AudioNewsRoom

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

Audio Damage Filterstation review

2011-10-27T21:01:00.012+02:00

Audio Damage have just released the Filterstation plugin; a stereo filter and envelope follower combined. Modeled somewhat after hardware filters such as the Sherman Filterbank, the Filterstation contains several different filter emulations, routing and modulation options, for creative filtering of your audio

The filterstation follows neatly with the Audiodamage design style - the GUI is dark with bright and inoffensive orange highlights, a very simple layout, and extremely clear numerical readouts of all the parameters.

An XY window contains a graphic of the 2 filters - the axes representing the resonance and frequency of each filter. It's possible to click and drag each filter separately in the window, or click the link between them and drag them in unison.

The 2 filters are available in several tasty flavours - lowpass, highpass and bandpass, with emulations resembling the Moog filter to the MS-20, straight 2, 3 and 4 pole filters and several different versions in between, all selectable from a drop down menu. They sound great and there are a few differences in the tone and vibe of the filter algorithms. There's also an analog saturation slider to increase grit.

The 2 filters can be routed 3 different ways - serial, parallel, and stereo. Serial routing means filter one's output goes into filter 2's input, then out. In Parallel, the same signal goes through filter 1 and filter 2, then the outputs are combined to one signal. Stereo is one channel per filter. It's good to flick between these options as the routing options can create very different sonic results.

For modulation, there is an LFO, that is assigned to the frequency of one or both of the filters. There are different waveshapes, from the usual sine, triangle, square, to slightly more unusual spike and 4 fixed pattern shapes. Enough variety to keep you playing. As well as the LFO, there is a simple envelope follower, with attack and decay controls.

Each filter has envelope and LFO amounts that can go negatively or positively, so that the LFO and envelope can affect each filter differently, and even have the opposite effect, if one is positive, the other negative.

There are a couple of interesting additions to filterstation:

One that you don't see very often, is a sidechain input. The sidechain runs into the envelope, and uses the incoming audio to affect the filter envelope. So drum hits could trigger the filtering of a big bass sound, for example - an interesting alternative to sidechain compression.

The other interesting addition is the Midi control. Not only is filterstation fully automatable within DAWS, but it responds to midi note input too. The filter frequency will set to the pitch of the midi note you play. If you set the resonance fairly high, you can get some interesting results!

There are some useful presets to get you started, and it's easy to save your own presets, and transfer them across different platforms without any problems. Here's a video of me messing around with Filterstation on a simple synth pad.

Here's a track I made whilst messing around with Filterstation. There's an instance of Filterstation on every track, and one on the master buss.

Conclusion
I think Audio Damage have created a great little plugin here. It doesn't have many bells and whistles, and while I would have liked some different modulation routing options, I think that it would have taken away from the brilliant simplicity of the plugin. It has fewer options than some other soft filters out there, but it does a few things very very well, sounds excellent, is super intuitive, and doesn't break the bank. Great job Audio Damage!

Price
$49

... it does a few things very very well, sounds excellent, is super intuitive, and doesn't break the bank. Great job Audiodamage!...

Product page

PROS

Great sound
fully automatable
low cpu

LOVE IT OR HATE IT

If you're looking for a fairly simple automatable filter, with a great sound, this is the one for you. If you're looking for more complicated plugins with loads of bells and whistles, loads of Mod and LFO options, there are many other plugin options out there.

CONS

limited modulation options and pathways

by Andy Dollerson

Valhalla Room review: Reverb Rising

2011-10-07T15:54:00.000+02:00

Reverb – an indispensable tool for sound engineers, one that has been through countless mutations over the course of recording history. While any and all recordings benefit from the subtle embellishment of a little reverb “space,” the effect is sometimes applied in dramatic doses. Be it from a room, a plate unit (like the venerable EMT 140), a digital rack unit (like ones made legendary by Lexicon), or a state-of-the-art plug-in, reverb is squarely cemented as the quintessential sound processing tool of pros and joes alike. It seems that software reverbs have been through just as much permeation as their hardware counterparts. While much fanfare has, in recent years, touted the value of the impulse response, many artists and producers have been leaning toward the more obvious, algorithmic reverbs lately. A rising star in the field, Valhalla DSP serves their latest update to their lauded Room plug-in, version 1.0.7. The update adds new “Dark” chamber and space modes, bringing a new dimension of grit, warmth, and girth to the already popular reverb plug.
While plentiful in both the hardware and software worlds, it seems that truly great, certifiably useful reverbs are few and far between. Thankfully, Valhalla has done so well with their reverb plug-in, that it is quickly gaining ground as the foremost in the field of algorithmic reverberation units. Room is a cross-platform (Win/OSX 32/64- bit) plug-in available in both VST and AU formats, respectively.

The plug-in's interface is decidedly simple, concealing a strikingly robust feature set. With a typeface that is loud and proud, the intuitive controls also benefit from mouse-over tooltips for each parameter. These controls are smart and include the expected sliders for Mix, Pre-delay, Decay, High Cut, and Depth. These basic controls work in conjunction with the intriguing and powerful 'Early” and “Late” dialogs which are switchable, allowing both views to occupy the same screen real estate. It is in these reflection - algorithm controls that Valhalla Room really steps out from the rest of the pack. The knobs let the user adjust various settings related to the respective elements that make a reverb (quite literally) what it is. The “Early” view allows the user to adjust the relative “size” of the space and control the amount of modulation ,among other useful features. The “Late” view offers the user all that, plus adds filtering and crossover options for increased realism.

Sonically, there is something beautiful, musical, and precise (yet not surgical) about the sound. The new “Dark” modes are aptly fitted to their moniker, offering a warm wash of ambiance to treated tracks in a truly ear-pleasing manner. The original room and chamber modes from the plug are just as useful, too, from subtle room-sized emulations to massive chamber and hall emulations. Whereas in the past, most reverb units were hit-and-miss in terms of consistent quality between their included room types, Valhalla demonstrates incredible consistency between room modes. The large, small, bright, and dark types are all distinct from one another, and distinctly useful. This consistency makes the $50 USD price-tag of the Room plug all the more irresistible.
Like many sound fanatics, I have been using impulses for some time now, and had come to feel that those technological wonders might well be the pinnacle of reverb on a budget. Valhalla Room has cast doubt in that direction. Not only does the plug-in sound great, it is also light on its feet. In my Intel I3-equipped laptop, the plug-in performed on under 2% or CPU in each instance, allowing me to treat tracks and buses in a variety of working scenarios. That kind of performance negates most of the impulses out there. From the resource efficiency, to the clean interface, great sound, and tool-tip implementation, everything about Valhalla Room simply screams “tightly coded excellence.”

Conclusion
As in life, variety is the spice of reverb, and while it may not truly replace every other unit out there (notably absent are any “plate” reverb-like sounds), Valhalla is a worthy addition to any plug-in collection, and can quickly and easily become the “go to” reverb for practically any sound engineer.

Price
$50 USD

...everything about Valhalla Room simply screams “tightly coded excellence.”

Product page

PROS

Excellent sound and performance
Clear, concise interface
Great value for the price

LOVE IT OR HATE IT

Clearly, Valhalla DSP has a hit with Room. If you need a "go to" algorithmic reverb then look no further.

CONS

No plate-type sounds (then again this is a "Room" plug)
Skinnable interface would be nice

DMGAudio Compassion review: the ultimate compressor?

2011-08-18T18:23:00.011+02:00

Dave Gamble, owner of DMG Audio, has drawn on years of experience at Novation, Sonalksis, Brainworx and Focusrite, to come up with the vision and creation of Compassion - a highly flexible and configurable dynamics processor plugin, that fits into most DAW's in VST, RTAS and AU format.
On the website, DMG state that their aim in creating Compassion was to make a plugin that was 'a model of dynamic processing that included all the different schools of design', so that you didn't have to have several different compression plugins for different uses, but could go to Compassion for it all. At the same time, it was to be simple to approach and intuitive to use.

Overview

Upon opening the plugin, there is a good-looking and straightforward GUI in the same colour scheme as DMG's first plugin (Equality) The parameter controls are as you would see in any compressor: threshold, ratio, attack, release and makeup gain. These are the basics for any compressor - how much you want to squash the signal volume, how quickly, and how fast to 'un-squash' it. The attack and release start at a ridiculously fast 0ms, and work up. There's also auto-release, and auto-makeup gain buttons, enabling quick level setting depending on what audio you have passing through.

A large section of the plugin is taken up by a graphic display that scrolls the audio waveform as it passes through the plugin. As you go to work on the compression, the visual clearly displays what part of the audio is being affected, and how much compression is happening. For someone starting to get their head around the concept of compression, this is an extremely useful tool. It's also possible to directly grab the waveform and alter the amount of compression just by moving the mouse up and down.

A preset menu contains 15 presets with no fuss titles: main buss, heavy drum compression, bass squash etc. I would have loved a few more presets utilizing some of the other aspects of Compassion (more on that later). Within the same section is another menu entitled 'Mods'. The mods are killer - instead of being straight presets, they are 'character' additions to whatever compression you dial in. They are presets of parameters that affect the colour of the sound, not the compression, and are intended to emulate, in the opinion of the creator, the characteristics of any classic hardware compressor you can think of. So in practice, you dial in your compression, then select the 'mod' from a selection of 30, with names like Opto, FET, classic british style, etc. It's a really great way to compare different flavours of compression from over the years.

There's a dry/wet mix knob - which I found useful to easily recreate the NYC parallel compressed sound, without any setup. There's a sidechain button, to let the plugin know to look for external audio to trigger the compression. This isn't standard on many compressors, and is a welcome addition - I find sidechaining extremely useful in many situations. At the top of the plugin is also a menu bar that contains an A/B comparison menu that actually goes up to H, providing 8 different settings that you can save, then audition through.

