The different positions of the mic give full range to the various nuances of the grand piano - from the up close intimacy of the hammers hitting the strings, to the rich warmth of the piano in studio ambience. I found the tone of the piano to be very nicely balanced. Yamaha grands are very bright tonally, with plenty of bite and attack. If you don't get it right when sampling it, this piano can sound brittle and harsh. But I found none of this, and found it pleasing to the ear all the way through the dynamic and frequency ranges. Lovely. There's one set of mics that is almost binaural in it's setup: Great for shoving on headphones and imagining the piano's right there in front of you. I particularly liked the hammer microphones - it gave the piano a nice bite that I haven't heard in other libraries. I also liked the balance of the vintage Neumann mics, with a really wide stereo spread, combined with the PZM mic, that gave a strong center image, and added weight to the wide stereo sound.

On the second page of the GUI are a variety of extra settings that apply to both the modern and vintage versions of the piano. Here is where I realized the actual attention paid to the detail of the recordings.

Theres a couple of more usual parameters - key release volume control, and a velocity curve slider for dynamic response when playing through your midi keyboard. And then...

Pedal Noise

Great attention to detail has been paid even on this small element to the piano. There are 9 pedal down and 9 pedal up noises. Depending on where you set the modulation wheel, the pedal noises will be soft or aggressive. Or if you want even more control, they're allocated to midi C-2 for an octave and a half (below the actual sounding notes of the piano)

Key Up

A subtle effect, but its the sound of the hammers returning to start position after playing the note. It's imperceptible except in really quiet intimate playing. But it adds another level of realism as you can barely hear the hammer thump when you lift the key. Exceptional!

Recording noise

This is interesting. I couldn't decide whether it was a useful addition to the instrument or not. Generally I find that there's enough noise to deal with on a recording. However, if you find yourself requiring the self noise from the microphones, or the noise from the console, or the room noise, you can turn on, and adjust levels of each.

Authentic pedaling

This parameter's just fantastic. String resonance is something that sample programs have had difficulty replicating, and this is one of the best tries yet. No idea how the algorithm goes, but it sure sounds excellent, especially on slow piano pieces. This was the most intensive work for the whole sample library, I guess aligning the right samples to each note to gradually swell in and create that sympathetic resounding sound requires some maths thought! It definitely works well - as you hold notes down, and play others, you can hear the original notes sounding quietly in the sustain. Beautiful!

Pre attack

This takes the attention to the recording over the top. The team listened to how long the attack happened before the sound emanated from the piano, and then added it in optionally as you play to add the pre attack. The downside to this is that there is inevitable latency to the pre-attack. So it's recommended that the pre attack is turned on after the performance to the sequenced piano parts.

All these elements combined create a depth of authenticity to the piano music you're playing. They work fantastically for intimate or solo piano music. If you are recording busy loud pop music, on the other hand, you can turn all these parameters off to save CPU.

EASE OF USE

The 8 mic positions and 430GB of sample content is unwieldy to say the least. Production Voices have thought of this, and provided 3 versions with different sample and bit rates, from 24 bit 96Khz to 16 44.1. They suggest using the silver (16bit 44.1Khz) edition to record and sequence with while writing, to save CPU power. When bouncing to print the music, simply switch the edition to the topmost platinum 24bit 96Khz version for audio quality. As long as you have 8GB RAM, you can render anything the Platinum edition throws at you.

Conclusion

This piano is truly exceptional. You need a powerful computer to be able to use it to its full potential, but that aside, this easily competes with, and to my ears beats the offerings from other big names in the piano sample world. The detail is stunning, the sound is full and defined, with an attention paid to the mechanics of the piano that just isn't available with any other sample library, and that gives a beautiful realism, especially in softer, more intimate recordings.

I love the thought Production Voices have given to providing you a path to scratch tracks with a lower sample and bit rate, and then upgrade to a higher quality when printing, to save on CPU power while creating. Great forethought.

Already impressed with Production Voices, I was completely sold when I discovered on their website that they are offering free samples of a couple of their pianos to people who might not be able to afford it, if they give their time to charity work. If you volunteer 4 hrs, you get one product, if you volunteer 6, you get a bigger one. I applaud Jason for such a great incentive to get people looking to help others. Bravo!

My only hope is that Jason goes on to record other pianos, to squeeze some character out of those old Steinways, Faziolis, Bosendorfers, and into my computer! I hear on the grapevine that there are electromechanical, and drum samples in the pipeline. Very excited to hear them!

Price
On sale at the moment for April $279 instead of $329

...The detail is stunning, the sound is full and defined, with an attention paid to the mechanics of the piano that just isn't available with any other sample library, and that gives a beautiful realism, especially in softer, more intimate recordings. ...

Product page

PROS

Fantastic sound. Really. I'd defy people to tell this wasn't recorded live.
Flexibility for all levels of computer setup.

LOVE IT OR HATE IT

If you're looking for a piano that can hold it's own as a solo instrument playing tricky classical to dramatic cinematic music, then this Piano stands alongside the big players in the industry. If you're looking for a quick pop piano, this might be overkill, and you should look at some of the other pianos they have on offer.

CONS

For what you're getting, not much
Complimentary piano took a long time to download

Written by Andy Dollerson

Soundtoys MicroShift free. Get the code here!

2013-03-22T11:37:00.000+01:00

Good news from Soundtoys, this time they've been so kind to offer a little but cool plug-in for free! The plug-in is called MicroShift and the name says it all: it adds "massive width, enormous depth, and huge thickness to vocals, guitars, synths, whatever. Emulating three of the most sought after micro pitch-shifting sounds from two of the all time classic pieces of gear that made the technique famous".

We made it easy for you, just get the code below and enjoy your MicroShift! Last but not least, feel free to share this code on your Facebook page, Twitter or anywhere else. By sharing with your friends, you also get a chance to win a classic piece of gear that featured some of the early micro pitch-shifting sounds that inspired this plug-in: a classic hardware Eventide H3000 D/SE autographed by two of the original designers (that just so happen to work at SoundToys).
The top runners up will also get prizes like free SoundToys bundles, plug-ins, free upgrades to the BIG MicroShift, and cool SoundToys swag.

The code is: 391-9598-679
The direct link to use it: https://www.soundtoys.com/sxsw2013/&rc=391-9598-679

A free Soundtoys account is required, if you don't have one already just sign up and then paste the URL above in your browser.

Enjoy and get us a beer next time!

2C audio B2, a quality algorithmic reverb

2013-03-14T13:33:00.004+01:00

B2 is the 3rd spatial processing plugin from 2CAudio, after Breeze and Aether, both of which went down a treat worldwide, winning editors award choices, nominations in huge software roundup competitions, and competing easily with some of the other larger companies out there in terms of quality and flexibility.

B2 is an algorithmic reverb unit, with exceptional sound quality, and with a plethora of modular processing options on top of the quality sound. This is how 2C puts it:

"B2 is a modular dual-engine, non-linear spatial processor featuring built-in harmonic distortion and flexible dynamics. It is our most advanced plug-in to date and is capable of both mind-bending creative effects that defy classification as well as stunningly lush reverbs. Its modular design enables an almost infinite variety of sonic possibilities."

One of the immediately satisfying qualities of this plugin is that you can choose to dive deep, and create your reverb from the foundations up, or just click straight through to the browser section, where you'll encounter just under 700 factory presets for quality reverbs, from the more standard rooms, plates and useful standard recording treatments, to sound design-oriented preset categories with titles like Sci-fi, Mystical and granular. They are all laid out neatly in a preset browser that is categorised - so you can quickly get to the particular style of effect you want.

2-4-1

B2 is essentially two reverb engines in one - and they can be configured completely independently; as an early/late reflection model that's used in their other reverb plugins, or you can use one reverb to affect the signal of the next reverb, which creates some extremely interesting results. Using some of the other dynamics tools included in the plugin, you can crossfade between the two engines, wandering between two different spaces!

The main display graphically shows the characteristic information about the reverb you're creating - showing early and late reflection times and shapes. Buttons to the side switch the display between the two reverb engines, in bright blue and bright green. You can toggle to views of the EQ and damping you're using, and any dynamics processing that you're using. The view can be changed to show the individual delay lines that are being used, their shape, size, width, volume, and delay time of both reverb engines. Again delineated by bright blue and green. In this section there are also buttons to link the 2 engines together, so every parameter knob you move is affecting both engines. You can also switch engines, turn one or the other off, and go to the next or previous plugin.

The control room

These are the main controls for each engine, and they are relevant to both. As well as the usual parameters you would expect from a reverb plugin - Pre-delay, time, size (manual refers to the room sizes), Density, and diffusion. You can disable the feedback and reverb itself, which essentially transforms the plugin from straight reverb to more multi-FX unit, by using the EQ, compressor, pre delay, etc. There are many different uses for this - for example, if you disable the feedback and make the reverb size very small, it has a stereo widening effect, but doesn't add reverb or ambience to the sound.

Straight lines? Pah!

This is a non-linear plugin. Great effort has been made to ensure that there are sonic inconsistencies, varying results, and other generally non-linear attributes to the treatment of the sound. This gives the sound the character that we love - the non perfect sound.

The linearality or non, is controlled at the main display using the Range, Random, contour and curve controls. These define the distribution of the sound into the space that you create. You can start from scratch to create the space that you want, with the reflective characteristics you want, how big it is, how random the delay lines are, and how the amplitude curve is shaped. Essentially, the spaces you can create are limitless.

Another way that 2C have really upped the standard is using their spectral modulation algorithm. Claiming that no space ever returns the same impulse response, as nature is always affecting the space, even of rooms (think, temperature, occupancy, humidity etc), they've tweaked their algorithm so that the 'impulse response' that is imitated is always shifting very slightly and imperceptibly to the ear, but simulating more closely the organic and natural response you would get in the real world. This is always present, and is not controllable, being at the heart of the plugin. Of course, even this element of the B2 is still modd-able, with a user definable LFO that can affect the reverb tails by altering the pitch and shift microtonally, which can sound anywhere from natural modulations to much more lush thick chorussy sounding reverbs.

Multi-FX

There is a built in dynamics processing section, containing various tools useful for shaping and placing the reverb. There's a gate, for those wishing to 80's up their drumkits; compression, ducking, expansion, transient processing that can be applied pretty much anywhere in the chain (including side chain!) to really allow some creative manipulation of the reverb. The damping control gently changes the EQ of the reverb over time, so as time goes by, the frequency of the tail lowers, and sounds damped. there are High Low and Band pass filters to use, to enable specific frequency bands to be damped. There's an analog style distortion with many different types that can be added to the sound. There's Cross and Width controls, which give you spatial options - you can cross the signal from one channel to the other, or you can narrow or widen the stereo width of the output signal.

Cascade

This adjusts the amount that you want to crossfade signals between each other. When it's set to max, each signal is output serially. inbetween, the outputs are crossfaded. Another magical and mysterious control that affects the sound, and requires the ears using, to establish a sound that is pleasing.

Building Blocks

This thing is modular! Who would have thought it! Most of the elements of this reverb can be turned on or off, as mentioned earlier. It's so modular that it's possible to use this tool without touching any reverb. Here's a list of some of the building blocks that you can use. 36 damping, 30 EQ filter choices, 33 Attitude types, 4 Attitude routings, 4 Density modes, 12 Contour modes, 2 Modulation modes, 3 Modulation densities, 4 Dynamics modes, 4 Dynamics routings, 2 special spatial modes, and 4 delay feedback/Time modes.

Not only does this give you flexibility in how you want the plugin to affect your sound, you can also not use elements to save CPU - very useful given the typical amount of power a reverb plugin uses.

Here's a track I wrote, using several instances of the B2 for space, and for SFX. Lush!

Conclusion
In the bumpf for this plugin, there are several references to having plugins that become a part of the music-making process, as opposed to plugins that you use every now and again. After getting over the initial fairly overwhelming first impressions, this has become a core plugin for me, even after a short time of using it. As 2C makes reference to in the manual, of the need to use your ears, it's not hard to hear how good the B2 sounds. Its not just a killer reverb tool, it is also an excellent sound design tool, with a large complement of effects to add to the reverb unit. Compared to a convolution reverb, it's light on CPU, but without sacrificing much in the way of quality. Highly recommended, and worth it's asking price. 2C have also just released a 64-bit version on their site. Here you can hear a bunch of different artists using B2 in various ways on their material.

Price
$249

...Its not just a killer reverb tool, it is also an excellent sound design tool, with a large complement of effects to add to the reverb unit...

Product page

PROS

lush organic sound quality
Great multi-tasking plugin - dip-in reverb, but also serious sound design

LOVE IT OR HATE IT

If you're looking for a convolution preset with 3 different versions of the Taj Mahal impulse, then this perhaps isn't the one for you. If you're wanting to create your reverb effect from the ground up, and enjoy almost total control, look no further.

CONS

Got the potential and ability to be a CPU muncher if you're not careful!

ANDY DOLLERSON

Twisted Tools S-LAYER review

2013-03-11T11:26:00.000+01:00

Twisted Tools are a company that use the computing power of Native Instruments' brilliant Reaktor to their advantage, creating killer effects and instruments for use in electronic music and sound design.

S-LAYER is their latest creation: a sample layering sound creation tool for reaktor 5. You can layer up to 8 sounds on top of each other and then blend them in different ways to create new and interesting sounds for your sample collections. There are various sound design effects that are a part of S-layer to manipulate the sound as part of the process.

One down side is that you can't use the reaktor player - you have to have the full program. The flip side of that is that you have to have the full program, which for anyone vaguely interested in electronic music, is pretty much a must.

Blue lines

The interface of s-layer, as with all of twisted tools stuff, is clean and pretty. There's even a completely unnecessary but aesthetically gorgeous graphic of the sound waves of the separate samples playing over the top of the rest of the plugin.

Snapshots and scenes

S-LAYER comes prepackaged with a tasty set of 128 samples and 2500 preset (snapshot) combinations created by some of the masters in the current scene, including Richard Devine, Jedsound, Glitchmachines, and Antonio Blanca.

Each preset loads up 8 scenes, which are essentially 8 different sample layers within that preset, like a small sample set. Those samples are mapped to midi notes C3 to G3. Simple midi drum rack size.

The ubiquitous random button changes every element of your preset, giving you 8 new sample layers every time you press it. As you create your own presets and sample sounds, you can save them simply using the built in process in Reaktor.

You can easily load up your own samples, either one sound at a time, or replace the whole set at once, using Reaktor's sample sets.

Sound mangling

The parameters section contains 2 main sections that hold all the parameters (surprise) with which to choose and shape your samples. These parameters can either be controlled separately or jointly for each of the 8 layers.

The first window contains the essential elements. You choose which sample out of the loaded bank of 128 to use. You choose where you want to start the sample, the pitch, pan and volume of the sample. As a simple example, you could choose the start of one hit, the middle section of another, and the tail of a third. Pitch pan and change the volume, and you've created a completely fresh hit.

The next window along contains the various effects that can be applied to the samples. Grain, stretch, cutoff, resonance and filter mode. The third page is for envelopes. Attack, hold, decay, sustain and release.The final page is the external effects. These consist of inserts and sends to two built in effects - a delay and a reverb. Alternatively, you can route the sound to any of your 3rd party effects which essentially makes the routing possibilities of the plugin infinite. All of these effects and envelopes can be applied independently to each of the 8 samples.

MODULATE

The awesome power of modulation enables you to fluidly and constantly change all the effect parameters, with the potential that you never hear the same sound twice. There are two ways of modulating the effects in S-LAYER. The wrapper enables the assignment of various effect parameters to a single knob. For example you can group the start point of all 8 samples together, and enable a different sample start point for all of them by moving one knob. The next knob can control a cutoff filter for all 8 samples. And so on. There are also four step sequences that can be assigned to any of the parameters. They will trigger automatically with midi signal, and can be synced to host tempo.

Here's a remix I did for Nonclassical records, using S-layer for much of the percussion elements of the track.

If you're unsure where to begin, twisted tools provides some excellent video tutorials, on top of the manual, to give you a kickstart. You can see them here

Control heaven

Perhaps the best way to use this tool is with the free Lemur template that comes with it. Lemur is a modular control app for the iPad, and provides users with templates, and the ability to create and customize templates to control any software that responds to midi or osc. You might recognize it from the now discontinued JazzMutant lemur box. Well now it costs $50 instead of $2000, and is midi control heaven! The iPad app for s-layer, built by Antonio Blanca, enables you to create much more quickly - using fingers to change parameters instead of a mouse. For the latest release, there has also been a Maschine template created.

Conclusion
S-LAYER has been described as a 'happy accident generator', and I don't think it's far off with that description. The speed at which you can create whole new sample sets is inspiring. For the price, you're not going to find anything near as powerful and intuitive to design and create your own sounds. I would recommend this especially for those interested in sound design. You can really create some good sounding stuff very quickly here, and the routing options are almost limitless. There was one small issue that I tried to iron out, and couldn't seem to find solutions to. It seems that S-LAYER takes a little while to settle into a project. When first opened, CPU spikes all over the place. I traced it back to S-LAYER unquestionably, and it seemed there wasn't much I could do about it. However, it calmed down fairly quickly. I'm wondering if it is the Reaktor engine loading samples in the background.. S-LAYER's flexibility, intuitiveness, stability, and it's extras (iPad Lemur template, Maschine template, extra free sounds) make this software is an absolute steal. Even though it seems to be aimed more at beat and hit creation, you are really limited only by your imagination. Fantastic Reaktor ensemble that cements Twisted Tools as THE company to go to for reaktor ensembles.

Price
$69

...S-LAYER has been described as a 'happy accident generator', and I don't think it's far off with that description. The speed at which you can create whole new sample sets is inspiring...

Product page

PROS

Twisted tools are on top of their game, and are refining and updating their software regularly
Superb sounds provided to get you started - a really nice mix of crisp snares and booming kicks, out to the more surreal sound design type atmospheres.
There is a sound design pack provided that gives even more scope to S-layer straight out of the box.

LOVE IT OR HATE IT

If you enjoy creativity in making new sounds, this is a great instrument to use. If you're looking for a conventional sample player, this won't work well

CONS

For the price, none other than the very occasional (unintended) glitch

written by ANDY DOLLERSON

Cableguys Curve 2 review: a sound designer's dream synth

2013-01-29T10:53:00.002+01:00

From an audiolab in Berlin, Cableguys have been conjuring up creative and useful audio plugins for the last 6 years. Although a small company, the attention these guys have garnered has been impressive, with luminaries such as David Guetta promoting their work

They continue to add to their stable of instruments with the release of Curve 2, a subtractive synth.

The award winning synth has a great dark grey and orange design, and features 3 oscillators, 4 LFO's and 3 Envelopes. There are two lovely sounding filters, with variable pole and band pass settings, with simple cutoff and resonance. The oscillators can be tuned and panned, the envelopes are ADSR affairs, and the level and speed of the LFO's are tweak-able. So far so good.

Waveform editing is where the synth begins to stand out:

WAVEformage.

The top third of Curve's GUI is a window displaying a bank of 10 waveforms. This is the foundation for Curve's audio creation. for each sound you create, you have access to a bank of 10 waveforms, that you draw yourself. Drawing the waveforms is as simple as click and drag, single and double click to place up to 40 nodes that directly or indirectly influence the waveform.

These waveforms can be layered 2 per oscillator and blended. Behind the waveform is a simple bar graphic that displays the harmonic partials of the sound. It looks great, and is useful to visualize the effect the dragging and clicking is having.

I liked the different ways you could choose to influence the waveforms depending on how many times you click. One click, creates a node that just influences the waveform like aural gravity, causing the wave to curve around it. A double click causes the waveform to pass directly through the node created. The whole thing reminded me of a slightly more intuitive version of Native Instruments' Absynth envelope setup.

At the bottom of the waveform window are a selection of controls that enable a great deal of flexibility. There are several basic waveforms available at the click of a button. Using the tools provided also enables you to align to a grid, both with tempo and tuning, which presents the opportunity for creating rhythmic gated sounds, wobble effects, arpeggiated sequences, and so on.

If you're not sure how to get started, as I would say this is not really a beginner's synth, Cableguys walk you through the basics of creating a good preset on their site.

These waveforms that you create are also used for the 4 LFO's, selected from a drop down menu. Already the potential of using the created waveforms for both the oscillators and the LFO's is massive.

There are also slightly different waveform editors for the envelopes. As with the other waveforms, these have many potential nodes, which allows for very complex envelope forms. One envelope is for volume, the other two are modular - as with the LFO's you can assign them to different places. Each envelope has a loop function as well as regular attack decay and release.

MACRO fun

I really liked the immediacy of the macro section. You can quickly select up to 8 parameters per macro knob to affect. You just click and drag to the parameter you wish to use, select how much it will affect that parameter, and you're done. That is the simplest way I've seen Macro editing done. Very ergonomic! In fact, the midi control is as useful and intuitive; once you've sorted your macros out, a simple click of the midi button on the top right of the window, a selection of the macro, then twiddle a knob/fader on your controller. Done. Brilliant. This effective midi control applies to almost every parameter of the synth. True, since Ableton it is getting to be standard nowadays, but it is nice to see and use.

Modded up

The waveform editing presents many possibilities. The modulation matrix is where you can route your waveform creations of the LFOs and the envelopes to various locations on the synth. The matrix is simple. Source on the X grid, destination on the Y. Find the intersection you want to affect, and click and drag to increase or decrease the interaction. Needless to say, this expands the possibilities of the synth enormously.

Fresh Ideas

There were a couple of practical things that stood out about Curve 2, in the way that it is packaged, and portrayed.

- I liked the demo version - you can have one instance in full, but with no preset saving. This really gives you flexibility to try the product out, without the annoying white noise or clicks that other demos have.

- The community presets. This is a great idea involving the Curve2 community. If you create presets, you can upload them to the cablguys server, and other users can download them directly within the software as presets on their machine. And there are already A LOT of presets, from users and renowned sound designers alike. You can filter them by instrument type, and by rating. It's a great sign of a company that are really being creative in not only the architecture of soft synthesis, but in the connection of software to the wider community as well.

Here's a link to a video demonstrating waveform sequencing that can be done on the Curve. It's quite a good display of the sound quality of Curve2.

Conclusion
I really enjoyed the sounds of Curve 2. It seemed on first impression to be aimed at the dubstep market, with heavy use of wobble and other big bass sounds in the marketing videos, and many of the endorsements. But I feel that although that is a definite strength with the immense flexibility of the waveform editing, that is just a tiny corner of what this synth can do. Although I don't feel like this is a great synth for the true beginner, if you enjoy sound design at any level beyond that, this synth is a serious contender for creating sounds that run the gamut from blazing synths to complex evolving soundscapes. Just browsing the constantly growing selection of presets from the community is testament to that.

There are a couple of things that I would have liked in addition to the already great setup. I would have loved a couple of effects, purely for inspirations sake. Well placed effects can really supercharge inspiration, and really increase the scope of the sound world you're working with.

The lazy side of me would love a bank of preset waveforms perhaps a little more developed from the basic waves available in the toolbox. How cool would it be to have access to a community preset bank where you could upload an emulation of your minimoog sawtooth wave! Looking through the presets I found a couple that were like that. Maybe if it's just another filter in the community preset bank alongside the current selection highlighting the fact that it's just a basic waveform, not a synth preset per se.

Really well done Cableguys. This product really competes hard against the established sound design synths out there.

Price
$159

...if you enjoy sound design at any level... this synth is a serious contender for creating sounds that run the gamut from blazing synths to complex evolving soundscapes...

Product page

PROS

Intuitive and deep design process
2000 presets and growing daily

LOVE IT OR HATE IT

This is a sound designer's dream synth. If you're looking for a quick access go-to preset synth, I think others would do a better job. If you're really wanting to get deep into the sound, and create from the bottom up - there's not much out there any better!

CONS

Fairly steep learning curve. No pun intended.
No internal effects

Andy Dollerson

Sample Magic 34. Drum Hits. Reviewed

2013-01-23T12:27:00.000+01:00

This is the 34th and latest pack from one of the most solid EDM sample production companies out there. Since their establishment in 2006, they've cranked out brilliant release after brilliant release, and consequently grown a very loyal fan/user base.

Drum Hits; the 34th major release from Sample Magic does not disappoint. They've taken a slightly different direction with this one - it's a library of 1317 24 bit WAV drum hits and a selection of 28 drum kit presets.

Sample magic took over half a year to create this library. On the CD, or in the download, are 2 folders, one containing all the hits, the other containing the various preset kit folders.

The single hit folder contains 7 different percussive categories - claps, cymbals, hats, hit types, kicks, percussion and snares. Each of these categories are separated into subcategories. So for example, the Kicks category is separated into 'Layered, Live, Mid and Subby' elements, presenting an easy browse to the type of sound you're looking for.

Cruising through all the hits, they are immaculately recorded - nicely compressed, and clear but not harsh transients for immediate satisfaction in a mix. The sounds are fresh, and although more mainstream than leftfield in general direction, the huge selection, quality and variety of the sounds mean you're only really limited by your imagination. The sounds are a mix of synthetic and recorded, with some nice takes on classic 808 909 (Linndrum?) to recorded sounds ranging from clean crashes and rides, to vintage and grubby snares, or heavily EQ'ed and compressed layered kicks. There's more direct reference to genre in the second folder, but I think that whatever style you're in to at the moment, you'll be able to find sounds that fit your mix. I particularly liked the variety in the percussion folder - there were subsections of clicks and sticks, glitch, tribal, and shaker sounds amongst others. Lots of inspiration in amongst that lot, with sounds that would work on their own, or layered. I noticed that when I was putting these sounds into mixes, they sat nicely. You didn't have to tweak too much to get them in the right space.