More than modelling

Gamble writes that although Compassion started as a modeling compressor, it quickly became more than that, and with the addition of the Advanced settings, there lie the extended capabilities of Gate/expansion, upward compression, transient design, deep sidechaining, clip limiting, and shaping of attack and release curves. So in the menu bar is another button that opens a lower window containing all the (80+) parameters for more advanced options that enable all these different dynamic processing elements.

In this advanced window you'll find:

- Two EQ's (one sidechain, one main)
- Deeper parameters for Threshold, Ratio, attack, release, and auto release (such as envelope shapes, for attack and release)
-Transient design and clip limiting.

There's too much here to go into all of it. But I'll dip into a couple of them, to give you an idea of the depth of the capabilities of this plugin.

One EQ is for the sidechain. You can get really specific on what frequencies you want to trigger the compression. So for example you could EQ out the mid and top frequencies on an incoming drum mix signal, meaning that the main trigger for the sidechain would only be the kick drum, instead of kick, snare and hihat.
The other EQ is for the main mix, input and output, which provides more flexibility in the kind of sound that you create - (you could isolate a certain frequency range in the dry mix; add it to the wet mix and boost a certain area of the sound.)

The transient designer and clip limiter are sections that I really liked. Once compression's been applied to sound, you sometimes find that you've lost some of the edge and snappiness of the sound. This is especially true of percussive rhythmic audio. The transient designer here enables you to bring back some of the attack of the sound, enabling a more aggressive, driving sound to the audio material. I found this particular transient designer really useful, not only bringing back the snap on the snare and the click on the kick, but going beyond and enabling deep transformation of sounds. The parameters on the transient designer include attack level, sustain level, attack and sustain envelope speed, and envelope follower. Here's a quick clip of different settings on the transient designer on a simple drum loop:

And here's a track I wrote, using Compassion plugin on several tracks, and on the main buss.

Conclusion

This really is an excellent dynamics plugin. There's way more to this plugin than I could cover in this article. DMG has done a great job at giving the choice between using Compassion as a basic compressor, and diving into the plugin as a really controllable dynamics processor. I learned a lot about dynamics processing just from playing round with different parameters and listening. This plugin is a fantastic addition for anyone to stock up their dynamic processing plugin collection with. It is possible to tweak sound clinically and with subtlety, and yet also be able to really sculpt and design the sound you want with the material you have. The only thought I had was it would be great if there were a larger supply of presets/mods to tweak for those on a time crunch.

Price
149 British Pounds (roughly $245 in today's delightful economy...)

... I learned a lot about dynamics processing just from playing round with different parameters and listening...

Product page

PROS

Extremely flexible dynamics processing
Very low CPU
Use it simply or spend hours controlling

LOVE IT OR HATE IT

If you're looking for a one button compressor, a la Waves OneKnob, this is not for you. If you're looking for a deep do-all dynamics processor, you won't do much better than this.

CONS

The only weakness is the menu/preset system, which sometimes doesn't seem to reset properly if you change presets.
It'd be great if there were more presets, and mods ( maybe even a forum for users to add theirs?)

NI Vintage Compressors review

2011-08-08T13:52:00.009+02:00

Native Instruments has partnered with Swedish modeling wizards Softube to release Vintage Compressors. Their VC76, VC2A, and VC160 are based on 3 studio classics, the Universal Audio 1176, Teletronix LA2A, and DBX 160. Softube has a very successful track record of high-end hardware modeling which has garnered endorsements from the original designers of gems like the Trident A Range EQ and Tube Tech CL1B, so I was excited to be able to dig in to these effects, and I'm pleased with the results.

In addition to faithful emulations of the original features, all models include an expert panel (accessible via a disclosure triangle on the right edge) that reveals a Dry Level fader, a Side Chain button, and, on the VC2A and VC160, a Low Cut Filter on the detector circuit. These additions are welcome improvements on the originals, and extend the functionality quite a bit. The Dry Level allows for simple parallel compression without having to go through any additional bussing. Note that Output can still add gain to the signal, even when Dry is at %100, so pay attention to the interaction between these two controls. The Low Cut is very handy for things like preventing a robust kick from triggering the gain reduction on a drum loop while controlling wild crash cymbals nicely.

I will provide descriptions of each compressor, followed by several example clips. All clips have been normalized to distill the plugin effects from the changes in volume.

VC2A
The LA2A is an electro-optical tube compressor. This design tends to have a slow response and impart general warmth to the signal. The VC2A behaves accordingly. It is the simplest of the bunch, with just gain reduction and output knobs, and also highest on the immediate gratification scale. Set the gain reduction, raise the output to taste, and you're good to go. One of the best uses is on vocals. This clip is dry, then through the VC2A.

Notice how the compressed signal is fuller. The VC2A evens out the 2 phrases and brings out the body in the voice.

The manual suggests using the VC2A on guitar, bass, and vocals. Notably missing are drums, presumably due to the slower response and lack of precise control. However, I really like how the VC2A sounds on a stereo drum submix. It can add a subtle big room sound. Sometimes it was useful to have something faster (like the VC76) in front of it for tight transient control, and then to use the VC2A to fatten things up.

VC160
The VC160 is especially adept at accentuating the attack of sounds while generally tightening the decay. As such it is well suited to individual drum sounds or percussive bass. It can act like a transient shaper with automatic envelopes that just happen to work well in a lot of music. However, it's possible to go too far and choke the life out of some material, so use with care.

The following clip is a slap bass loop dry, then through the VC160. Because of the tightening of the decay portion of the notes, it can sound like a bit of the low end is removed. This is not always bad, as it can help parts fit in a mix or remove tubbiness.

VC76
The VC 76 has the most control of the bunch. It can be a lot more surgical and powerful, but it's also the easiest to abuse, so don't get frustrated if the results aren't quite as immediate as with the other two. However, it's still pretty tough to get a bad sound out of it if you spend a few minutes getting it dialed. Universal Audio lists the attack/release times of the original 1176 as follows:
Attack: 20 microseconds to 800 microseconds
Release: 50 milliseconds to 1.1 seconds
Even at the slowest setting, the attack is VERY fast compared to a lot of other compressors, so adjust your use accordingly. Adding a bit of dry level can help if you lose too much transient information. Also note that he Attack and Release are "backward", just like the original, i.e. 1 (CCW) is the slowest, and 7 (CW) is the fastest. I found Attack=3 and Release=5 to be good starting points for most applications.

This clip demonstrates how the VC76 can add snap and girth to a bouncy acid line (courtesy Audiorealism ABL2), then how the VC160 can tighten the decay. The clip is dry, VC76, dry, then VC160.

In the next clip I use all three compressors to contrast their tendencies. The progression is dry, VC76, dry, VC160, dry, then VC2A.

Observe how the VC76 can absolutely manhandle the drums. Of course it doesn't have to be this extreme, but I like it. The VC160 treatment is more subtle, just stiffening it up a bit. Lastly the VC2A adds some gentle room to the loop.

But wait, Guitar Rig?
My biggest criticism of Vintage Compressors is that they run inside Guitar Rig Player, the Guitar Rig GUI that NI has started to use for other products such as the Traktor's 12, Reflektor, and Rammfire. The main problem is that Guitar Rig takes up a ton of screen real estate, and can be cumbersome on a smaller laptop screen. It adds unnecessary complication, and there are some setup tweaks (enable L/R channels, disable limiter and gate, make sure input/output gain are at unity) that you need to keep in mind. However, there are simple workarounds (create templates with default settings, minimize elements of Guitar Rig), and a few silver linings that I'm starting to like quite a bit.

Running inside Guitar Rig complicates saving presets, though it does allow for new options. I like to keep my presets organized in folders. In Logic, I now have to create several extra folders in order to keep my presets separated by compressor, e.g. guitar rig/compressors/VC76. On the other hand, I can group presets by role, and mix and match between the 3 compressors, e.g. guitar rig/compressors/bass (and have all my VC76, VC160, and VC2A for bass in the same folder).

One of the nice things about the Guitar Rig interface is that it allows me to have all 3 compressors in 1 instance of GR. I can then easily switch between or combine to find best results. Most of all, if you have Guitar Rig Pro 4, you can quickly create complex effects chains with other Guitar Rig effects. Highly recommended!

While I would prefer to be able to run each plugin without the Guitar Rig shell, I'm more than placated by the additional creative options that this arrangement creates.

Tips and Tricks
Precise adjustments can be tricky with the front dials, but by switching to Controls View in Logic (wherein the GUI is replaced by numbered faders) you can make more precise numerical adjustments.

If you need to get clinical about comparing compressed vs. dry, it's helpful to use a gain plugin in front of Guitar Rig when the compressor is bypassed in order to make sure your dry signal has the same peak level as the compressed signal. This way you can be sure that the compressor isn't just making things louder. On the other hand, sometimes life is too short for A/B comparisons, so just go with what works for your mix.

All models allow a 1:1 ratio (or 0 gain reduction on the VC2A, effectively the same thing) so you can use just their color or distortion characteristics. I like to run synths through Moogerfooger pedals with the Mix=0 (i.e. dry) with the drive cranked. Using these plugins in this manner provided me with a more convenient way to achieve similar results.

Here is an example of this technique. First the ABL loop dry, then through the VC76, VC160, and VC2A. The VC2A can get especially ballsy.

The cumulative effect of using these tools across many elements of a mix is where they really shine, even when the individual effects are used subtly.

The meters (like VU meters) are sluggish, and the program dependent compression contours take some tweaking, so use your ears not your eyes to dial the mix.

I use Novation's Automap Pro on most of my AU plugins. For some reason the automapped versions did not show he side chain selection menu in Logic on my Mac Pro, though it was available on my Macbook Pro. (To be clear, I'm referring to Logic's internal side chain selection drop down in the upper right corner of the GUI, not the side chain button in the Vintage Compressors). I don't know if this problem is due to Logic, Guitar Rig, Automap, or pilot error, but I've read that others have had trouble with sidechain operation so I thought it would be worth mentioning.