The second folder is pre-set kits created for different genres. There are 28 kits covering all the major electronic bases at the moment, Mainroom, Indie dance, tech, dub step, minimal, chill wave, disco funk, and on. You name it, they've got at least 2 different full kits for that genre. In each kit folder, there are presets for Ableton drum racks, NI's Battery, EXS24, NN-XT, and KONG kits. This covers the major software drum samplers. It's a very useful folder for getting you going with your beatmaking if you haven't got time to spend drifting through thousands of sounds looking for the right one!

One excellent aspect of Sample Magic's online presence is the introduction of 'Click and Mix'. If you don't fancy the whole library, but find yourself coveting just the Kicks, or the preset kits, then you can download separate parts of the full release for a smaller price.

Conclusion
Sample Magic has been a go-to sample production company for anything EDM for many years now. They consistently create magnificent sample packs that cut the edge of whatever genre they turn their minds to. This release is a slight break from the norm with a focus on drum hits and kits, rather than loops. But once again, they've done an excellent job, and this will be a pack that creative producers will look to for inspiration for a long while yet.

Price
£34.90 full download

...the huge selection, quality and variety of the sounds mean you're only really limited by your imagination....

Product page

PROS

Sound quality excellent
Wide range of styles and genres
Click and Mix is extremely useful

LOVE IT OR HATE IT

If you're ever going to use drums in your electronic musical escapades, I would say this is an essential first stop for a wide base of drums and percussion. If you're looking for loops, or 'real' drums, take a look at the other releases in Sample Magic's library, or the myriad of drum libraries out there. BUT for sure they won't have cover art as good as Sample Magic.

CONS

Maybe a wider selection of kit formats (Maschine, geist, etc)

WavesFactory Trackspacer review

2012-12-29T12:29:00.000+01:00

WavesFactory hail from Mallorca, and have established a reputation for excellent Kontakt sample library instruments. Last month, they made their first foray into the plugin arena, with Trackspacer.

Trackspacer essentially creates frequency space in one instrument, to make way for the same frequency in another instrument. It's kind of like compression side chaining, but with EQ. Instead of squashing the overall level of a sound, a multi band EQ lessens the volume in certain frequencies. The plugin analyses the frequency content of the audio that it's working with, and applies a 32 band eq to remove frequencies that are in another track.

You need to know how to set up a side chain in the DAW that you're using. If you don't know already, there's a useful little help section in the manual, and it really is a useful thing to know how to do - it will really change the way your mixes sound, and help you get a fuller sound with much clarity. Here's a video and article on side-chaining for you.

Here's a video demonstration of Trackspacer in action:

The GUI is simple and effective. There's a window taking up a third of the GUI that displays the changes in audio that trackspacer makes, in wave form.

There are 4 controls:

Ratio - Similarly to compression, the more ratio is added, the more the EQ is applied to the sound.

Low pass/High pass frequency control-These set the frequency of the low and High pass filter, between which the signal is activated. So if you don't want anything to happen to the low or high end, you can move these up to affect only the midrange. By setting the passes at close frequencies, you essentially create a notch filter to apply the effect to.

Freeze-This freezes the algorithm, so the EQ isn't being automatically altered, but stops at the last position.

Conclusion

Waves Factory has done a great job with this plugin. With the amount of CPU around nowadays, this kind of processing is possible with not too big a dent in your power. I think it would be a great compliment to other dynamics plugins. Whereas with compression you squash the overall signal (unless you get into multi band, which is more complex) with this, you can select a frequency that gives you fairly clinical precision band choice to eliminate the signal at that frequency. If you're just wanting to affect a small part of a signal, this could be a very useful quick tool that saves a lot of time over multi band compression.

I really liked it as a voice-over tool. I found that ducking the background sound didn't affect the background noise as much as with simple compression. The voice stood out, but with a little tweaking, it was a lot harder to tell that the background had been affected at all.

The following is a demonstration of Trackspacer being used in that sense. Throughout this demo, there are different parameter positions, to different effect.

I found it most useful in very dense mixes, when trying to fit another instrument in. It seemed to my ears to clear space in a wall-of-sound type mix more clinically than straight compression.

I liked this plugin. For the cost, it's hard to fault. If it cost more, I would definitely start asking for more control, especially of the attack and release of the EQ ducking. The lack of control there was at times an issue, especially with comping bass to 'compress' from the kick. Sometimes artifacts appeared such as clicking which could easily be resolved with attack and release functionality. Also the rhythmic breathing/pumping used to great effect in a lot of dance music is impossible - as it will release at the set time.

Price
45Eur, on 25% Christmas special, currently

...It just seemed to my ears to clear space in a wall-of-sound type mix better than straight compression...

Product page

PROS

Extremely simple to set up and use
Great alternative to compression

LOVE IT OR HATE IT

For a healthy alternative to sidechain compression in a variety of mix situations, this is an excellent addition to your dynamics arsenal. It's not the master of mix dynamics control, (which it never claims) so you'll have to check other plugins out for that.

CONS

Not much extended control (no attack, release, etc)

By Andy Dollerson

Detunized: sampling the rare and unusual

2012-12-21T13:11:00.001+01:00

Detunized is the brainchild of Stephan Marche, Steffen Merche, and Steve Market, depending on which country you find him in. Stephan is from a sound-design background, and it's obvious that he has a great ear for sound. It seems from the stories I read, that 'One man's trash is another man's treasure' could be the motto from which Detunized has arisen. From smuggling Russian synths across the border, to recording a rotting piano just before the building it was in caught fire, there doesn't seem to be a potential sound source that isn't out of the intrepid Detunized founder's reach.

From this rich source of material, Detunized creates Ableton format live sample packs, set up as instrument racks, so each pack is playable straight out of the box. Just browsing through the audio demos on the website, I noticed that the quality was consistently excellent, and there was something catching my ear on every demo. The sound sources range from from unusual and rare synths both digital and analog, through to field recordings and baroque instruments. They are all 24 bit 44.1 standard Ableton live packs, and there are so many of them!

Each live pack is only 9 Euros, and they weigh in at between 250mbs to almost a gig. For what you pay, you get a lot of usable sound too. Excellent value!

I got the vox populi2 live pack - the latest live pack released by Detunized. It's a sampling of a Polivoks russian analog synth that Stephan bought from a garage sale in Russia, and brought it back home to get recording. And it sounds lovely. There are 46 Presets that come in varying categories (Pad, synth, lead, keys, drums, bass).

The presets are all laid out as macro racks, and each contain a variety of built-in ableton effects presets, all assigned and ready for instant tweaking. The huge advantage of this is that this saves yourself a lot of time setting up a macro and effects, and is ready for recording, tweaking and automating without really any effort.

The sounds are excellent, and have a really distinctive character. Having never used a Polivoks before, but seen youtubes of them, the typical character seems gritty, rough and beautifully analog. These characteristics are represented well in this pack, with all the sounds having a dirty edge to them.

The effects that are built-in to the macro really aid and emphasize the raw characteristics of the original material. There's overdrive and tremolo, compression, chorus delay and reverb. There's a filter with cutoff and resonance, attack release and AM filter depth. These effects are present on each of the 46 presets, so there's continuity across the set of sounds.

Here's a demo of the typical sounds in this pack:

I also checked out 'Phase facets', based on samples of two older synths- The Casio VZ10m and the German Hohner HS2/E. They both used a synthesis technique based on the Interactive Phase Distortion principle. There are 30 presets in this live pack, with layered velocities, and unusual sounding titles.

The sounds are very rich harmonically, and have sound characteristics fairly similar to FM synthesis. Bright, bell-like, string-like sounds feature, and again, the presets are racked up using ableton's excellent built-in effects, and they are changed slightly depending on the presets. Again, this provides instant playability and it is easy to create some really fresh sounding patches. Of course, you can always add your own effects to the rack, and alter, but it's a great place to start.

Here is some audio sampling of this live pack:

Conclusion
Detunized is a solid and very deep ableton live pack library. His sample packs are exclusive to Ableton, but I like that. I feel that committing to one DAW enables the sound creator to use more of the assets available within that DAW, and create more quickly, without having to make the sample packs available in every format. I was absolutely blown away by the value and quality of these packs. The sounds are far from standard fare - but they are without doubt extremely useable, and being set up in instrument racks with highly tweak able effects as standard, it's hard to find fault. If you're looking for that something else to add to your tracks I highly recommend this website as a place to browse for inspiration. Bravo Stephan/Steve/Stephano/Steffen etc!

Price
9 Eur a pack

...'One man's trash is another man's treasure' could be the motto from which Detunized has arisen...

Product page

PROS

Unbelievable value for money
Great sound quality
Quirky, fresh original sounds

LOVE IT OR HATE IT

Nothing to hate about this lot. If you're into music and sound, you need Ableton, and you need to fill it with livepacks from Detunized

CONS

At this cost? NONE

by Andy Dollerson

Alchemy 1.5 and SHLOMO Beatbox review

2012-11-18T10:36:00.000+01:00

Camel Audio's Alchemy synth is going from strength to strength. They've recently updated to version 1.5, that is a FREE update for current users, that beefs up the synth in different areas. I'll quickly run you through them;

There is a new preset browser

This is by far the biggest and best update to the Alchemy Synth. The original GUI has been left alone (If it ain't broke, etc..) but an additional window has been added that you can click to in a menu at the top of the window. It opens up a lovely browser that looks remarkably similar to another nameless synth manufacturer. It divides the presets of Alchemy into menus of descriptors - so if you want to find a slow attacking, warm, string drone for ambient electronica, created by a certain author, selecting those particular tags will give you the list of sounds that fit that description. Very useful for software synths that are typically bloated with presets (Alchemy has a potential 4000 presets available)

SPEED

Perhaps the best element of this update is the patch loading speed. This was a bugbear of mine on the previous iteration of Alchemy. The sounds were fantastic, but highly-strung composer here would have a minor meltdown waiting for the patch to appear. Of course, it only took 10 seconds, but that was 9.7 seconds too long. Now that has been fixed, and by the time I've reached out for my fifth cup of coffee, the sound is loaded and waiting for me. Fantastic!

Dedicated iOS remote

The iOS remote has been updated and now provides even more expression control for your Alchemy synth, providing you fork out a little for the PRO version at $14.99. It even includes Polyphonic pitch bend y'all!

Bigger and better bundles

You get 1000 presets, or about 5GB of sound for free with Alchemy now, which is essentially a selection from all of their current libraries. But if that's not enough, you can now purchase the full quota of 24 sample library bundles. Everything that Camel Audio has cranked out, in one big download. More than 4000 presets, knocking your harddrive back 14GB, at a 50% price reduction on buying all the libraries separately. Good deal, as the libraries are all quality.

FREEE!

Best of all, the update is totally and completely FREE to current owners, which is Ace! Props to Camel Audio for not charging for this update, which is fairly significant, but will definitely warm customers to them, and encourage loyalty to the cause! Well done Camel Audio.

Here's the video on Alchemy's website that lays out all the new stuff that comes with 1.5:

Quick Review of the latest: Shlomo beatbox

Since winning the world beatbox championships a few years back, and currently on top of the world in the loopstation championships, Simon Shlomo Kahn has collaborated with world class artists such as Jarvis cocker, DJ Yoda, and Bjork. He has combined with engineers at Camel Audio to create a sample library based on his considerable vocal talents.

The recently released Shlomo Beatbox Sample library consists of 150 presets, weighing in at just under 700mb. Having encountered beatboxing samplepacks before, I approached this one a little warily, and was extremely and pleasantly surprised. With the amazing sound designers at Camel, they've turned what could have been a bit of a creative dead end into a really pleasing blend of patches that run the gamut from straight up beatboxing loops to massive kicks, snares, synths and basses, SFX, Pads, leads, and even one Organ and woodwind patch! Of course the engineers were helped by Shlomo's unbelievably flexible voice box: the tone and timbre of his sounds really is unparalleled. All of the sounds come with the 8 variations that you can Morph between using the control XY section of the Alchemy synth, player and iOS remote. I really liked that many of the sounds have a hint of the vocal, but stand as awesome instrumental sounds, and are not relegated to the kitsch bin. Excellent stuff. The loops are weighty, as are the bass sounds, and the pads and synths are really engineered nicely, with large frequency ranges and full and subtle use of the built in effects in alchemy.

Here's a vid showcasing some of the sounds.

This is definitely a look in for electronica fans - some really lovely organic sounding electro stuff in there. $59 download from the Camel Audio site.