Conclusion
Native instruments and Softube have done well. Up until recently some of the best vintage emulations required hardware acceleration, and/or were fairly spendy. They've provided solid versions of these 3 iconic studio tools in the native format at a reasonable price. Vintage Compressors have found a place in my go-to arsenal for dynamics control.
As soon as UA can catch up with back orders, I'll have a 6176 and UAD card. I look forward to comparing the hardware, UAD versions, and the NI versions. In the meantime I'm quite satisfied with these options.

Price
229$/199 euro

...solid versions of these 3 iconic studio tools in the native format at a reasonable price...

Product page

PROS

Sound great, good value
Proven studio workhorses provide strong character to offset more clinical modern DAW dynamics control
Easy to get good sounds very quickly
Low CPU drain
Expert Panel brings classics into modern production styles

LOVE IT OR HATE IT

Program dependent attack and release times take some experimentation
Don't have the precision of other modern compressors

CONS

Must run inside Guitar Rig
Problem with Automap?

by Jesse Gay
Jesse is a musician, engineer, and Apple Certified Logic Pro Trainer in Portland, OR, USA. You can reach him here

SugarBytes Turnado review: a virtual pedalboard on steroids

2011-07-15T21:56:00.002+02:00

SugarBytes have just released a new plugin designed for real-time manipulation of audio. Turnado is a fresh look at some of the previous excellent offerings from the German company. SugarBytes' motto is to make "Better sounding, better looking audio software thats easier to use and cheaper to get than everything that’s out there. Just great products that can do more stuff with less buttons, that have more features with less instructions, that are simply more fun and less expensive." With Turnado, they certainly seem to making massive strides in that direction.

Turnado is a VST/AU plugin, but is also interestingly now in a standalone version - so anything that you can use to make audio on a computer, you can route through Turnado.

The GUI is a big bold move - the opening screen is clutter free, simple, big, bright clean graphics. I opened up the program, and instantly understood the concept. There are 8 effects knobs. You turn them, an effect comes on. You turn them more, the effect changes or increases. Simple. There's different effects listed in a column on the left hand side. You want to change one of the 8 effects? Drag one from the left hand list onto the knob. Changed.

The immediacy of the effect is very appealing. There's no need to look through the manual: it's a very intuitive design. I really liked the colourful graphics. It looks fresh - it's very different from a lot of plugins out there - with an almost cartoony edge. Although it doesn't overstep into cheese and cheap looking, it does look kind of like a beat-up pedal board from the bahamas.

The next thing to impress was the sound. As I messed around with all the different effects, I noticed that the quality of the sound was really clean. It took a lot of effort to get any (unwanted) clicks or pops out of the sound mangling that was going on.
There are 24 effects total that can be dragged into the 8 effect slots at any one time. the brightly coloured graphics neatly divide up the styles of effects, making it easy to differentiate between what types of effects are in use. The effects are a little different from the norm too. Yes, there's the usual suspects - reverb, phaser, ring mod, looping, delays etc, but there are other more unusual effects, such as Pattern delay, Vowel filter, freeze reverb, Vocodizer, Transient looper, granulizer and spectralizer. In use they quickly create some fresh sounds. I didn't find any of the effects redundant either. I could see them all being useful in mashing up sound. The way the effects work definitely seem to lend themselves more towards beats and rhythm oriented material. There's a lot of beat slicing, stutter, glitch style sounds that come out of the plugin. But it does work well on other melodic and harmonic sound too. There are a ton of presets to trawl through that open up to your ears all the different possibilities this software presents.

Once you've dragged the effects you've chosen into the slot, they can be further edited by clicking on the title bar in the middle. This opens up a menu listing a bunch of presets for that particular effect. So you can quickly change through many different options. Deeper editing is revealed with a click of the little edit button, which when pressed takes you to a new page. This reveals the more in depth editing capabilities of the effects. Within the edit page, there are several parameters that are present. Some are there for every effect - such as 2 LFO's and an envelope follower. But there are distinct parameters too. If you are using the vowel filter effect for example, then the parameters you can change are vowel choice, vowel mix, resonance etc. Each parameter that you edit has a separate knob that determines how the movement of the main knob will affect this particular parameter, and in what way. so you can choose whether moving the main knob will make the parameter less, more, slower, faster, etc. This combined with the LFO modulators (that can be assigned to any or all parameters) means that each effect can get complex very quickly.

THE DICTATOR

And then, when you think it can't get any worse - there's the dictator slider. The dictator slider replaces the grid list of effects, with a single slider, that combines all 8 of your knob effects into one. As you move the slider around, the various knob effects will come into play in varying amounts. This is really magnificent thinking. It's a sort of vertical automation sequencer: As you move the Dictator slider up and down, the corresponding effect knobs move according to their positioning in the sequence. Clear as mud? Yeah, it's hard to describe. Here's a video that will hopefully help explain. I set up a simple Ableton live pattern, then stuck 3 turnado plugins on the master channel, and am using a midi controller to move the dictator and the dry/wet sliders.

Conclusion

Sugarbytes have done it again. One of the signs that I took this to be a good plugin was the fact that I got totally lost in it - and realised 2.5 hours later that I'd spent all this time messing around with one beat, creating weirder and more wonderful stuff than I had in a long time.

The Dictator really takes the biscuit for me. For ease of use and just brilliant results by moving one slider - and yet designing the program so it's as easy as pie to set up, I'm not sure there's anything out there that competes at the moment. Excellent design. The instant satisfaction combined with the great depth of editing on this plugin make it really good work with.

Price

139€/$179

... For ease of use and just brilliant results by moving one slider - and yet designing the program so it's as easy as pie to set up, I'm not sure there's anything out there that competes at the moment...

Product page

PROS

It can be as simple as just moving a single fader to create an absolute mangled mess of sound, yet you can get really complex in the editing of each effect
Amazing sound quality

LOVE IT OR HATE IT

If beat manipulation isn't your thing, then you might not find much use for it.

CONS

The intro price was excellent, the full price may be a bit high for some users

Xx review: algorithmic Midi composition from the makers of Metasynth

2011-06-22T22:03:00.009+02:00

U&I software, makers of 'Metasynth' electronic music studio, have released an updated version of their algorithmic compositional software Xx. The software U&I make is standout from the regular crowd - much of their software combines many unusual ways of manipulating sound with graphics (Such as using photos to filter the source sound). They've continued in those paradigm-breaking footsteps, with the updated software Xx - an algorithmic midi composing tool.

Xx is a 24-track midi sequencer designed to generate and transform midi within (or beyond) the boundaries of compositional rules that you set. The software is a one-window affair, for simplicity. Most of the GUI is taken up by a piano roll - a familiar sight to anyone who's used a DAW. There are 3 surrounding areas containing all the necessary tools to create and store midi. You can import midi tracks into Xx, and also create midi tracks within the program and export them as midi to your DAW, then render them to audio using the built-in synth or any AU plugin software you want to use.

Straight away, the available methods of inputting midi information take Xx far beyond any regular DAW piano-roll. The expected methods are there - step entry, single note entry, direct keyboard entry. But then it gets creative. Think of it a little like paintbrush-style buttons providing multiple ways to affect photos - it's similar here, but with midi information. There's brush strokes, one-click pattern entry, Chord entry, canon entry (what you enter is repeated 2 more times on different midi channels at a user-defined interval and time later), all the way to complete random note entry. The pattern tool button is excellent: as you write and create midi patterns, it is possible to store them in a pattern library, ready for easy access and use later. Xx remembers all the relevant information about the pattern - key, tempo, scale info etc. One click, and the entire pattern library is at your fingertips. You can input entire phrases with one click. Xx doesn't come with too many patterns, and none of them are very inspirational. But it's very easy to create and store your own patterns, quickly building a large library.

The toolbar above the piano roll generally deals with the midi channel selection, and the routing you choose for the sound you want. You can work on the 24 tracks simultaneously - differentiating between each midi track by colour, choosing whichever midi track you want to work on by simply selecting the appropriate coloured box in the toolbar. In terms of sound you want to use for reference, there is a built-in general midi synth for easy use, but the preferable option (at least for me) was use my AU plugins already on the computer as the sound source. There's no set up necessary - Xx finds the plugins automatically at startup. You can use Plugin multis - so if, for example you're writing orchestral stuff, and you want to use Kontakt as your source for 16 channels, you can set it up easily in Xx, and have a full orchestra playing in seconds. The only slight downside I found here is that if you do decide to use your AU plugins with Xx, it greatly lengthens the software startup load time. If you have the 'use AU plugins' preference button unchecked, the software loads in seconds.

So getting Midi information on to the piano roll is already pushing creative boundaries, as there are a myriad of different ways to do it. Once the midi is on the page however, Xx gets interesting. Using the powerful algorithms under the hood, it can take the midi that you've just written down, and for lack of better terminology, evolve it musically into new directions that you may not have thought of. All with minimal clicks. U&I write that a lot of users complement the DAW that they work mainly in with Xx, importing midi tracks to explore compositionally in XX and then export back out to the project they're working on, which makes a lot of sense.

The algorithms analyse the midi tracks, and take into account various different parameters of the midi, such as key, tempo, scale type, time etc, before then suggesting, or generating further phrases to follow on from musically what is already there, letting the music develop thematically. There are several options under the 'pattern' menu (not to be confused with the pattern creation button) that guide the software to generate new material that is useful to the composition. Here are some of them:

Remap

This is a box that enables you to constrain any of the midi material you select to a specific user-defined, or preset scale. There are 15 preset scales, major, minor, arabic, modern(?) dodecaphonic, and so on. If none of these work, you can define each note of the scale. So the options are limitless. And the software will neatly move the midi notes around to fit within whatever scale you define.

Randomize

Randomises everything. You get to choose and limit what is randomised - Notes, velocity, time, and duration, by however many notes or ticks, and by percentage of probability. So you can move from subtle change to wildness.

Multi-transform

The Multi-transform box will take the midi phrase that's been input, and repeat it, changing it 'musically' according to rules that you set for it. There are four rules you can set each time you transform, each with 9 parameters to change, from harmonic and chromatic transposition, to invert pitch, reverse time, to speed up and slow down. You can set how many times it should repeat, whether it should repeat every time, every other time, etc. Thus technically creating flowing, modulating phrases that go to new areas harmonically that you might not explore yourself.