By Andy Dollerson

Let this Permut8 your beats: Soniccharge did it again

2012-10-30T12:46:00.003+01:00

Sonic charge has been around since 2003 making slightly unusual plugins that are excellent-sounding, and really push the boundaries of manipulating sound.The latest offering - Permut8, is billed as an ' effect plug-in that embraces the sounds of primitive digital signal processing hardware.' A big effort has been made to create a product that looks (cue tasty orange and black GUI), behaves and sounds like an old digital multi-fx hardware unit. Delays, beat repeats, bit-crushing and further sonic madness can all be squeezed out of this box.

Essentially the plugin is based on an old 12-bit digital delay with a variable sample rate. This is represented at the bottom of the plugin by two LED light graphics sweeping back and forth as they display the read and write positions of the delay's memory. Hello KITT2000.

In between the computer's read position, and the point at which it writes the output, you the user insert two 'INSTRUCTIONS' that will modulate the read position, thus affecting the output, and the sound.

Each of these Instruction windows is a box with four different parameters, and 8 switches that sort of represent the 'bits' of the instruction. Sort of like sub-commands for the overall command. A little bit confusing, but I think that's definitely part of the beauty of this machine. The manual delves more deeply into the properties of each of the operators and bit switches, and can at times feel like reading a programming manual for creating a game on the Amstrad 1628, back in the day, with instructions on how to use operator titles such as AND, OR, XOR and MUL to control the read position of the memory. Brillliant. Makes about as much sense to me now as it did then. The parameter selection contains word titles that wouldn't look out of place in the Tron script - but twisting the Instruction 2 knob from XOR to MSK, can engender some absolutely delightful sound.

Operators

AND - creates skips in the read position MUL changes the rate of the read position - so every time a point is read, you can speed the write position up from double time back down to reverse. OSC - takes the read position as if it's been affected by an LFO, so it smoothly reads forwards then backwards. (Good morning, Michael) RND - adds random motion to the read position. OR - Pushes the read position infront of the write position - great for beat repeat XOR - sort of like AND and OR - it inverts the read position to different kinds of reverse. This one is the one for Aliasing your sound to destruction MSK - effectively turns the eight bits into a sequencer, and you can turn on or off each of the bits in a sequence. SUB - like mask - the read position is taken away at fixed repeating points. Can create delay type sounds, and if you crank up the speed, comb filter.

Within these 8 operators are the 8-bit switches that affect the sound differently in the up or down position, and depending upon the operator. For some, they act as as sort of sequencer, providing on/off for different sections of the memory, for others they can affect the stereo image, play order, or speed of instruction

These are very very rough descriptions of each of the operators, and as I mentioned, the manual goes into much more detail about how they affect the sound. But I found myself not really wanting to read the manual, but just crank sound through the effect, and press buttons. This is one of those rare plugins where you find yourself 'oohing' and 'aahing' almost every time you tweak something.

You can change the speed at which the 'instructions' are given, using the clock frequency knob in the memory window. You can sync the speed to host tempo, or run frequencies from a full stop to 300 odd hz. There's also a reverse button that enables the memory read and write to go in the opposite direction. Interestingly, once the full memory has cycled, the reverse signal begins to be read, creating wildly different sonic results than the original forward motion.

On the left hand side of the window is an analog section. Here you can change the input and output level, limit the outgoing sound, add a filter, feed the output back into the input, invert the signal, and mix the output with the original source signal. With this window, it seems to me that sonic charge have taken great care to ensure that the sounds that come out of this box are usable. You can control the amount of dirtying and grungeifying you would like to undertake, and the analog section ensures that what you want to come out clean and warm will do that.

The one gripe I had with the plugin was the Write protect button. I didn't realise straight away that the original patch is not kept in memory - unless you write protect it. So if you tweak a preset at all (Of which there are 320) it remains permanently changed even if you go away to another patch and return. Except for keeping in line with the nostalgic vibe of the plugin, I'm not sure what the point of this is.

There is also a midi control section that enables you to automate most of the parameters in the plugin. Very useful for live tweaking and evolving the sound that the plugin creates very easily.

Here's a video from Sonic charge's website showcasing some of the sounds:

Conclusion
Once again, Soniccharge have delivered another highly unique and very fun plugin. As I've already mentioned, it's one of those plugins that really inspires creativity. For me, not being a very technically minded musician, it was quite refreshing not to really understand exactly what was occuring as I pressed various buttons, but just to follow my ears, and experiment, and be very consistently and happily surprised at the consequences of my actions. It felt like I was messing with a crappy old digital delay unit with the back open, and was crossing the wires over as I played. Awesome! On the product webpage there's a little audio demo box that takes you through various different effects on a single drum loop. It's really impressive to listen to.
Sonic charge have said they want to give an impression of a piece of digital hardware, and I think they've really come up trumps here. The overall sound quality is very distinctive - a gritty, dirty digital crush that permeates the sound. It really sounds awesome, and adds a LOT of character and life to loops, beats, and other tracks. Within that though, there is much subtlety - glitchy effects, delays, resonance, overdrive, distortion etc. I really enjoyed Permut8. Winner.

Price
$66 plus applicable taxes

...This is one of those rare plugins where you find yourself 'oohing' and 'aahing' almost every time you tweak something...

Product page

PROS

In terms of sound, it fits a niche that not much else out there can.
Digital crunch, phase, aliase, grunge, dirt, delay, you name it, you can probably make a messy version with this.

LOVE IT OR HATE IT

Don't like dirtying up your sound, avoid like plague. Love a bit of grit, old school aliasing and circuit bent weirdness, then this one's essential

CONS

Not 64 bit yet - but coming soon
Write protect was a little annoying

written by Andy Dollerson

Soundiron Rust3 review: The Sound of Rust

2012-10-10T14:09:00.002+02:00

Soundiron have just released a new tuned/untuned percussion library for Native instruments' Kontakt sampler software. Rust 3 is roughly 4GB of various metal 'found sound' all with metallic percussive or sustained overtones.

The Sound of Rust

There are roughly 50 instruments in this library, split into 4 categories, of Effects, Ensemble, Master and Sustain. The categories are fairly self-explanatory. Effects are a wide variety of mainly inharmonic and sustained sounds - a bunch of squeals, drones, scrapes, squeaks. All excellently recorded, some totally clean, some (Corral gate) with sonic hints of the context they were recorded in, to give a more natural sound to the patches.

Speaking of the Corral gate, that was the standout sound to me in this selection. A gate somewhere out in the boonies recorded opening, closing, being tapped, scraped, hit, strummed? Really lovely sounds that could be used in a myriad of ways in music or sound design. Another standout inclusion was the 'Ernsuzk' instrument, which I guess has been created for this project by Mike and his crew. Made of a variety of random metallic sheets, glass, drums, other cobbled together odds and ends, this machine creates a raucous cacophany of screeches and shrieks as it is subjected to all sorts of bowing, dragging and general abuse by the recordists. There are several patches allocated to the brilliant sounds this thing made. Some of these effects patches have Kontakt 5 versions, which enlist the use of the excellent time shift function in the new Kontakt machine. You have to have the full version of K5 to use these.

The ensemble patches contain the main recorded instruments. These instruments include Barrel Drums, Garbage can lids as trashy cymbal sounds (pun totally intended) A ranch gate, someone digging and raking earth, pipes, rods, metal wires being hit and bowed, and the now infamous Ernduzk being subjected to all manner of things. A fantastic selection of plucks, scrapes, pings, thumps, creaks and crunches emanate from monitors as notes are played. Each patch is both tuned and untuned, and there are a wide variety of controls within each patch to further shape the sound. It's hard to select standout sounds from amongst these, as they really are all so good! I liked the Cymbalid patch (garbage lids) as they referred sonically to cymbal smashes, but provide so much more harmonically, and frequency-wise. Some of the smashes have been recorded keeping the subsonic frequencies in, giving a massive wallop.

The master presets are clever scripting that allow you access to all these ensemble instruments in one big preset, by mapping each instrumet over one key. It's an ingenious use of space by packing it all into one patch. Be careful that you have powerful computing available when using the master preset, as it can chew into your RAM pretty quickly, even the Lite patch. There's also the Megamixer that has been used in a few Soundiron libraries before, and offers you more control over what instruments you use. There are also 4 tuned layer builder patches, which each offer 12 pre-determined patches from the tuned library, that you can layer and affect separately, for quick access to some melodic sounds.

The sustains sort of sit between the tuned ensemble and effect brackets, providing a mixture of harmonic and inharmonic drones, ambiences and atmospheres that would sit nicely in any sound-designer or composers dramatic atmospheres folder. A nice touch on the sustains is the ability to load 2 sustains at once, and blend between them.

Control

There are a few parameters within the metallic grille GUI of Rust 3 that are in place for all the patches. Alongside the Attack, EQ and Release controls are Swell, Stepping and Offset knobs. These are useful as they allow the control of the start point, pitch and volume swell of the sample, enabling the potential creation of pad-like softer sounds from samples that were originally percussive. There's a Lowpass filter with LFO (with several waveshapes) assigned to the cutoff, and a nice little tremolo, both of which are syncable with the host tempo, or run to Hz frequencies. The reverb unit contains Soundiron's excellent convolution impulses that enable you to place the sound in real world locations, or more experimental places.. There's a custom arpeggiator system that has been refined since its implementation in earlier Soundiron instruments. The Uberpeggiator has some really nice touches that you might not find usually, such as a scale selector, which basically binds the notes of the arpeggio to a specific scale, or mode. Very cool. The arpeggiator is used in the tuned percussion patches.

Here's a track I wrote using only RUST3 sounds, and a bit of limiting on top.

And here are some more demos from the SoundIron product page:

Conclusion

Yet again, Soundiron delivers, with an excellently recorded library of sounds that deliver left-field metallic samples that will add an immediate level of interest to music or sound design. The scripting on the patches allows the user to either quickly access usable sounds, or spend some time with the built-in effects to warp the sounds further, if that's even necessary. Poor Ernduzk. Highly recommended!

Price
$89

...A fantastic selection of plucks, scrapes, pings, thumps, creaks and crunches emanate from monitors as notes are played...

Product page

PROS

The usual excellent sound quality
Great scripting for added FX within the patches
Lovely unusual metallic sound quality

LOVE IT OR HATE IT

If you're looking for some excellent sounding but more left-field percussive tuned and non-tuned sounds , this deserves a serious look-in. If you're looking for Drum kits, or full Percussion libraries, you should look elsewhere. Soundiron do have other excellent options for percussion

CONS

Minor gripe - I totally understand why Soundiron don't create fixed libraries in Kontakt, but it is just so much more convenient to have it right there at your fingertips

Written by Andy Dollerson

TAL-U-NO-LX: Juno 60 emulation review

2012-09-12T08:25:00.003+02:00

Patrick Kunz, creating fantastic free software under the title Togu Audio Line for the last few years, has just released a new version of his previously free Software emulation of the Roland Juno 60. The Juno 6 is a classic in the synth world - one of the first to introduce polyphonic audio to the consumer market. The sounds of the Juno 60 have been heard in countless musical creations ever since its introduction in 1982. The concept of the software is simple - emulate as closely as possible the look and sound of the original synth, and with the TAL-U-No-LX, Kunz has followed through, creating a machine that will fool all but the most nerdy of Roland synth-heads with its authentic sound.

I particularly liked the layout of the plugin - as with the original synth, all the controls are there as sliders and switches, and it's very easy to spend a lot of time tweaking your sonic creations, and saving them for later abuse. The setup is a simple affair - A DCO (digitally controlled osc) with the options of Pulse, saw and rectangle waves. These are modulated by either LFO, Envelope or manual slider. There's also a sub osc with noise, High and Low pass filter, Chorus, a sync-able arpeggiator, and various midi control parameters.

The chorus effect really sounds excellent, and adds some lovely flavor to the sounds. In fact, it's hard to come up with really nasty sounding patches, and the combination of great sound and simple structure is just fantastic for someone learning their way around the art of synthesis. Here's a little sound cloud comparison of the patches on the TAL U-No-LX, as provided by its creator.

Conclusion

The TAL U-No-LX contains the entire factory patch collection of the original synth, as well as 3 other banks of presets. The sounds that come out of this little plugin are pure 80's plastic awesomeness. Lush 80's pads, Big fat bass, Warm filtered brass, Big arpeggiated chorus synth. I highly recommend getting this one if you're wanting that sound. For a mere splash of dollars (50% off at until 9th sept) you get a very useful and excellent sounding soft synth!

Price
$70

...The sounds that come out of this little plugin are pure 80's plastic awesomeness...

Product page

PROS

Great emulation of the 80's Roland Juno 60 synth
Very easy to find your way around the structure of the synth
Loads of great presets

LOVE IT OR HATE IT

Great little synth plugin for a specific sound. Not a create-everything workhorse, but more boutique.

CONS

Slight error in the authentication of the Plugin in Live ( Mentioned and worked around in the manual)

By Andy Dollerson

Saturn: distortion plugin from Fabfilter

2012-08-31T08:07:00.003+02:00

Dutch company Fabfilter have released a brand new distortion plugin in their 11th year of operations. Of course, being a fabfilter product, it's never going to be 'just' a distortion plugin. 'Saturn' contains 16 different distortion types, from subtle tape warmth to extreme overdriven tube amp, with 3 more unusual distortion types as a cherry on top. More on them later. Although initially presented as a single-band plugin, there are actually up to 6 multiple bands that can be treated separately, and offer flexible modulation options per band.

Concepts

Using the concise title 'What-you-use-is-what-you-see'; Fabfilter continue the tradition of only having elements of the GUI present that you actually use. It's kind of like a modular effects unit, where you add or take away the visual elements of the processing as they are required. This de-clutters the plugin massively. It takes a little getting used to, but is extremely pleasing once you know where everything is. I love this system Fabfilter have employed for most of their more complex plugins so that you only see what you use. It's very intuitive and is actually a lot cleaner than a lot of plugins out there. This, combined with the use of bold, warm colors in the GUI make for a fantastic-looking set of plugins. The GUI begins as one window - a single band distortion unit, with all the basic controls at the bottom, and a warm red backdrop to a frequency analysis graphic, that displays the rough EQ shape of the sound you're processing. So if all you're wanting to do is add a little overdrive to a sound, it's instantly set up for just that; the choice of the drive type coming from a drop down menu at the bottom of the screen.

Overdriven

There are essentially 4 main types of distortion that vary in tone - tube, tape, saturation and amp. For each of them, there are variations in intensity: clean, medium and warm. Then there are three extra effects that are more bit crushing and granular smearing than overdriven distortion, entitled Smudge, Rectify and Destroy. The initial 'sounds' created by the distortions are very pleasing to the ear - for a quick warm boost to any sound, the saturation adds nice body to the sound, providing a nice analog emulation. The tape emulation is very nice - adding subtle harmonics and knocking a little off the top end really adds that nice vintage thickness to the sound. Each distortion type can be further tweaked. There is a main 'drive' knob, for increasing or lessening the overdriven-ness of the sound. Then there are knobs for feedback, feedback frequency, dry/wet mix, a 4 band tone mixer, and a dynamics parameter. Increasing the feedback and freq knobs quickly get the effect into screaming territory, and subtlety quickly disappears. The 4 tone mixer is great for boosting the harmonics in general frequency areas, enabling you to really design the distortion. My favorite knob of this selection though was the dynamics knob. Very simple - anti-clockwise gives you expansion, clockwise gives you compression. No other parameters, but the knob gives very useful and musical-sounding results. I enjoyed being able to keep the general settings whilst flicking between different types of distortion to compare tonal and timbal qualities. I also liked the 3 extra distortions - smudge, rectify and destroy. Smudge was more of a granular smearing - stretching the sounds out. Rectify was a downsampling bit crushing type distortion. These types really widen the sonic scope of the plugin, enabling the creation of sounds you wouldn't normally expect to be able to create from a distortion plug.

Multiband

The 6 band processing is where the plugin really starts to take off. The GUI begins with just one frequency band. By clicking the little plus-sign box in the top right corner, a new band opens up, and the frequency range is set by clicking and dragging the borders. Each band can have it's own distortion style selection ( from the drop down menu), and it's own mix, feedback, frequency and compression (dynamics), Drive and tone. There's a small 4 band EQ for each frequency band, offering even more control over the frequencies to be processed, enabling you to be more selective with the harmonics that are overdriven in each band. It's also possible to mute and solo each band, so you can hear more clearly what's going on. Removing a band is as simple as clicking the X button.

Modulation

If you know Fabfilter's products at all, then you'll recognize the modulation system that they employ here. It's very similar to the Volcano filter, and the Timeless delay plugin. The modulations are almost endless. Almost any parameter can be modulated by all the different modulation sources available. Again, the WYSIWYU system applies - there are no modulation sources available until you click in the window at the bottom of the GUI. From there you can pick from LFO's, XLFO's (Sort of step sequencers), XY controllers, envelope generators, envelope followers and MIDI sources. It's an easy drag and drop system. You select the source modulation, and drag the target button over the parameter you wish to modulate. a cable extends out, and Boom. Job done. Very intuitive, and you're quickly rustling up some complicated signal paths to mangle your sound! Of course, all the modulation options are host tempo synched or free, depending on how rhythmically tight you want the effect to be. You can send the signal from one modulation source to as many targets as you want, and you can also assign multiple sources to a single target. From reading the bumpf and playing with the plugin, I could find no discernible limit to the amount of modulation options available per plugin. That can lead to the creation of some very complex sound manipulation indeed! All these modulation options move the plugin far from the simple overdrive unit into a really moldable sound design plug that is really limited only by your imagination. Extras There are too many other useful features to list them all, but here are a few more that really aid and enable creativity. There are 150 presets that are designed for very different uses - from subtle warming saturation presets for vocals and instruments, to crazy glitchy burbly tempo synched loop mangling. If you can't get inspired to create from these presets, then music might not be the right thing for you! I didn't try the plugin live, but it's set up for interactive midi learn, a couple clicks and its responding to whatever controller you want. I never had any issues with the plugin stability, so I'm assuming it would be rock solid to use. Mid/side - there is a channel mode that switches between right/left and mid/side. M/S processing is rapidly gaining ground as a standard option within plugin manufacturers. It can be a very useful technique for mixing and mastering. Basically, if you're wanting to add the effect to the sides of the stereo mix, but leave the mono signal untouched, (or vice versa), then switching from L/R to M/S is the way forward. To know more about the basics of M/S processing I suggest looking here.

Here's the tutorial video from Fabfilter's site:

And a crappy video I took of me messing around with four Saturns on four separate channels, hopefully showing a little more of what the plugin can do:

Conclusion

Saturn (I'd love to know why it's named that) has proven to be a very versatile and great-sounding distortion plugin. The sonic range extends from subtly warming audio, to outrageous rhythmic destruction of the source to unrecognizable ends. I love the way Fabfilter's concept of What-you-see-is-what-you-use, has set the plugin up to visually be as simple or as complex as you want it. If you're not using much elements of the plugin, not much shows up on the screen. Simple as that. Excellent. I really liked being able to throw totally different distortion elements onto different frequencies of the sound. I can't think of another plugin that offers 6 bands of separate distortion, and on top of that provides enough modulation power to affect every parameter of every band! Blimey.

Price
$174

...I can't think of another plugin that offers 6 bands of separate distortion, and on top of that provides enough modulation power to affect every parameter of every band! Blimey. ...

Product page

PROS

Great sounds - from subtle warmth to blitzed destruction
great GUI - you only see what you use. Very flexible.
Modulation options are absolutely fabulous (no pun intended).

LOVE IT OR HATE IT

If you're looking for more specific types of distortion (i'm thinking guitar amp simulations here) then this is not the plugin. But for a distortion plugin that is sound-design focussed, there's not much else out there with this much versatility

CONS

It won't wash your laundry

by Andy Dollerson

SoundIron Apocalyptic Percussion Ensemble review

2012-04-29T12:52:00.000+02:00

Soundiron have recently released a large percussion library for Native instruments' Kontakt 4 (5 supported). Featuring large percussion, the Apocalyse Percussion Ensemble seems to be intended mainly for cinematic film and trailer scoring, but could easily be used in many other situations. APE is a 14GB bundle of solo and ensemble drums, ethnic percussion and cymbals set out in over 200 library presets. For each category, there is a solo and ensemble version. So for example, there is a snare ensemble patch, and also 6 solo patches of different snares, each giving a unique tone and timbre. As with many Kontakt sample libraries these days, there are several memory-size versions of the patches to account for computers with varying capabilities, and for the largest patches you'll need to be running a 64bit setup with at least 8gbs of ram.

A run through the sounds:

All the presets come in 3 memory sizes - Hi memory, DFD, and lite. DFD is the recommended, as it uses Kontakts streaming engine to load the first little bit of the sample into ram, then it streams the rest from disc. This is usually the setting that I'd use. If I could afford the power, I would prefer the Hi-Memory versions, as they load entirely into ram, and you don't get the occasional slow down or disappearance of samples when the disk you're streaming from has gone to sleep.

The instruments sampled are:

Bass drums
Cymbals
Dhol
Doumbek
Drumsticks
Frame drums
Riq drums
Snare ensembles
Toms
Bongos
Roto toms
cajon solo

Most of these ensembles and solo instruments are recorded in three mic positions - close, mid/wide and far. More on that later. The sampled instruments are sorted into three folders:

Master presets

As the name suggests, these are the primary patches for this library.

The Apocalypse Ensemble is essentially everything loaded into one patch. There are two versions - close and far mic'ed. If you're feeling brave, you can load both patches for additional power and soundstage placement. But you may need a separate computer running your samples for the appropriate power.

Straight away, the sound quality of these drums impress. They are warm, full recordings - the close mic'ed position especially. To me, it seemed that they got the balance of reverb just right on the close mics - just enough to sound natural, but not enough to get in the way, or sound too much if they were exposed in the mix. They are also deeply layered samples, so you feel like you're really playing an instrument, with all the dynamic nuances you'd like to hear from these kind of libraries.

I really liked the fact that despite the title, the size of the sound wasn't too over the top - it was possible to have big fat slamming Toms and Bass drums, but they weren't the washed out ' huge thunder' kind of sounds that are popular in cinematic scoring at the moment. There was largeness, but also a lot of definition that cut through on a mix.

There really aren't any clangers in the selection of sounds. Great sounding percussion with lovely transients, and thick body. I really liked the unique take on some of the patches. 'Drumstick patches', multiple layered samples of drumsticks hitting each other is a lovely sound. Also, the cymbal library was excellent. Not your usual orchestral sounding smooth crashes and rolls - but a bit more clashy and clangy.

The megamixer matrix patch is an excellent idea for the master presets. It's essentially a bank of 12 empty modules that you can fill with the exact sounds you want into that preset. You can choose from any soundbank in APE, and each module has it's own volume and edit functions to balance the sounds. The edit function allows adjustment of tone, root note and layer range, to position the sounds where you want them on the midi keyboard. Of course you can do this all in Kontakt, but it's nice to be able to set it up so quickly with a couple clicks of the mouse. In fact it was so useful that I was wishing for the ability to save the preset I'd created within the patch. It would be fantastic to create a bunch of presets that I'd use often, and have them within one-click reach of a drop down menu. Again, you can save the presets within Kontakt, so you can create your own custom library that way. But If you have a particular set of drums that you're always preferring to use in your set up, the megamatrix patch is essential.

Continuing the matrix idea, Soundiron have included some 'sub group' matrix presets in this folder, each containing 4 pre-selected drum modules that complement each other. It's the same idea as the mega mixer, except that Soundiron have chosen the particular sounds for you, and you can't change them. There's also less control over editing options here than in the Megamixer, but there are some useful smaller drum groups that you might refer to if you're in a hurry.

Mics Mixed & Mics free

These patches are my favorites. For most of the different percussion instruments recorded, all 3 mic positions are available, showing slightly different timbres of the hall it was recorded in. Some of the far mic recordings contain various room noise, which according to Soundiron were deliberately left in to add character without taking away from the integrity of the recordings. With the 'Mics Mixed' patches, all the mic positions are loaded, and you can blend between them with volume faders. The 'Mics Free' is interesting - instead of using volume faders, all the mic positions are laid out next to each other on the midi keyboard, so you can directly play whichever position note by note, either separately, or together. Useful if you want a particular mic position for just a couple of moments.

Both of these patches are available solo and ensemble for pretty much every instrument, and I would say that these presets are the ones to use if you're wanting to focus in on one particular drum sound. I kept coming back to these patches. The mic placement element enables you to quickly place an ensemble tom patch further back in the soundstage, and have a solo snare drum right up at the front of the stage. It creates a really deep stereo image. Lovely for quick positioning of instruments in the sound stage.

Bonus ambiences

There are also ambiences - another standard from Soundiron that really is an excellent addition to their library. They are a mix of pads, textures and soundscapes. There's a cross blended layer option, so you can play two textures and blend between them. Really very useful when you're needing instant ambient atmosphere for score tracks.

Here's a video of Mike Peaslee, the owner of Soundiron, running through some of the sounds in APE:

Common GUI parameters:

On the bottom of each patch GUI are these elements:

Performance

This window is tailored slightly depending on what patch is loaded, but usually contains parameters such as Attack, Release, Offset (interesting way of starting further into the sample to change the timbre of the sound) Stepping (globally change the pitch of the sounds), Keyswitch toggle, and Shuffle/Round Robin cycling. I liked Shuffle mode. It's the default selection of the two, and instead of Round Robin, where the samples are just cycled through in order, the samples order is randomized, thus removing the rhythmic patterns you get from cycling through the same 12 samples over and over, especially at higher tempos. It definitely adds more realism to the sounds.