Multi-generator

This box is a sequence generator, that creates 3 midi sequences on separate tracks at once. It is a step sequencer, with 3 windows of note generation and 3 of velocity. There are many options to create and change the sequences here; you can choose how many steps each sequence has, independently, thus creating very complex polyrhythms if you want. You can reverse, shift, invert, reflect and mirror the steps, to name but a few options. There are also randomisation elements for every parameter. Then when you've finished creating, you can preview the sequence before you print to the piano roll.

The combination of these different tools means you can really take your midi patterns in directions that you didn't expect, but that still make sense musically. Here's a quick video showing how simple it is to create usable phrases from simple midi patterns:

Conclusion

I just covered the basic elements of the software - it goes much deeper than this review will allow, and is worth spending time with. I would highly recommend this program as a tool to aid with the pushing of your composition skill. If you're running out of harmonic ideas, or just want to explore a melodic theme, this is a really good way of quickly coming up with variations and alternatives that have musical relevance.

I had a few thoughts about it that I would love to see to improve the software, and it's intergration into my work process - I'd love to see it as an AU or VST plugin in itself - something that you can work directly within a DAW with - so you could explore compositional process without having to export, and import from one program to another. It would speed the process up dramatically I think. Also, there was only one level of undo. Having got used to Undo history, and unlimited levels of undo, I kept finding myself hitting apple z, and waiting for something to happen that never did. That got frustrating.

I think that Xx really lends itself to more classical-style composition - note the canonisation of melody, and scale and modulation options all pointing to a more traditional harmonic focus. However it would be short-sighted to say that this software couldn't be used in any genre really - the pattern function can create really excellent arpeggiation patterns that can be subtly changed bar to bar to create really excellent evolving synth arpeggios, the multi generator can be used to create complex beats, and subtle movement around that. The software's only really limited by your imagination.

Price
$79

... If you're running out of harmonic ideas, or just want to explore a melodic theme, this is a really good way of quickly coming up with variations and alternatives that have musical relevance. ...

Product page

PROS

Very quickly create fresh ideas on source material
Great price for what it does
Direct link to your plugins

LOVE IT OR HATE IT

If you're into your midi composition, this is a very valuable tool for you. If you spend more time in the straight up audio realm, you won't get much love from it.

CONS

learning curve fairly steep
Limited Undo function
Long load up time (if you want to use your plugins)

Softube Tube-Tech Channel Strip review: northern soul

2011-06-15T21:08:00.001+02:00

Swedish company Softube have just released a Channel Strip plugin based on emulations of the excellent hardware company Tube-tech. Based 2 hours away from Stockholm, the team of four guys have been focused on creating accurate emulations of hardware gear since 2003, picking up many industry accolades and endorsements along the way. Notable companies they've partnered with include Native instruments, Marshall guitar amps, Abbey road studios, and of course Tube-Tech, whose engineers they worked directly with on creating this latest plugin release.

The tube-tech channel strip is a bundle of four plugins: The PE 1C - an emulation of the tube-tech PE 1C, which is itself a modern emulation of the classic passive tube based Pultec EQ. The ME 1B Mid-Range EQ - an emulation of the tube-tech hardware modelled on the Pultec (MEQ-5), and The CL 1B - an LA2A style emulation Opto compressor. The fourth plugin is a channel-strip version of all three together, with bypassing and routing elements added.

I really enjoyed the PE1C - I found it to be the most flexible and useful of the three plugins. I like to think of it as a 'sweetener' eq rather than a surgical tool. You can boost and attenuate the low and high end, including the 'Pultec trick' of boosting and attenuating the low end at the same frequency range, which strengthens and tightens the sound, and has been a technique used on many kick drums and basses over the years. I found I could use this EQ on almost all sources to smoothly boost highs, and warm and fatten up the low end. It even worked well on the 2-buss at the end of a mix. Vocals, guitars, bass, drums, all benefitted from it.

In comparison with the UAD pultec plugin, which I use a great deal, I found it to be a little bit subtler in the way it affected the sound. Here's a comparison of the two EQ's. The track is dry for a bar, Softube, dry, UAD, and then repeated. The sounds are quite different, even though the settings are identical.

It's impossible to say whether one's better than the other, as they're both emulating slightly different things, but I thought it was interesting to pair them up and hear the difference.

The ME 1B is a new plugin released individually at the same time as the channel strip/bundle plugin. It deals with the frequency range the PE1C doesn't deal with. As softube say on their website - it 'is a godsend for getting a modern and focused vocal sound or that extra bite in the guitar track.' I definitely found this to be true - the EQ focuses on the narrower mid range of 200 to 5khz, and is a little more able to sculpt the sound, find the particular frequency you want to boost or cut, to give more bite, or scoop out the wider midrange, to cut some of the honk out. Whereas the previous EQ works well by itself, I feel this one works best in conjunction with the other, and needs the smooth lift of the highs to complement the work done on the midrange. You can boost the low mids and the high mids, and there is a sweepable cut that covers almost the entire frequency range of the plugin. It proved great for adding bite and brightness. Whereas the PE1C is excellent at creating smooth boosts adding warmth, fatness and glisten to a source, The ME1B is great at cutting, helping a track stand out in a mix, adding some brightness, and cutting out any muddiness or honkiness in a sound source.

CL 1B Opto Compressor
This is based on a compressor that has been used in countless records, and alongside the others is definitely considered a classic in the audio world. The elements that stood out to me immediately were the inclusion of external sidechain capabilities, and the fast attack time (0.5ms). Both are very useful attributes that are not always present on other software compressors - there have been many times when I've been frustrated by the lack of external sidechain on the particular compressor I've been using. This compressor seemed to work well on all sources. I think that because it's emulating the hardware faithfully - and as this hardware is tube-based, I found it pretty coloured, and sometimes I felt like it muddied the sound a little. But gentle compression on larger sources, such as room mics, or piano, it sounded brilliant to my ears.

Bypass and Routing Panel
You can bypass any unit to save CPU, and route the EQ before or after the compressor. I loved the routing switch. The order you compress and EQ can have a massive difference on the sound, and it's great being able to A/B them without having to physically move the plugins around on the DAW. That saved a lot of irritation! With the addition of the Bypass switches, I thought that it made having the separate plugins a bit redundant - why not just load the Channel strip up every time and bypass the modules you're not using?

Softube have included quite a few videos on their website, which will help anyone find their way around the software more easily, and even give tips on the best order to use the software in.

Here's a track played without and with use of the Tube-Tech Channel Strip

Conclusion
The EQ was lovely, the midrange EQ even lovelier. The compressor was good, I really loved the external sidechain option - Not many others have these. Not having easy access to the hardware originals, it's hard to give a direct hard to soft comparison - but I'll take comfort in the fact that Tube Tech fully endorse these plugins, and Softube worked side by side with engineers at Tube Tech to create the software. If you love the sound of Pultec, or the outboard from Tubetech, then for the cost, you can't go wrong with the emulation Softube has created. It really does sound excellent.

Price
$699

...If you love the sound of Pultec, or the outboard from Tubetech, then for the cost, you can't go wrong with the emulation Softube has created...

Product page

PROS

CPU not too heavy
Sounds brilliant - fast compressor, nice coloured EQ
GUI is beautiful

LOVE IT OR HATE IT

If you're looking for a specific emulation of TubeTech hardware, there's probably nothing out there that compares. If you're looking for less characteristic plugs that cover every angle, this isn't it.

CONS

Quite expensive, especially for small or mid-sized studios (although compared to $8000 for the original hardware..)
Do you need the other plugins alongside the channel strip?

by Andy Dollerson

Audiodamage Panstation review: powerful panning

2011-06-13T15:23:00.007+02:00

Back when audio production was strictly an outboard, hardware affair, the use of pan in the stereo spectrum was quite an art form. From the late-60s onward, the stereo field has been widely used to create space within an audio recording, and often, to create intriguing special effects.
In the plug-ins era the most remarkable examples have probably been the good old Waves Mondo Mod and the recent Soundtoys Panman.
Audiodamage's Panstation (AU/VST) is the latest entry, and as often happens with AD's stuff, it has some peculiar features and design choices that should put it on the wishlist of many of us DAW users.

The cross-platform plug-in is a veritable assault weapon of auto-panning goodness, inspired by two renowned vintage units: the Drawmer M500 and the Audio & Design PanScan. The interface has everything you will need to create tempo or audio synchronous panning effects. In true Audiodamage form, the controls are simple, with a visually contrasting red/white/gray on black motif. Among the most interesting of the options presented in Panstation is the ability to assign a wave shape to the pan frequency and synch it to the host tempo or incoming audio. Add to that, controls for phase, depth, and rate of pan.
These features let the user create much more than simple pans and sweeps across the stereo field, they allow the user to create mind-bending auto-pans and trembling tremolo-like effects.
Panstation's parameters are able to be automated from your VST/AU host, adding to the possibilities. The plug-in's trigger source is also able to be linked to incoming MIDI pan CC, allowing Panstation to integrate smoothly with outboard MIDI synthesizers.

Conclusion
Panstation is a panning super-weapon that brings the fun back to the stereo recording. The simple controls are intuitive and inspiring. The contrasting display is nice; however, it would be nice if the numeric values for each parameter were able to be clicked, so that the value could be manually entered. That minor hiccup aside, Panstation is a seriously stable plug that is light on resources and high on usefulness, making it a welcome addition to anyone's plug-in arsenal.

Price
$39 (no demo available, full refund policy, no questions asked)

...a veritable assault weapon of auto-panning goodness...

Product page

PROS

Powerful, yet simple controls that actually work
Highly CPU-efficient
Affordable

LOVE IT OR HATE IT

Panstation bares the distinction of being at the head of its class in terms of auto-panners. What's not to love? If you've longed for more options in panning within your DAW, Panstation is the ultimate answer.

CONS

Needs the ability to manually enter values by clicking.

Sonimus Satson review: console emulation is the new trend

2011-06-06T01:45:00.014+02:00

In the past 15 years or so, as the computer-based digital recording phenomenon has steadily eclipsed the analog method at practically all levels of enthusiasm, from amateurs to professionals alike, one constant complaint has been the “lack of character” often perceived when working in the digital realm. At the center of that argument is the apparent move away from the implementation of the analog recording console. In the days of tracking to tape, the console was the centerpiece of the studio. In the case of large pro facilities, these consoles came to be mammoth electronic wonders from storied manufacturers like Solid State Logic (SSL), Neve, EMI, and Trident, to name a few. As a microphone or line level signal was passed into these consoles, the signal was affected by the circuitry along the way. Different manufacturers would employ different components and circuit designs of varying complexity, adding subtle twists and turns to the sonic imprint of each console. Even the physical distance of an input channel from the output buss was known to affect the sound, especially in the case of particularly large boards.
Often, the effect of the console can be heard, even by the unsuspecting novice. Many great sounding records over the years can attribute some part of their sound to the console employed by the engineers and producers who made the album. Examples of “simply cannot-miss” console tonalities captured on record include: Michael Jackson's Thriller (recorded on a Harrison 3240), Nirvana's In Utero (Neve 8078), Queen's eponymous debut album (Trident “A” Range), Nine Inch Nail's The Fragile (a record that literally encapsulates the SSL 4000 G+ sound), and of course, Pink Floyd's The Dark Side of the Moon (EMI TG12345).

For several years, it appeared that “the console sound” would be lost in the age of the computer-based digital audio workstation; however, recently, a new breed of plug-in has emerged to address the issue: the console emulation. Now, Sonimus has issued a plug-in called Satson, that enters into the relatively uncrowded field of console emulations. Satson is moderately priced at just $39 USD and is available as a VST/AU for Windows and Mac in both 32– and 64–bit varieties.

A quick look
The plug–in is a snap to install, using personalization in lieu of more user-unfriendly software protection models. After the quick installation, the user is greeted with two very modest and simple-looking plug-ins: Satson Channel (designed to mime a console input channel) and Satson Buss (designed to model a console main, complete with crosstalk). The Satson Channel interface is quite simple, with two large, clear analog-style VU meters, a gain knob, high and low pass filters, a “Fat” switch, and an “on/off” type bypass switch. The Satson Buss is even more simple as it loses the filter section and offering only “Fat” and “On/Off” switches.

How does it "sound"?
Departing from the methods of predating competitors, Satson does not make much of an attempt at emulating any one particular console. The fact of the matter is, though, that the general tonality of Satson is more akin to SSL than anything. In gentle settings, the plug-in sounds clean with just a hint of added dimensionality. As the gain control is pushed, the sound tends to break-up slightly on the top end , again in a very “SSL” sort of manner.
“Subtle” is definitely a word that describes the impact of Satson in most milder settings with the “Fat” switched off. Engaging that parameter is where the fun begins. In essence, the “Fat” switch adds some low frequencies in a way that models the grand old Neve console's of the 1970s. Like those coveted consoles, Satson's “Fat” switch imparts a certain warm, buttery sheen to the signal. In using Satson to create the demo tracks (in Reaper), I found the “Fat” sound to be so desirable that it became my default setting for Satson.

Another great tool found in both Satson Channel and Buss are the VU meters. These meters are calibrated to function responsively, just like real-world meters. These meters fully support proper gain-staging needed for professional mixing situations and let the user make a better judgment of the volume needed for a particular track. The respective high and low pass filters, found on Satson Channel, are another great addition to the plug-in. These filters are particularly musical and smooth, especially in terms of software filtering. The high pass can be used to clear the “mud” right out of a mix. I found this very useful for isolating some muddy electric guitar tracks in a mix, leaving the overall tonality as punchy as it was recorded, without stepping on the frequency range of the bass and kick.

Used on anything deemed to be a “buss,” Satson Buss adds sonic cross talk and even more spatial girth to the tracks already ran through Satson Channel. This effect is again, subtle, nevertheless it becomes more dramatic in the context of a dense mix featuring multiple channels and buses all treated by individual instances of Satson. Just like a real-world console, routing the signal through various instances of Satson “clusters” certain frequencies in a very “analog” sort of way, blurring the jagged edges of sterile sources and brittle highs. The Satson Buss is slightly limited in terms of controls, having only a “Fat” and “On/Off” switches, but this is very much in line with outboard console operation. Sometimes, limitations are just what is needed.

CPU impact
Perhaps the best features of Satson altogether are its modest price and extremely low CPU impact. Operating in 32-bit mode on my i3-equipped Lenovo laptop, each individual instance of Satson occupied less than. 0.5% CPU, making its use a reality across all tracks and buses. These metrics also compare favorable against Satson's few competitors, which are all considerably more costly in terms of performance (and price). Switching to 64-bit operation offered equally impressive results, with that version of the plug-in clearly tightly coded as well.

It may be obvious but...
What Satson is not is a “magic fix.” Satson has no presets. It has no secret voodoo that will make bad mixes come to life. Songs will never mix themselves, even on analog consoles. Satson is great at being Satson: a plug-in designed with the seasoned mix engineer in mind. If you are the type who understands building a mix from scratch and who appreciates the subtle nuances imparted by console circuitry, then Satson is for you. If you are looking for instant “Chris Lord Alge,” then you may want to look to the pricey “Signature” plug-ins on the market. Still, the bottom line is that Sonimus Satson represents both an incredible value and a technical marvel in terms of console emulation. The sound is truly that of the analog realm. Satson's CPU performance puts the plug-in at the head of the class in the world of console emulation plug-ins, and the $39 price tag makes Satson a “no brainer.”

Conclusion
Sonimus Satson is a highly efficient, cost-effective entry into the exciting world of console emulations. Satson boasts quality sound and tight-coding, making it useful even in the very densest of mixes. The plug-in is very subtle in effect and is clearly aimed at the discerning, audiophile engineer.

Price
$39 USD

...The sound is truly that of the analog realm. Satson's CPU performance puts the plug-in at the head of the class in the world of console emulation plug-ins, and the $39 price tag makes Satson a “no brainer”...

Product page

PROS

Clean sound, great filters
Excellent "Fat" mode for vintage tonality
Extremely CPU- efficient, tightly-coded and stable

LOVE IT OR HATE IT

If you are looking for the "magic bullet" solution to make your mixes shine, Satson is not for you. If you can appreciate subtle sonic nuances comparable to those found in high-end consoles, then Sonimus Satson is a must have at this price.

CONS

Interface is a little dark in contrast
Sound may be too "subtle" for some users

By Todd Spear: spear.todd@gmail.com

Sausage Fattener: loudness war gets greasy

2011-05-26T15:16:00.006+02:00

The world doesn't need more tools for the loudness war. True, but... who can say no to a good, greasy sausage (sorry vegetarians!)?
Welcome to Dada Life and their Sausage Fattener, a plug-in that, well, compresses, saturates and can get a nice sausage out of your bounced tracks.
The video below is one of my fav of the year so far...

The plug-in was actually developed by Tailored Noise, in collaboration with Dada Life (a team of Dj/producers), and it looks like more will follow. I hope they'll keep on making funny videos like this one!
Dance and Electronic music producers may be the main target here, but even other users could find Sausage Fattener good for their tracks, why not? Just be careful when trying it on songs where you want to preserve the original dynamics.
Unfortunately no demo version (yet?). The plug-in is 29$, more or less like a very good homemade sausage.

Price
29$

Product page

Tronsonic Waveform 72

2011-05-26T12:55:00.005+02:00

Tronsonic is a new sample libraries' developer, based in UK. If you're into vintage and "dirty sounding" synths, this may be worth reading. Two products available at the moment, Waveform72 and Logandy.
We've taken a look at the first one, Waveform72, that samples a famous monosynth from 1972 - all 7 waveforms plus pink and white noise, recorded to worn tape on a 1965 valve tape recorder.
They call them "mellotronized" libraries, but this term may be a bit misleading. These libraries have nothing to do with the original Mellotrons and no Mellotrons have been used to create them. It's just that the recording/sampling process is inspired by the Mellotron and similar devices (Birotron). So basically here we have a hybrid "tron/synth" product, with vintage sound qualities.

With Waveform72 you get both the basic oscilators (plus pink and white noise) and a good collection of presets (bass, leads, pads, sfx, motion), for EXS24, Kontakt.
Kontakt users get also some multi-patches, while Logic users can create them layering several EXS24 tracks (examples are provided). Structure and NNXT are compatible too, but no presets are included in the package.
The library sounds good, I've enjoyed the almost unpredictable qualities of some presets. Just be careful with the volume in your DAW. In some cases you may get a clicky sound, reduce the Attack if that happens.

Waveform72 is on sale for 10.99£. No big risk here, if you like the demo above (you can listen to a few presets on the website too) you know what to expect!
Since I'm a big fan of the Logan, I hope to have a look at the Logandy library in the next weeks too. Let's keep an eye on Tronsonic...

Price
10.99£

Product page

GRM Tools 3 review: a classic reborn

2011-04-28T11:39:00.003+02:00

It's been a long time since I used GRM tools, from back in my University days at Birmingham UK, where I was lucky enough to study under the tutelage of one of the foremost electroacoustic composers of this generation: Jonty Harrison.

Ina-GRM as they are now known, come from a long heritage of electroacoustic music, tracing all the way back to one of the godfathers of Musique Concréte - Pierre Schaeffer. GRM, which stands for Groupe de Recherches Musicales, have just upgraded their fantastic GRM tools effects software, and with the release of the 3rd generation, have introduced a brand new bundle of effects - the Evolution bundle, comprising 3 new effects that complement and contrast with the other 12 effects, making 15 in total. Alongside the new effects, GRM have done a lot of work on revitalising their stalwart plugins, with some new features, new looks, and significant re-programming.