Custom Convolution - as with many of the Soundiron products available now, there's a convolution reverb included, with a mix of reverb FX, and some really lovely impulse responses to add some character and depth to the percussion. I'm not really sure why there is also an option for a simpler algorithmic reverb there, as the convolution is just so good, it makes the other fairly unnecessary. I guess it uses less CPU. Again there are special FX reverbs handy, to turn the percussion ensemble into a more of a throbbing sci-fi beast than a drum ensemble. Very cool sounds - I particularly liked the Pipe reverb, and the Iron door reverb. The iron door was like a bizarre plate reverb with inharmonic overtones that really scifi'd up the sound of the drums. The pipe narrowed the frequency bandwidth and had a low throbbing echo that added drama to the sound.

Tone/FX

Scripted in to the GUI are great use of Kontakts built-in effects. There's a 3 band EQ with gain, bandwidth and frequency position for each band. And there's a Lowpass and Vowel filter, each with cutoff and resonance. Simple, but useful. Would have been nice to have maybe a couple of different options for the filters there - like a band and high pass.

The Uberpeggiator

Another thoughtful addition to the library is the uberpeggiator. Turn it on, and your percussive notes are played in patterns. There's a fair amount of control that you would find in any arpeggiator - on/off, subdivision choice, note order, swing. There are a limited number of arpeggiation patterns. however, the 'as played' means that you can essentially create any pattern you want with midi information. There's a duration setting, enabling you to shorten the length of the notes played, which is useful for fast tempo pieces where you want to keep the transients clear and separate.
The most useful section of the arpeggiator was the Velocity Graph (the bars on the right of the pic), which enables you to quickly set the velocity of each note played. If you have it turned off, it plays the velocity you played the midi note at. I really liked this feature - it was inspiring when creating rhythmic accents that typically drive percussive patterns. As with the megamixer, I think it would be nice to be able to store the velocity patterns you create.

Conclusion

If you're familiar with EastWest's Stormdrum, or Project SAM's true strike, then the sort of sounds that APE makes will be familiar to you. Excellence of sound quality is a requirement nowadays, and SoundIron excels, with clean, clear samples of all the instruments across the board.

However, I feel that APE differs from the aforementioned libraries, in that I found the sounds of this library to be more focused - there are less percussion instruments than some of the libraries, but by narrowing the instrument options (while still covering the bases) it's enabled them to go deeper into the layering, tonality, and flexibility of the select instruments. Take the snares for example: There are 6 different kinds of snare, all with different timbres, and loads of different kinds of hits, from rim shots, flams, to accents, and snare-off hits. The sample layering is deep, and combined with the mic positions, makes them a real joy to play. I found a lot of the instruments easier to place in the mix, with the different mic positions available.

To me, Soundiron Apocalyptic Percussion Ensemble is a fresh take on the massive percussion instrument. Overall it is extremely flexible and useful for mixing easily into the soundstage. The recorded sound is pristine, and there are many thoughtful additions such as arpeggiation, different kinds of mic mixing, solo and ensemble versions, and the 'megamix matrix', that really make this library a useful addition and perhaps contender for Big Dog of the Big Drum libraries out there! Highly recommended. It seems Mr Peaslee and his crew have put a lot of thought into this setup, to make it extremely useful, intuitive and accessible to composers wanting to use the large percussion sound in their music.

Here's a quick track that uses some of the ambience, bigger drums, and a solo snare drum towards the end:

Price
$199

...I found the sounds of this library to be more focused…. by narrowing the instrument options (while still covering the bases) it's enabled them to go deeper into the layering, tonality, and flexibility of the instrument
...

Product page

PROS

Fantastic responsive sounds with deep layering
Custom patch building tools, and an arpeggiator!
Great mic mixing positions.

LOVE IT OR HATE IT

If you're looking for a huge percussion section for those action sequences, this guy will take some beating for the money. If you haven't got at least a fairly powerful machine, you might not be able to get the most out of it

CONS

A lot of the bigger patches are huge memory hogs. 64bit is a must.
Unable to save the megamixer presets and arpeggiator velocity presets
Some included midi performances would be nice?

Sonic Charge Bitspeek review: Speak and Spell!

2012-04-19T22:59:00.005+02:00

Sonic Charge, creators of the inventive synth Synplant, have updated a real-time pitch-excited linear prediction codec effect plugin, apparently based on the same technology that's used in cell phones to make 1's and 0's sound like your voice at the other end. For people like me, who have no idea what any of that meant - they've made this cool vocoder thingy that makes vocal audio sound robotic-like.

And boy is it fun! There are several little parameters that can really mess with your voice and create some slightly robotizing effects to the audio signal, to vocoder-type sounds, and other cool effects. If you're looking for a similar sound to the processed vocal of Thom Yorke on their track Kid A - this is a great plugin to start with.

The GUI is reminiscent of the Speak and spell toy, in a very kitsch horrible beige color accented with red. Four switches, four knobs and and oscillator view give you all the information you need:

Pitch, Tracking, Detune, Noise knobs
Rate, frame rate, Sync and Midi on/off buttons

The rate and frame rate are buttons to change the way Bitspeek receives and transforms the audio information. There are four different processing rates, that change the sound from smooth to more 8-bit distorted sound. If you pull the frame rate down to zero - it basically makes the rate of change zero - essentially freezing the sound at that point.

Tracking - determines how much the pitch of the incoming audio affects the outgoing signal. The pitch moves around a lot more when the tracking percentage is higher.

The sync enables you to change the frame rate in time with the tempo of your music. When you turn it on, the frame rate changes from hertz to 1/8, 1/16 etc, syncing with the host tempo.

You can use midi to control the pitch and envelope of Bitspeek. There are some extra interesting elements here - for example you can use the midi pedal to immediately freeze the audio (take frame rate to 0). Very cool, especially if you were using it live.

Detune - there are actually two oscillators, and this detune affects the second one. You can detune it up to an octave range away, enabling cool chord-like sounds, or just chorusy type sounds.

Noise - this allows white noise into the signal - to reflect consonants and transients in audio (speech). If you turn the noise to -100%, all the white noise will be removed from the outgoing signal. +100% makes the signal pretty much all noise, slightly filtered by the original audio. Robot whisperings..

Anyway, enough of the technobabble. Here's a vid giving a quick demo of Bitspeek's capabilities. Much fun!

Conclusion
As the title of the plugin may suggest, this effect is primarily for use with monophonic vocal audio. This is where it really shines. For the price, this is a fantastic plugin - you can't beat it! You want that speak and spell robot voice with a few simple parameter controls that enable midi control etc, this is the plugin to get.

Price
$29

...If you're looking for a similar sound to the processed vocal of Thom Yorke on their track Kid A - this is a great plugin to start with...

Product page

PROS

CHEAP!
FUN!
ROBOT VOICES!

LOVE IT OR HATE IT

If you're looking for a fully fledged vocoder, this is not the application you need. However, for a very cool hyper smooth speak and spell sound, you're not going to find anything better for the price!

CONS

Monophonic - poly would have been awesome!
Slight amount of latency (easily compensated)

U-he Diva review

2012-03-27T02:01:00.008+02:00

I love U-he's products. Ever since I bought the filterscape plugin, and got completely befuddled with the masses of routing options, I've always been a little excited to see new releases land on the newspage.

And in rocks DIVA, this semi-modular beast, modelled on not one, but several synths the world defines as classics.

Some neat and nifty programming that once again sends my little brain into paroxysms of confusion enable the makers to claim more analogue-y sound than previous digital emulations. And by Jove I think they may have cracked it. But for that joy you pay the price - on cranking up to full power, each note played eats away at that precious CPU like it was entering a black hole. In warning, the very first sentence in the manual begins with a delightful understatement: "To get the most out of Diva, you will need a powerful computer. She can be very demanding..."

But oh does it sound incredible. A fair tradeoff in my book - with the Moore's Law advancement of technology and computer power as it stands, it won't be long until the old computers handle this synth with ease. And I think it's starting to get really tricky distinguishing between emulations and the real thing.

Anyway, enough guff. To the review:

The new Technology -

Because of the nature of digital simulation, and the finite limit of the sample, calculating analog feedback paths is by definition slower than the original. This latency quickly becomes audible, and we hear it in various ways - either as a 'smear' in some of the top resonant ranges, or perhaps as a slightly harsher, thinner tone. U-he have created programming that by trial and error, tried to predict the feedback path, adjusting all the way, to have the same feedback paths as the modules they're emulating, without the usual digital delay time. But as previously mentioned, you pay for it with CPU. So U-he have cunningly introduced 4 different levels of accuracy in their rendering. This concession enables you to use a mode that will work on a less powerful computer.

To give a demonstration of the difference in quality, here's a little sample video switching patches between the least and most hungry accuracy modes:

Semi-Modulification

Diva is semi-modular, in that the foundational elements of the synth (Oscillators, Filters, Envelopes) can be swapped out for a variety of different modules based on emulations of several historical synths. The layout is clean and intuitive - a single click on a little triangle opens a drop-down menu to switch out the module.

There are 4 different Oscillators; triple, dual and single VCO (and dual VCO eco). There are also four swappable filters: Ladder, Cascade, Multimode, and Bite filters, again emulated from history past. All have different parameters, and respective characteristic tones. A nod to the Manual here - it clearly lays out the differences between the various oscs and filters, and the structure and potential uses of each of them. As an example, the triple VCO contains morphing oscs, with FM and filter feedback. The Dual VCO has multi-wave oscillators, with PWM and sync. They sound very different, but I don't think it's a case of one sounding better than the other. They just implement differently, and rather than being a complex mess, the clean layout makes it simple to switch out modules, and experiment sonically.

There are 2 LFO's (the synth has a bunch of modulation sources, listed in the manual) You can choose from a select list of waveforms. There are also 2 effects slots, for delay, chorus, phaser, reverb, and a rotary speaker emulator.

Presets

The presets that you get straight up with DIVA are really killer. There's re-creations of the whole of the patch bank for the original juno 60, which is a great jump-off point to explore the sounds DIVA can make; there are several other banks totalling 1200 presets in all. There's a useful favourites/junk option, enabling you to de-clutter the presets page, and get to the ones you use the most, quickly. It's easy to create, save, redo and undo your own creations as presets too.

Using the presets as a starting point (of which there are also 10 template presets of classic synths) I really enjoyed creating a patch, then switching out the filter, envelopes, and oscs with one click of the mouse, thus making a completely different sound. I know it's been done a million times before, but somehow this feels different, maybe it's because of the intuitive layout, or maybe because you feel more like you're adding one manufacturer's filter to a different one's oscillator. I don't know. I could just be getting carried away in the moment, but it is really fun, and I found it hugely inspirational.

The makers could have stopped there and created a beautiful piece of software. But being U-he, of course there's more. You can really dive into some more esoteric modifications of the synth, that only add to its characteristics. Heavy duty words like 'rectify', and 'invert' start to pop up. I liked the trim panel, which enables you to add tuning and drift to the separate voices within the patch, and add slop to the cutoff and envelopes, adding to the analogue-iness of the sound. And of course, there's the master panel, containing the important and useful accuracy menu.

Conclusion

This synth really takes the biscuit. Sounds ranging from creamy liquid loveliness, clean glassy pads, to screechy distorted madness. I loved the layout, and the instant access to several different sounding filters and oscs with one click.

I'm more of a musician than a technician, and while I'm always keen to learn and educate myself on what exactly I'm dealing with, I really love it when a piece of gear shows up that's intuitive without sacrificing depth or flexibility. I tend to get bogged down with options, and find that it stifles my creative flow somewhat. With DIVA - I found a great balance of simplicity and quality. Quick tweaking took me into fresh territory, and I found myself enjoying the moment creating different tones and textures, but very quickly coming up with really usable sounds.

If you're in love with 'that' sound, but can't afford the original hardware, you're going to get within inches of the same satisfaction with this software. Seriously. It's well presented, there's a feast of presets from the Pros to give inspiration, and you've got several different synths all melted into one! AND you get to change the colour of the midi signal LED to whatever you want. Doesn't get much better.

Price
$179

...If you're in love with 'that' sound, but can't afford the original hardware, you're going to get within inches of the same satisfaction with this software. Seriously...

Product page

PROS

Really truly awesome sounds - all the liquid warmth you need!
Excellent layout and flexibilty, with a nod to the originals, but the semi modular stuff is so simple to use.
The accuracy setting - where you can change from a draft (still good) sound, to the divine setting, is VITALLY useful with this Synth

LOVE IT OR HATE IT

If you love analogue, there's not much else out there that's better. If you love conserving CPU, then you'll probably run screaming

CONS

Wow it's a hungry one. There are useful concessions to that, with the various qualities of sound available, but on the recommended Divine, it's a hog.
erm... ?