GRM tools have a reputation as an excellent group of sound manipulation and design effects plugins, and are used within a wide range of sonic art: from electroacoustic music, through commercial electronic music, to foley and sound design for film, tv and video games. Many of the GRM tools are based on FFT, or fast fourier transform; a mathematical analysis technique developed by Joseph Fourier back in the 1800's for solving equations regarding heat and metal plates. But I digress..

Written using GRM Classic and ST

For those of you who are unfamiliar with GRM tools, I'll quickly cover the older effects, and then review what new features come with the update, as well as cover the new bundle of effects in a little more depth.

CLASSIC AND ST BUNDLES: QUICK RECAP

CLASSIC: a bundle of 8 effects plugins

Band Pass
Is what it says. Stereo or mono, linked or unlinked, this effect plugin creates a strong bandpass on the incoming audio, and with the large XY parameter control window, it's easy to adjust the bandwith and frequency range of each channel with a single control. It's nice having dual mono channels - you can bandpass the audio separately in each channel, creating a lot more movement in the sound you're working on.
Doppler
Doppler is a panning effect on steroids. It enables you to position your audio in a stereo space, but also to automate its movement within the space, whilst at the same time altering the pitch and speed. One of the side effects is being able to create the doppler effect as something flies past your ears: hence the name.
Freeze
Freeze is a lot of fun. The incoming audio scrolls by in the GUI main window. With a click of the freeze button, You can then stop the sound in its tracks, literally freezing a clip. You can create several loops of the audio to thicken it, and pitch shift and feedback the outgoing sound. You can narrow the clip selected down from a few seconds worth to a tiny amount of samples long, which in turn creates long spacious sounding drones or pads, regardless of the type of audio incoming.
Shuffling
Shuffling takes clips of the incoming audio and shuffles it around in time, moving it back and forth, so it's not quite a delay, but can sound similar. You can choose the size of the clips to shuffle, and how far away from the original sound in time they appear. Can create a lot of movement to a sound.
Delays
Delays is taking the delay line idea to the max. You can choose up to 128 delay lines, choose when they appear, how the feedback looks, and you can create temporal variation as to when each delay line appears. It can create anything from a shuffling type sound, to a resonant buzz on the end of the incoming audio.
Pitch accumulation
Again, it does what it says on the label. The incoming audio is repeated as much as you like, and is re-harmonised all over the frequency spectrum. There are two transpose channels that take the incoming audio and repeat it up or down the frequency range, accompanied by feedback and delay. The parameters that can be manipulated enable you to create anything from a small doubling-type effect, to a huge wall of sound. You can turn a single voice into a crowd with not much effort.
Comb filters
5 band parallel comb filters on sliders enable you to pick the frequency of each filter, and add resonant feedback to each separate filter, enabling you to create anything from subtle boosts to certain frequencies, to turning short percussive sounds into long sustained chords.
Reson
Reson enables you to boost resonant frequencies. Up to 128 bands of resonance can be used. They can be distributed evenly or randomly across the frequency range.

THE SPECTRAL TRANSFORM BUNDLE: a group of 4 effects plugins

Freqshift
Is basically 2 effects in one, that can be used separately, or in combination. The first is a simple but great sounding pitch shift that goes up or down an octave. The second is a frequency scale effect. that scales each separate frequency band (from a range that you choose) up or down. The XY window in the middle of the GUI enables you to activate both effects at once.
Freqwarp
Freqwarp is a very fun sound-design tool. I use this one a lot. Basically it's an XY graph of the frequencies of the input sound running horizontally, and the output frequencies running vertically. There is a diagonal line that represents the intersection between the incoming original audio (horizontal) and the affected audio (vertical) you can place points on the line, and move them anywhere on the graph, so incoming audio frequency at that point changes to wherever you place it on the vertical access. It allows for wild timbre shifts, and frequency changes in small areas of the sound. This can TOTALLY change the sound you're working with. Very inspiring.
Equalize
A 32 fixed band mono or stereo equalizer. The advantage of this one is again in the real-time manipulation of the audio. I've posted a video showing what you can do real time, and also how simple it is to automate GRM tools within a DAW.

Contrast
Contrast is the only Compression/Expansion-based effect in the bundle. Not your regular compressor expander, it gives you the capability of getting very creative in the way that you use the plugin to mellow or excite the audio from subtle to extreme ends. The effect groups the incoming audio into strong, medium and weak amplitudes, and then lets you manipulate each group separately. This is a very useful plugin for adjusting the energy of a sound. Depending on which group you manipulate, you can mellow the intensity, or energise the intensity of the audio.

SO WHAT'S NEW HERE?

Well, actually quite a lot. For starters, the GUI has been updated nicely. It's easier to read, and is frankly prettier than the slightly utilitarian older plugs. You can now re-size the windows too. Bigger's always better right?

GRM tools place a lot of emphasis in the design and structure of their plugins for real-time manipulation of sound. There are several universal parameters that are present on every plugin with this in mind. These features have been massively improved, and added to. Here's the list:

UNIVERSAL FEATURES

X-Y window - the main features of each effect are present in the main window in the GUI. These enable you to manipulate the main parameters with a mouse, or other XY midi controller.

ELASTIC BAND - This is a new feature to enable smoother control of live manipulation - if you hold down the apple/option key while using the mouse, a 'rubber band' appears between the control knob and the position of the mouse. the knob/slider/point will then begin to move smooothly towards the mouse position. So if you're wanting slow steady movement, this is the tool to use.

PRESETS - on the right hand side of the window there are 14 preset points that you can save, as you improvise and play with all the different parameters of an effect. These can be saved, and even morphed between, either manually with the performance slider (at the bottom of the window), or within a timeframe that you set yourself.

TEMPO MATCHING - when used within a DAW, the tempo based parameters can be matched to the tempo of the host DAW, by shift clicking on the parameter.

AGITATION - Another new feature adding a further element of randomness and manipulation to most parameters in the effects - there is an agitation amount and time that can be applied to any parameter with a pink button next to it (selecting the pink toggle button allows that parameter to be affected by the agitation). Agitating the selected parameters increases and decreases the amounts according to the percentage and speed you've chosen.

MIDI IMPLEMENTATION - a very simple to use, but comprehensive midi implementation allows you to 'learn' any hardware control element to any parameter, just by moving the parameter and midi control element at the same time. Very useful for quick integration between hard and software. There is a useful midi control window that can be opened from the bottom of every effect - to manage any midi control you've implemented.

MULTI-FORMAT - I love this new feature. GRM now has a much wider platform and user base potential: Every effect is standalone, and also comes as a VST, AU, RTAS plugin version too, for integration into any DAW. One new addition I loved about the standalone is the ability to record .wav files as you go - drag and drop the audio you want to manipulate, start a new recording from the file menu, and it records and saves audio of everything you do as you play around in the effect. This for me is excellent, as it really speeds up my workflow.

MULTI CHANNEL - some of the plugins include the ability to utilise multi channel output, in several different formations; Quad, 5.0, 5.1, and 7.1. Not all the plugins have this ability at this point, but this has a lot of potential for sound-design.

All these features really are what GRM tools are all about - real time manipulation of sound in very powerful and simple ways. Some of these features have been present since the incarnation of GRM tools, but in this version, they are much more flexible, powerful, and above all, very stable. I don't know if the effects have been re-written since I last used them, but it sure seems like it. They didn't crash or freeze once while I was using them.

THE NEW BUNDLE!

With GRM tools3 comes a bundle of 3 new effects that complement and contrast with the original set:

Evolution

Evolution is used to obtain continuous evolution of timbre by frequential sampling of the input signal.'

As soon as I started using Evolution, I fell in love with it. It is a beautiful piece of algorithm that enables you to slow down audio to the point of freezing it, but also to evolve slowly between sampled points in the audio file. For creating slowly evolving smooth sounds, as organic, or electronic as you want them, this is a perfect plugin. It's similar to the freeze plugin, but with more variety and dare I say it, evolution of sound within it. In terms of creating audio, it performed flawlessly. Smooth beautiful sounds that hold no glitching, and don't seem to tax the CPU of the macbook pro I was using to create the sounds. Here's a video of Evolution in action, with audio taken from a recent road trip to Santa Fe.

Evolution samples the incoming audio at periodic intervals. It then interpolates (kind of morphs) between the present sample, and the previous sample. You control how it morphs, and how long it takes to morph. You can control how many bands you want to sample with (sort of like bit rate) from a very organic and smooth texture with 65536 bands, to a more digital and bit-reduced sound of 128 bands.

I was very impressed with how smooth the interpolation was. There was no clicking, unless you changed the band rate mid sound, which is to be expected. The XY parameter window enables you to change the pitch shift and pitch scale of the audio file. moving it around quickly created smooth slides and sounds that remarkably to me had no digital grit, clicks or pops.

I really liked the purity slider. This basically filters out the less prevalent frequencies as you increase the purity, which means that the frequency bands narrow and narrow until you're listening to pure sine waves at whatever frequencies are strongest in that sample. To be able to go back and forth from a wide spectrum organic sound, to narrow wave bands that sound much cleaner and more 'electronic' is very nice indeed. Definitely my favourite aspect of this plugin.

Fusion

Fusion modifies a sound by playing on delays, filters offset and frequential sliding.'

Fusion is a sonogram-based delay manipulation tool. The main window shows a smooth moving sonogram of the audio file, moving left to right.

There are 8 'playheads', or bands that intersect with the sonogram as delays, at any point in the audio. These playheads' parameters can then be manipulated in terms of bandwidth, feedback, frequency sliding - which is sort of placing the 'playhead' at an angle, so the sound slides up or down the frequency range, creating a kind of glissando effect.

One small bug I found with the software was when trying to manipulate the GUI elastic bands when the delay times were set to the clock of the external DAW, the software responded in a strange way - it couldn't cope with the delay time changes. Not too big a deal, and I'm sure that is something that can be worked out.