Mastering for iTunes? Here's what you need to know

2012-02-22T20:49:00.008+01:00

Wondering what the best techniques are when preparing your songs for the iTunes store? Even if you're a seasoned pro it's worth spending a few minutes reading the PDF document that Apple has published on its website.
Don't expect anything magic or revolutionary though. Still, these "best practices" for mastering for iTunes shed some light on a process that for some musicians and engineers it's still quite "obscure".

In this document you'll find topics like: providing high resolution masters, being aware of dynamic range, clipping and oversampling, considering iTunes Sound Check and similar Volume Controlling technologies.
Again, most of this stuff may not be new to most of our readers, but some details and tips (especially since they're straight from the horse's mouth) make it a worthwhile reading.

On the same page you'll also find a mini-suite of (Mac only) free software tools that can help you in this process:
- Master for iTunes Droplet. The Master for iTunes Droplet is a simple, standalone drag-and-drop tool that can be used to quickly and easily encode your masters in iTunes Plus format.
- afconvert. The afconvert command-line utility can be used to encode your masters in iTunes Plus format.
- afclip. The afclip command-line utility can be used to check any audio file for clipping.
- AURoundTripAAC Audio Unit. The AURoundTripAAC Audio Unit can be used to compare an iTunes Plus file to the original source audio file to check for clipping

Read more and download the tools here: Mastering for iTunes

MARS Epic Male Choir review

2012-02-13T18:01:00.010+01:00

SoundIron brings another Choir sample library to the table, hot on the heels of Requiem Lite. MARS is a breath of fresh air, as it's a 30-voice male choir. No Alto's or Sopranos in this lot. Grr.

It's a big pile of bytes, containing over 16,000 samples, and weighing in at 18GB. There are over 220 patches, and over 60 multi patches - some of which will definitely test your computer's endurance and ability: One particular combo multi patch loads almost 4gb's worth of RAM. Phew.

The Library is built in a very similar fashion to the Requiem Lite Choir. For more detailed review on the setup - you can look at this review on Audionewsroom. It's built for NI's Kontakt, full version (4 and up) only. The GUI is another Gothicky 'candles and crucifixes' number, very pleasant to look at, with slightly different looks for different sections, and it is well scripted and easy to find your way around. As with the Requiem, all of the patches contain parameters for Attack, release, and tone/fx. There are also performance parameters, selected at the bottom of the window, that enable various important elements to be adjusted, such as crossfade, swell, ranges, keyswitch, polyphony and legato, depending on the patch chosen. If this is not enough for you, it is an open version, and is all customizable to your heart's content.

Soundiron said that with this choir, they're aiming for versatility. With this in mind, the choir is based off not one, but 2 languages; Latin and Slavonic. There are choral phrases for both languages. There are also 3 soloists - one bass, 2 tenors, also containing phrases from both languages. There are 2 microphone positions, stage and hall, which give you the chance to place the choir well in the mix, giving it the balance of clarity and full-bodied sound as it's needed.

Building the choir

There are several tools within this library you can use to create the choral sounds you're looking for. They start from presets containing set phrases sung at a defined tempo, for quicker construction, to straight non-language vowel polysustains, down to the Marcato phrase builder, which lets you get deep into the sound, and control most elements of it for ultra realism.

The preset phrases are taken from popular Slavonic and Latinate liturgical texts, and come in set tempo of 100bpm (slow) and 140bpm (fast). They can be sung polyphonically, as a choir, or legato, as a melodic line. There is also a poly-sustain patch, which essentially holds the last vowel until you release, which gives a lot of scope for flowing melodic lines. Incidentally, there were hundreds if not thousands of legato slurs recorded at all different intervals, which makes for some very smooth and beautiful sounding melodic phrases, with just a little tweaking. There is great dynamic range in the patches, enabled by the 'swell' parameter, taking you from moderately quiet, to ultra fortissimo. If this isn't enough, there is also a 'whisper' patch, to take the phrases well into the realm of creepy, if that's what you're looking for. There is a polyphonic legato, where you can have up to three lines singing legato, as long as they stay a user defined interval away from each other (from a tone on up). This setting is particularly useful if you're writing contrapuntal choral stuff, as opposed to straight chants.

There's a nice touch with the Latin patches provided throughout the library. They are designed to fit in with the Requiem choir, so if you have both libraries, you can use them together seamlessly. The full choir and the soloists have these, with a little variety between them, so you can use them all together.

The phrase builder is a simple sequencer, again built off the success of the Requiem Choir's version. Common syllables, consonants and vowels are grouped together, and you can create 16 different phrases of 16 syllables, sung in either a marcato or staccato form. Every time a note or chord is played, the phrase builder steps to the next syllable. This has potential to be annoying, but is fortunately totally controllable with built in keyswitches, that enable you to choose whether to step to the next syllable or not. Very useful!

The Marcato Builder is perhaps the deepest patch of the whole library. With this patch, you can basically design your Marcato sustained phrases from the ground up, where you can choose the attack sound, the sustain sound, and the release sound, and then balance them with attack, hold and release. Not only that, but there are two layers that you can blend between with the X-blend parameter. With tweaking, it's possible to have the choir slowly blend between two different syllables. It really sounds beautiful. There are over 40 different combinations to try out. This one requires some time to figure out, and it requires a powerful computer. Soundiron recommends you don't try this with a 32 bit system. Here's a video giving a walk-through on the Marcato Builder.

There are other patches, if you don't want to create sung phrases, but want a choral sound. There are sung vowel patches, with 2 layers, so you can blend between two vowels with the use of the X-blend parameter. Very useful for background choral sound. The vowel sounds for each layer, as with many of the other patches, are selectable by keyswitching, so you can change the vowel on the fly by quickly hitting keys at the bottom or top end of the keyboard range.

Singing solo

The soloists here are a nice touch too. They are very richly recorded samples from really excellent singers. They have many of the same patches as the full choir, plus they have a variety of sung melodic phrases (Slavonic and Latin) with timestretch patches, so you can manipulate them into different tempi. Timestretch works within reason, but you can't change it much before you can really start to hear digital artifacts in the sound. The phrases are beautiful, and the rich and resonant character of each singer comes through very strongly. There are breath patches for each of the soloists, for that extra realism. There are sustained legato vowel patches, blend-able between 2 different vowels with the X-blend. You can also select polyphonic legato, to have several different melodic lines sung as a duet or trio. The soloist patches really are excellent, and with the exceptional detail that's gone into the recording of legato phrasing, it's possible to get some lovely sounding melodic phrases.

Effects

There's also a large effects patch section thrown in to the pile. Whispers, drones, clusters, body percussion, and random horror ambiences are a brilliant addition to an already full-stocked choral library. Some of the ambiences really are beautiful, synthesized to the point where you can only just tell it's vocal-based.

As if that wasn't enough to convince you this is worth it's weight, there's also a huge original custom-made convolution reverb library, where you can put the choir in various locations, from the expected concert hall to complete sci-fi madness. Brilliant. Here's some of the demos off the Soundiron website:

Conclusion

After playing with this library for a while, it's obvious that a lot of work has gone on between the previous, excellent choral library and this one. The sound quality is amazing, the thought that has gone into the setup is obvious, and it seems to be a big step up from Requiem. If you want a choir in a flash, you can quickly whip up a great sounding phrased chorus within a few seconds. But from there, you can delve into the library to create extremely authentic sounding choral music. The legato phrasing is lovely, and it's not much effort to create some really sweeping melodies without the usual awkward sounding releases. The soloists and choral effects are lovely additions to the main choir, and the mix options, from EQ, custom convolution reverb, and two different mic positions round off a lovely library package that will fit into the composer's library with ease.

Price
$449 (plus shipping and handling if you don't want to download)

...The soloists and choral effects are lovely additions to the main choir, and the mix options, from EQ, custom convolution reverb, and two different mic positions round off a lovely library package that will fit into the composer's library with ease...

Product page

PROS

Beautiful richly recorded vocals
Loads of thoughtful touches - mic positions, convolution reverb, effect patches.
Lovely legato phrasing, and simple to use phrase builder.

LOVE IT OR HATE IT

If you're looking for a full choir, this isn't the one for you. However, if you're looking for a lot more depth in a mens choir, look no further.

CONS

The inability to adjust the tempo sung phrases (promised in a free future update though)
Big memory footprint - you need a fairly powerful computer.

Ultimate Dubstep Drums reviewed

2012-01-23T19:11:00.007+01:00

New for 2012, established Loop creators Primeloops have released a new samplepack entitled 'Ultimate Dubstep Drummer'. Primeloops are a long established loop creation company - and a bit of a creative machine, cranking out new packs almost every week it seems.

In this pack there's almost 700mb of material, and like most of Primeloops samplepacks, they're focused on one element of one genre at a time. This one is for killer drumbeats within the Dubstep genre. Available in all the common formats, they are divided into 6 folders that make up separate elements of a quality construction kit; 808/909 loops, live drums, Programmed machine, one shots, midi loops, and the loops fully mixed. There are just over 100 loops total, named after areas or streets in London.

Each of the folders compliments each other, so you can build loops quickly and effectively. Each folder has the same street/area in it, including the midi file, and one shots of the drum sounds. This gives you effectively complete control of the loops, and are able to really manipulate them how you want.

They're all locked at 140Bpm, and they sound great! They're pretty solid foundational beats for dubstep. The live drums are recorded and processed really nicely - huge sounding, with just the right amount of reverb. The loops all mix together nicely - not too much EQ'ing required to make really phat sounding rhythm. The overall sound of these loops cover the bases nicely from darker to warmer atmospheres. And of course, once you've created that number one hit - the loops are all 100% royalty free, so no hassles picking up your millions.

Here's a weird little track that I wrote - not really dubsteppy apart from a small break in the middle. But all the drum loops you hear are from this pack.

P.S.Primeloops also has a New Year sale on: Most of their loops are 25% off. While already not being too expensive, they're now letting you have these excellent sound palettes for the price of 2 nice lattes (£13.46). Check them out here.

Sample packs for the New Year

2012-01-11T19:40:00.009+01:00

Happy new year everyone. Starting us off in 2012 is a couple of sample packs from new company Samplephonics. They're a British company; a combined group of composers that approach the sample creation technique as if they'd use the samples in their own music creation. The composers are all from varying musical backgrounds too, from electronica to rock. This definitely gives a fresh look at the samples they create.

Here's the packs I got to review:

Organic loop elements

George Baldwin is a composer/player based in the UK. Amongst other instruments, he plays the rather unique chapman stick - which features heavily in this sample pack, alongside creative vocalisations, and other guitar instruments. He's played on Charlie Brooker's show , and anyone who does that has kudos in my book. Brilliant.

The samples are split into four folders of different tempi - 100, 125, 140 and 170 Bpm. Within these folders are a dozen or so (mostly) rhythmic soundscapes recorded instrumentally or vocally, layered and sliced to fit the tempo. Some of the sounds are just recorded straight, but a lot of them are processed to varying degrees. The soundscapes created are generally very lush, pretty, layered sounds reminiscent perhaps of the folktronica sound of early fourtet or simliar. Each sound comes with the layers separated, so you can mix them more to your liking if you're not keen on the pre-mixed version.

One thing I really liked about them was that rhythmically, even though they're very organic sounding, they're nice and tight, and have a really nice groove. Quantizing loops is a pet peeve, and I really enjoyed the feel of these ones. I also liked the Chapman stick. It seems to have been used fairly extensively throughout this sample pack, and I like the tone of it. Here's a track I wrote using some of the loops from this pack:

Balkansky Darkdub and Glitchstep

On a different tip -

Ivan Shopov aka Balkansky is the creator of the second sample pack. He's an electronic music producer, that has specialised in creating music that blends electronica of various kinds with eastern european soundscapes and samples. Really beautiful music.

This sample pack is aimed squarely at the dubstep end of the market. Everything is tight to 140bpm, the Dubstep tempo. There are 9 folders that cover all the elements of creating a great track - Ripping hard and heavy basslines, ambiences, rises, hits, rhythmic and melodic loops, and of course, killer drum beats. There's a lot of stuff there, almost 1.5 GBs of sound. The quality of the sound is excellent, and I think it stands out with the creativity within it. The drum beats for example are solid rhythmically, but most of them have something else going on - creative compression on a cymbal, or noise sample, that really just brings some life into these samples. I'll definitely be coming back to this pack if I need to create some Dubstep. I liked also how there were many different ambiences possible with this set. It does provide a lot of downright evil sounding bass and drums, but there's other atmospheres to tap into with the soundscapes. All the (harmonic) content is provided with key signature, so you know where you stand when blending samples.

There are over 700 loops, and unlike many sample packs, these are all extremely usable. If you need some inspiration, some of the sounds that are in this pack will really get you going!

Here's a very loose track I whipped up. Love the sounds in this pack. Excellent!

Conclusion

Samplephonics is a new company, but if they keep producing sample packs of this quality with the very reasonable price tags attached, I think they will quickly establish a good reputation in a lively market.

Price
£34.70 and £39.70 respectively

... If you need some inspiration, some of the sounds that are in these packs will really get you going! ...

Company page

PROS

Large amounts of material - gigs in each pack. Def get your money's worth
Both packs were excellent quality sound-wise. Locked to tempo.
Very creative, plenty of very useful material to work with

LOVE IT OR HATE IT

If you're using samples, there's no reason not to give these guys a try.

CONS

Only in Wav format - I imagine that this is because they're a new company and they're gonna improve this - a lot of 'coming soon' on the website.

Requiem Lite Choral review

2011-11-28T22:27:00.010+01:00

SoundIron is a fledgling company - and already a rising star amongst the many sample creation companies out there. Helmed by Mike Peaslee, SoundIron is creating stunning sample libraries useful in many different fields of music creation. In this article, I'll review the Requiem Lite Choral library. It was originally part of (Peaslee's old company) Tonehammer's repertoire, but has undergone some major updating and has been re-released recently, under the SoundIron banner.

Requiem lite is a full, realistic-sounding choral sample library, featuring recordings of vocalists from the San Franciscan VOLTI choir, amongst others. Requiem lite offers a full SATB (soprano, alto, tenor, bass) choir, divisi sections (male and female) a couple of Soloists, and various choral fx and ambiences thrown in (more on that later) It runs on Native instrument's Kontakt. Note though, it only runs on Kontakt 4.2.3 or later. Previous editions, including Kontakt player (the free Kontakt) will NOT be able to run it. There is talk of SoundIron releasing a version that will work on the free player in the future.

Requiem Lite is definitely not a featherweight. It weighs in at just under 6GB fully installed. Thankfully there's an excellent installer that comes with the purchase. It takes a long time to download 6GB of .rar files, but the installer remembers where you are in the download process, so if you have to stop for any reason, you can resume from where you left off. No issues. If you're not often connected to the interwebs, DVDs are available for shipping and handling fees.

The GUI is a pleasant parchment looking script for Kontakt, with all the basic information on the page. There are a couple of buttons below, to toggle between performance, and Tone/FX parameters for each sound.

There are 62 .nki patches to choose from, divided into 7 folders. Most patches have different versions - such as full choir, men, women, lite, etc. So there's plenty of variety. All of the patches contain parameters for Attack, release, and tone/fx. Many of the patches have layering built in, where the choir can sing two different words, or vowels, and you can blend between the two (each of the layers selectable in-performance using keyswitching) And some of the patches have legato options. More on that later.

Sustains, poly-sustains and legato

There are several patches that allow you the use of the Whole choir in full SATB format, or in divisi sections (of Male and Female) all these patches are available in lite format too, in case your equipment is struggling with resources.

The sound quality is absolutely excellent. It's nice to hear distinct vocalists, but with the overall sound still being cohesive. 8 mic placements were used to record the choir, and those signals were carefully mixed together to give a full, balanced sound. Because it is the Lite version, there are no options on mic placement. But the big advantage of this is that you're using a ton less memory and cpu, as there is just one signal. To be honest, the choir is so well mixed, I never really missed having the placement option. There is an included convolution reverb that can be used to place the choir in different spaces.

You can play these choirs with thick full chords, or you can press a switch and change to legato mode, in which one note is played at a time. The legato mode is truly excellent. Historically, sample packs like this have fallen down when you try and connect notes together to create a flowing melodic line. The attack and release of each note would just not sound right. With the legato patches, SoundIron have got this just right. There's a little tweaking required, but for the most part, it's possible to get beautiful flowing lines from the choirs, with a very slight slide from one note to the next. What takes it over the top is the fact that you can do this polyphonically - enabling up to 3 legato lines at once. The only limit is a range parameter, that requires distance between the notes you play (the minimum distance being 2 tones). There were times when I wished the range could be closer, so I could play suspensions and resolutions to a chord. But that's a minor niggle.

These are all vowel-based patches. You can sing lines with one vowel layer - "ah", for example, or you can blend between 2 ("Ah" to "Oh") or if you're feeling really clever, you can blend between 6 vowels, using keyswitches and cross blending between the two layers you get on each patch. Each of these patches are as a full choir, with the 6-vowel option also available divisi male and female.

The poly-sustains were nice too. Gorgeous-sounding, these patches differ from the sustains in that they are based off pre-sung words, such as "adoramus, Apocalypse" etc. As with most of the patches, these are 2 layered, so you can blend between words, and change them (using keyswitch) to different words mid-performance. There's an option again to switch to legato mode, so that you can change notes mid syllable.

Soloists

There are two soloist patches - a soprano and a tenor. These patches are built identically to the 2-layered poly-sustain patches, other than being solo voices. As with the others, these samples sound gorgeous - very human with lovely vibrato, without sounding warbley or shrill. You again have the option to switch to legato to create very authentic sounding melodic lines.

It's here where I'd like to bring up perhaps the only slight issue I had with the software. It would have been really useful to be able to change the tempo of the sung words. This is only an issue with the soloist and poly-sustain patches. (there is a good attempt to resolve this with some timestretch patches, but you unfortunately have to trade tempo control with sound quality). I think that perhaps this was a decision made to keep the library cpu and memory light.

Ambiences

There are really two main patches here that are split. The 'Requidrone' patches, split into full and lite editions of SATB and divisi, create luscious brassy choral pad sounds. There's a layer for bottom and top end, in which you can change the octave and volume of each, or cut them in and out. The Vocal cues are oh's ah's and eh's, layered on top of big warm pads, and you can blend between any of them.

The second patch is a more ethereal 'Requiembiences', offered in full and light options. There are again two layers you can blend between, titled with greek letters that represent different manipulations of choral sounds. They don't sound choral, but offer nice glitchy raspy pad sounds that would go well in a cinematic score.

Choral FX

The choral fx section is extraordinary. There are some excellent body percussion patches, from knee slaps, to claps, stomps and finger clicks, rumbling feet, applause. There are dissonant and atonal vocal sweeps (think of the 'lost' soundtrack, but with voices instead of strings) there are whispered and hissed full consonants, and other tonal swells. There are some really original sounds in this bunch, that I've not seen or heard in other sample packs. And they're not afterthoughts either - I think they'd be excellent in adding tension and drama to tracks. The choral FX was a very nice addition.

The Phrase builder

This is a standout tool that is excellent for creating clear (allbeit non-sensical) phrases very quickly. It's intuitive, easily accessible, and will create superb phrases with minimal tweaking. Here's a video of it in use:

The phrase builder is included in the marcato and staccato patches. Short (again excellently recorded and mixed) vocal bursts that can be tweaked with sustain, attack and delay parameters. It's a bit of a shame that the phrase builder isn't included in a larger part of the sample pack, as it's a very strong tool to be able to quickly create dramatic sounding phrases.

Convolution reverb

This is also a nice addition from SoundIron. As well as the more expected cathedral, hall, and stairwell presets (All of which add lovely ambience to the choir) there are the more unusual sounding fx-type reverbs with equally unusual sounding titles, such as smear, iron drag and shnivering? Regardless of the titles, the ambiences created are pretty inspiring, from subtle filter delays, to what sounds like a massive thick plate reverb. For the more out of the ordinary usages of choral samples, these could really inspire the writer.

Here are the demos from the website that showcase the various elements of Requiem Lite:

Conclusion
SoundIron make it clear what their intentions are with the software, that..

"Requiem Light is intended for users who want a professional choir library at their fingertips, without the usual tradeoffs. It’s designed to excel, whether dropped into the most resource intensive orchestral scoring templates or loaded on a laptop for composing on the road or use in live performance settings."

I think they achieved their aims. Working from a laptop, I think you'd find this choir more useful than some of the others out there, as it doesn't take up much cpu bandwidth, yet the sound quality is, as expected from SoundIron, excellent. It's a full, yet clear sound that captures vocal detail but still sounds grand. The excellent convolution reverb with impulses gathered by SoundIron only adds to the strength of the library.
The legato phrasing really stands out. On top of this, I think the addition of the Choral FX, and the Phrase builder combine to provide an excellent choral package that you'd find quickly indispensable in your sample arsenal.

Price
$314 for download only (add shipping and handling if you want a DVD)

...the sound quality is, as expected from SoundIron, excellent. It's a full, clear sound that captures vocal detail but still sounds grand...

Product page

PROS

full and balanced mixed down sound from 8 mic positions
not heavy on CPU or Memory
phrase builder intuitive and useful
Choral FX a very nice addition

LOVE IT OR HATE IT

for a beautiful sounding SATB choir that you need to be able to dive in and quickly get up and running - this is excellent. If you're going to be spending more time, and want deeper adjustment, especially with phrasing, tempo and mic placement, you'll need to look at other options

CONS

sung latin words at a fixed tempo
phrase builder limited to certain patches
Kontakt 4.2.3 or later. NO free player. (Although they're working on a locked player release)

Goldbaby Synth Purveyor review

2011-11-05T19:14:00.008+01:00

Goldbaby - the super indie sample creator from the other side of the world, has just released a new sample pack of a variety of analog and digital synths. There are 166 sounds made from over 1800 samples all in 24 bit, and can be used in Kontakt 4, and EXS24. (The raw samples are available if you want to use within another sampler.)

The synths used represent a fairly wide range of sound and history. From classics such as the Roland Jupiter MKS 80, through to the fresh-out-the-oven OP-1, from Teenage Engineering. Other synths from Moog, Dave Smith, Yamaha, and Ensoniq are represented well here.

The sounds are split into 5 different folders -

1 layer Mono
1 layer Poly
Drums FX
*Multi Mono
*Multi Poly *Kontakt only

With the Kontakt sample pack set-up, each preset has been worked through the Kontakt engine, and the important parameters are right there at your fingertips - the Amp and filter Envelope, filter choice, from Kontakt's excellent sounding filters, voicing, LFO, and master volume. It is possible to dive deeper into the Kontakt's architecture to meddle with the sound more, but it's recommended to start another patch if you're going to do that, as it may mess up the lovely GUI. Unfortunately the Multi-layers aren't available for the EXS, however there is a work-around; more information on that on Goldbaby's site (see below).

Within these 5 folders there's a wide variety of sounds - pads, bass, fx, string, leads, bells, hits, etc. all labeled according to the synth they came from. And what a great sample pack it is. The sound quality is fantastic. Warm squelchy analog in one corner, meets crisp digital brilliance in the other corner. I saw a glimpse of a UBK fatso in one of the promo pictures, but whatever else these synths were run through really did the job. I did a quick comparison of the Slim Phatty samples to my own Slim Phatty, and I thought they were excellent - very hard to tell the difference!

I recommend going through the sounds individually, as I think that the choice of presets really displays the sonic qualities of each synth. The presets are aimed vaguely at the electronica vibe (of course there's the almost compulsory Dubstep Bass in several varieties), but the huge advantage of this sample pack is that the sounds really have a nice edge over other softsynths, because of the filthy rich analog signal path they've endured. Don't get me wrong, I love a good softsynth, but I'm still not sure they can quite capture the full richness of true analog - which this sample pack has in spades.

There are some really lovely sounds in there. There were a few that really stuck out to me: I particularly loved the analog brass samples from Yamaha's CS-10. It's a mono instrument, but the advantage of sampling is being able to play poly! But perhaps the highlights of the sample pack for me were the FX samples. They are awesome hits, rises, drones, mostly tempo-synced, and still lush and warm with analog tone. Instantly usable stuff.

Conclusion
If nothing else, if you can't afford the thousands of dollars to purchase the hardware - this is a great chance to compare the tones of a small set of some fantastic synths. After listening, I'm definitely keeping my eye on Ebay for a couple of choice tone makers. With the 'VOL 1' extension on the title, I hope this is an ongoing collection that will deepen the choice of sounds from the present keyboard line, and extend the range of keyboards. The sound quality is Excellent, and for instant 'go-to' sounds that you might need to pop in to tracks, this is a great addition to the arsenal.

Price
$49

... With the 'VOL 1' extension on the title, I hope this is an ongoing collection that will deepen the choice of sounds from the present keyboard line, and extend the range of keyboards. ...

Product page

PROS

Gorgeous lush analoguy warm vs Crisp digital brilliance. Really well captured sound.
wide variety of presets representing a wide history of synthmania
Kontakt and EXS24 ready

LOVE IT OR HATE IT

If you want a good selection of usable classic sounds from a rich variety of classic and modern synths, this is a great selection. Obviously if you want more out of one particular synth, then you should go get that instead!

CONS

You need the full version of Kontakt 4 to use the sample