Fusion seems to work best to me on percussive sounds. It's harder to pick delay times out when its used on ongoing sweeping sounds. However, it's not to be limited there. Here's a video of me using Fusion with a simple groove in Ableton live.

I really liked Fusion. I didn't find it immediately as appealing as evolution, but with a bit of messing around, it did come up trumps with some interesting sounds, especially on rhythmic material.

Grinder

Grinder is used to degrade a sound by freezing its frequential or time changes, and by modifying its spectral resolution. It also enables interesting vocoder effects.'

Grinder is an interesting plugin. Sort of like a vocoder, sort of bit reduction. The maths behind it is fairly complicated, but it still manages to fit in a sound-design gap that hasn't been filled by much else. It definitely creates some interesting sounds. One of the things I like about Grinder is that you can modulate the sound with the amplitude of an auxiliary input audio file, as you would with a vocoder. This can create some interesting sounds indeed - half-way between a vocoder and bit reducer.

Here's a video using the Grinder plugin:

ISSUES?

Many of the issues I used to have with GRM have been significantly reduced, if not resolved. As I mentioned briefly above, plugin stability used to be a problem. Because these plugins sometimes needed a LOT of computer processing power, my computer could not always handle them, and it would regularly freeze (not intentionally!) or crash. Now, it seems like this is under control, and a combination of greater computer power, and improved programming (maybe?) has massively stabilized the software. In fact, I didn't have any glitching, freezing, crashing or any other issues whilst using the plugins fairly intensively.

64 bit implementation is not available yet, but that is not GRM's issue. they're waiting on dongle makers Ilok to come out with 64bit implementation, and as soon as that is ready, they'll be good to go. There's also no TDM support at the moment, or PPC, but I think that's to be expected now (well, PPC anyway)

Conclusion

I think that GRM has taken software that ruled the roost in university sound labs and sound-design studios, and with new features and improvements have made it much more accesible to the project studio, to more commercial mainstream music, and even to live performance, with the addition of new formats, midi implementation, and much better stability. In my opinion, there is nothing else that comes close to GRM in terms of simple yet unique real-time creative manipulation of sound. There are of course many other programs that do similar things, but you're going to need to know how to program, or really take time learning your way around software such as Max for Live, to get effects that in this case are instantly at your fingertips. The update brings a much greater level of flexibility, accesibility and stability to this already fantastic bundle of sound manglers. Instantly into the top 5 plugins I'll find a way to use on absolutely everything I do. Brilliant.

Price

All the bundles are still on introductory pricing at Don't Crack Audio:
$689 for the complete GRM bundle
$289 for the Classic bundle
$289 for the ST bundle
$389 for the Evolution bundle

... In my opinion, there is nothing else that comes close to GRM tools in terms of simple yet unique real-time creative manipulation of sound...

Product page

PROS

Incredible sound quality
Instant and simple to use real-time manipulation
Did I mention how good it sounded?

LOVE IT OR HATE IT

Maybe if you were looking for bread and butter mix plugins this might not be the right choice

CONS

No TDM
Fairly pricey

by Andy Dollerson

Moog Polyphonic Theremin: our pick for April Fools' Day

2011-04-01T15:56:00.004+02:00

If you've always dreamed of a polyphonic Theremin, well, the engineers at Moog may have something for you...

"Today (April 1st), Moog Music engineers carrying on the legacy of visionary founder, Robert Moog have announced the first major technical Theremin design advance in over 40 years. The PolyTheremin™ incorporates bleeding edge IsoDirectional Inductive Oscillator Technology, to isolate space around five individual pitch antennas thus enabling each to be played simultaneously (finger-by-finger) without interference from it’s companion antennas. This revolutionary concept breaks the long held belief that the Theremin could only be monophonic instrument.

The PolyTheremin ships with Dorit Chrysler’s instructional video “Playing the PolyTheremin is Even Easier Than Playing a Monophonic Theremin."

Goldbaby IAMK3M review: digital is the new vintage?

2011-03-22T22:29:00.009+01:00

Goldbaby is a small independent sample creation company that provides solid sample packs of various analogue sources. This latest sample pack is from the K3M synth created by Kawai. The K3M is a subtractive synth made in 1986. It had an 8-bit wavetable for the oscillators, which then ran through some analog filters, creating a distinctive gritty yet lush sound.

This sample pack contains roughly 600 mbs of sampled goodness that slot into either your Native Instruments Kontakt(3) sampler, or EXS24 if you're on Logic. There are almost 1500 samples divided into 6 folders - Drums, mono, poly, multi, Raw, and Wave osc. The multis are just for Kontakt users.

The mono folder contains nice basses and leads, the poly has some awesome pads, fake strings, and other awesome 80's sounding synth patches. There's a bit of organ, piano, bells and brass scattered amongst the rest are a few bell, brass and other patches in there too. Throughout the whole pack, there's the distinct 8-bit timbre, very nicely warmed up directly within the sampled K3M, and later through various analogue hardware. All in all, it's a very nicely balanced sample pack that contains tasty samples of a bit of everything. If I was to gripe at all about it, I would moan about only one sampled drum kit, which is mildly disappointing. But that kit still sounds great, and there's a little FX pack to sweeten the deal. I really liked the inclusion of the raw oscillator sounds, enabling you to use the synth power of Kontakt or EXS to create sounds from the ground up. Very nice!

Here's a short track using the samples in the pack:

Conclusion
Goldbaby consistently get good reviews from around the globe, and I'm that this one will fare no differently. The K3M is a great little sample library for some sweetened 8-bit sounds, that have been very cleanly recorded.

Price
$49

... it's a very nicely balanced sample pack that contains tasty samples of a bit of everything...

Product page

PROS

Cheap
warm analogue sound
Balanced selection of sounds

LOVE IT OR HATE IT

if you're really not into 80's or 8 bit, walk away... or just get over it and get creative

CONS

Needs more drumkits
only 2 sample formats

by Andy Dollerson

Portable Vocal Booth review: less noise, more focus

2011-03-10T17:13:00.012+01:00

Do you record vocals, small percussions, voice-overs or podcasts in your home studio? Well, there's a good chance you may need a tool like Real Trap's Portable Vocal Booth.

The Portable Vocal Booth gives you a better "controlled environment for recording vocals and spoken narration in acoustically hostile spaces". I've tested one and I'm definitely pleased with the results.
The PVB is very easy to mount (quite light too: 5 kg - 11 pounds), even for someone not into D.I.Y like me (see the pictures on this page).
Do you have a cheap mic stand? No problem. In my test, it worked great and the PVB should fit any stand.

The PVB is much bigger than other similar tools you've probably seen in the past two-three years. The size matters in this case, since you get a more effective rejection of unwanted noises and a more focused sound.
I've found the Portable Vocal Booth to be a very helpful tool for singer-songwriters as well as podcasters or even to record acoustic instruments like little percussions, especially in less than acoustically perfect rooms.
Don't expect it to be magic, though. If you live on a noisy street and want to record your podcast or a quiet vocal track, you should consider other options.
For technical analysis, frequencies and such things you can find plenty of details on the product's page.

Conclusion
For some readers the 299$ price tag may be high, but if you consider the Portable Vocal Booth's value in the long run and if you want to improve your recording quality, I'd definitely consider getting one.
For European readers in the Euro area: shipping is not cheap (approx. 70$) but considering the dollar-euro exchange the total price is much lower than it seems at a first look.

Price
299$ + shipping

...a very helpful tool for singer-songwriters as well as podcasters...

Product page

PROS

An effective tool
Very easy to mount

LOVE IT OR HATE IT

It's not a magic wand

CONS

A bit pricey
The slideshow on the website is great, but it would be nice to get a printed version in the package

Free pass for NAB 2011: pro audio, recording, mixing and more...

2011-03-03T12:57:00.007+01:00

The NAB Show is the world's largest event for video, audio and digital media professionals. The 2011 edition (April 9-14, Las Vegas) will feature products, technology pavilions and education specifically focused on pro audio, recording, editing and mixing.

Interested? We have a nice gift for our readers: a special registration code that gives you free access to the exhibit floor, the Opening Keynote and State of the Industry Address, Info Sessions, Content Theater, Exhibits and PITS - a $150 value!

Visit this page to redeem or register at http://nabshow.com/register with the code SM05.
For more details on the show visit the official site.

(Photo CC by tobyx )

Stutter Edit review: BT teams up with Izotope

2011-03-02T18:13:00.002+01:00

BT has been talking about his stutter plugin for ever, and finally, since the buyout of his software company by Izotope, Stutter Edit has arrived.
In a healthy market of glitch effect style plugins, Stutter Edit has some pretty solid and excellent competition; Twisted tools Buffeater, Sugar Bytes Artillery and Native instruments The Finger, to name but a few.

How does it work?
Stutter Edit is an audio effect for both studio and live performance. It uses the audio buffer in your computer's memory to rearrange the order of incoming sound, in a controlled manner. Based around sets of 'gestures', it is possible to create simple 1/8th note stutter fills, all the way to complex sweeping transitions that dynamically build momentum in your music.

Upon opening the effect, it appears that a Masters degree in applied mathematics is needed to understand and use it. However, Izotope compensate for this excellently with a tutorial window that pops up straight away. I recommend a good read - it begins by showing you how to set the plugin up depending on what DAW you use.

There are a large amount of presets (banks of gestures mapped to different Midi notes) to get you started off, and these give a good impression of what the plugin's capable of. There are several banks of presets from BT. It's fairly unnerving how these particular presets can make your sound VERY much like the style of builds, stutters and transitions that BT creates.

As one forum contributor commented - 'It's almost like having BT in the studio with you as a consultant'. Richard Devine, another ground-breaker in the electronic music world, also contributes a large amount of presets. Again, you can hear a sound that is characteristic of his work as you go through the presets. It's literally as simple as pressing a key on your controller, and the gesture goes to work, rearranging the audio in a syncopated, rhythmic manner. Gratification is instant, and you'll spend twenty minutes messing around with one loop before you realise it.

The modules
There are essentially three modules within Stutter Edit. the stutter module itself, a noise generator, and a small effects module. All three sync and blend nicely with each other.
You can change global settings on the gesture - how long you want it to last, when you want it to trigger (quantized input, or free), when you want it to end etc. You can also get it to reverse loop (it's called Palindrome) There is a global filter, set by default to the #cc of the pitch bend on a keyboard. Pushing up gives you a high pass, pushing down is a low pass. Instant resonant filter on the overall sound.

The main Stutter module is a matrix. Within it, you determine exactly what rhythmic values you want the stutter effect to sweep through, from a 1/16 note on up. Every time you press the midi note assigned to this gesture, it'll start running through the matrix. The audio can be quantized and gated to extremes, and you can select (and move) the buffer position of the audio that you're using. I was impressed straight away at how hard it is to make the audio pop and click (in an unwanted way!) as you move around in the buffer - something that some other glitch plugins suffer from. The sound quality of this plugin is really excellent.

The second module contains 'color' effects that can be added to the Stutter. There's a stereo delay, a bandpass delay, another lo and hi pass filter, bit reduction and lo-fi, and Gain settings (sort of a wet/dry mix).

The third module; 'Generator', is the module that (to me) sets this plugin apart from most of the others out there. it is a noise maker, with a library of various looping noise-based beds and single hits. The intention of the module is to be able to manipulate the sound to create noise builds and hits to increase the dynamic tension of the stutter fills as you move into a new section of the track (for example). You can decide the length, noise table, gain, pitch, and pitch movement of the noise. There's a band pass filter, and a lo-fi effect to grunge up the sound if you want, and a gate send to the Stutter module, which blends the two modules together to sound like one very carefully crafted effect. I love this module. It enables you to quickly create original sounding sweeps and hits, and to me stand alongside the stutter module in terms of usefulness. There's a large library of sounds to build from, but I would like to be able to add samples to the noise table. Maybe in a future update? Regardless, there's plenty here to get you started.

Once you've created the gestures you want on different midi notes, saving presets is as simple as pressing the save button. When you want to organise further, there is also a preset manager that will help you re-order and rename gestures, move them across banks etc.

Here's a track that I wrote that utilizes the stutter edit a little bit.

Conclusion
I had a lot of fun with this plugin. I could quickly create useful killer-sounding rhythmic fills, ranging widely from subtle mid-phrase drum fills, to full-mix phrases that swept the music into the next section. And it was as simple as pressing one key on my keyboard. Nice. There has already been reference to the Stutter Edit effectively being the signature sound of a particular producer shoved into software. Which is true - there's a wide range of preset gestures that sound remarkably BT-ish. But that is really just the beginning. The depth of control that is in this plugin means that you can quickly create unique sounding edits that really can drive your music along. The sheer quality of the sound, and the Generator module, give this effect qualities that make it a great addition to the arsenal, rather than replacement.

Price
$249

...there's a wide range of preset gestures that sound remarkably BT-ish. But that is really just the beginning...

Product page

PROS

Extremely versatile
Fantastic latency free performance use
The Generator module

LOVE IT OR HATE IT

If you're a fan of idm, glitch, or really any electronic music this is a fantastic addition to the glitch/stutter plugs already out there, with excellent sound quality

CONS

Looks like NASA's shuttle control panel upon first glance
Only ONE gesture at a time, unlike The Finger or Artillery. But you can use one stutter and one generator gesture at the same time
Pricey compared to the competition in this market.

Octatrack review: Elektron's sampler after the first week

2011-02-10T09:33:00.000+01:00

The Octatrack has caused quite a buzz since its introduction. We got a new collaborator on board, he's one of the lucky early owners (and not new to Elektron's stuff, by the way). We asked him to tell us his impressions after the first week with this new instrument (and we also got him to take a rough "demo-performance" video while doing the test).
Here we go...

As you may know, the Octatrack it's a 'performance sampler', a kind of swiss army knife of samplers, designed to make audio mangling, looping, and so forth easy; and to facilitate live performances for electronic musicians, enhance DJ sets, and the like. Realtime slicing and tempo changes, pitch shifting and time stretching, and a variety of filters and effects are onboard, and all at one's fingertips thanks to the (relatively) simple controls. You can read about the specs at Elektron's website, or, frankly, all over the internet, so I won't rehash that here.
Instead, I'll give you my impressions of the first week or so I've spent with it, and cover the good, the quirky, and the bad of this fascinating piece of equipment. I'll start with the bad, and work backwards.

The bad
First things first, early adopters of the Octatrack are in for a few unpleasant surprises: there is no MIDI sequencing functionality in the shipped Elektron (there is a MIDI clock out). It is running V.099 of the software. Elektron has a great history of refining and providing updates to its products, and have promised the 'MIDI machines' in Q1 of 2011.
In addition, the promised 'real time sampling' is a bit confusing and not quite what it seems; there's a large series of steps needed to create a sample from a 'realtime' source, and it's not the instantaneous experience it should be. Again, this is something that can be rectified with a software update, but in the meantime, be prepared to do a little preparation to sample things 'in real time'.

Also, I found the manual confusing. Elektron products all have similar operating metaphors (you have what amounts to a 16 step sequencer, each sequencer is connected to a 'machine' which performs a specific function, etc), but it's often difficult to figure out exactly what button combination to press to work some of the Octatrack's magic. For example, It's possible to set the crossfader to select specific slices of a given sample very quickly, but the method for doing this isn't made very clear. Part of this comes from an insane amount of flexibility, and the manual is geared towards describing generalities (it's possible to set up the crossfader to control almost ANY parameter, and even specify the range it controls). I think a few specific examples would help things.

The good
Having said all that, this machine is deep, powerful, and very cool. I've spent a week with it, and I am just coming to terms with it's possibilities. There are two main machines for sample playback- "flex" and "static". Flex machines load right into the onboard RAM, whilst static stream from the Compact Flash card. Flex machines offer additional parameter choices (right now, this is limited to the sample start position). True to Elektron form, each parameter can be "locked" at each step, allowing you to make changes to individual steps in a sequence, or even changing a sample for a given step.

Almost everything can be assigned to an LFO, as well. Flex machine based samples can be sliced, for example, and then the 'start play' position can be set onto an LFO, making instant glitchy beats. Adding slices and LFO-driven filters to melodic samples transform them rapidly into unrecognizable new sounds. Careful manipulation of these parameters open up new possibilities, and it's fairly easy to find yourself playing with very simple sample sets for a long period of time. Here, I've taken a familiar sample, sliced it, placed random slices on the individual steps, then lastly added a filter with an LFO controlling one of the paramaters; by the end, the sample is completely transformed. Note that this was done in about a minute, and is more 'demo' than 'performance'.

It also works very well as a simple 'playback' or looping machine. Loops can be made to fit the tempo, or within a certain number of bars; artifacting of the sound only begins when the samples are timeshifted to an extreme degree, meaning adjustments to backing tracks or lengthier samples can be done without worrying about off-sounding music. Here I've taken a death metal song, and slowed it down then sped it back up so you can hear the timestretch in action. This was done with one of the "Static" machines, which is capable of holding very long samples.

The honeymoon goes on
Combine some straight forward samples with the Octatrack's audio mangling possibilities, and you can create 'on the fly' remixes of yours or other's material; use the optical fader to control parameters, tweak settings and add in some of the onboard effects, and, with minimal preparation, your sets can really go places. It's ideal for someone like me, who makes computer based music, and is looking to take it live without being stuck behind a laptop. But I can also envision it working well in a studio setting for quick 'pattern breaking', creation of breakbeats, or as an effects box.
Even without the promised updates, the Octatrack has a lot more to explore. I haven't worked too much with the effects, outside of the filter and the two equalizers (a 'DJ' style and Parametric EQ), or used the 'Neighbor' machine (which allows larger effects chains) at all, and I am just coming to grips with the LFO routing possibilities. It's really an amazing set of tools, in one compact package. There are a few gotchas, as but once the updates arrive, I'm fairly confident this little box will become indispensable. As it stands right now, it's simply awesome.

By Todd Elliott
You can find Todd's music on his Bandcamp page and follow him on Twitter

iZotope Nectar review: all in one Vocal Production Tool

2011-02-09T10:13:00.000+01:00

iZotope is one of those software companies who keep bringing us well designed, dedicated tools that when we have them, we think how did we live without this!
Just check out the detailed review of the Izotope RX plugin we did and look right back to the early release of sample manipulator pHATmatik PRO to see how these tools they are producing are specific but extremely versatile. I for one still love and widely use the pHATmatik, and now they bring us Nectar. The all in one vocal production package (Windows/Mac, VST, MAS, Audio Unit, DirectX) which turns out to be no exception from the rest of their tools. Im sure I will be using this one for sometime yet.

Styles and Genres
Nectar neatly comes with 11 diverse vocal production effects and styles right inside the plugin that provide us with key starting points depending on the type of track you are working with. This ultimately gives you one plug-in that's designed to give you immediate results utilising automatic pitch correction, manual note editor, breath control, a gate, compressors, saturation, EQ, a de-esser, doubler, a limiter, reverb, and delay. Each preset takes these and provides you with the correct settings, ranges, modules and parameters in order to get a vocal sound within that particular style. Often I found that these were good starting points and I almost started editing them immediately to taste and in some cases the genres didnt fit at all for what I was doing. iZotope give us a randomise button for this ad let these modules do some talking of their own!

Here are some examples:

Stadium Rock Vocals

Large reverbed vocal preset

Autotune style

Radio effect

To view and edit any particular module (effect), single click on the individual module buttons on the left hand side of Nectar's interface and by clicking on the orange power icon on the right hand side of each module will turn the corresponding module On and Off. What I found particularly useful was the ability to Solo each module to hear what it is doing on its own without any other processing and the ability to re-order the modules by simply clicking and dragging couldn't be easier. Like most of us, we want ultimate control over the way we produce anything and iZotope are not shy to this within any of their plugins. Switching to Nectar's Advanced View provides you with direct access to all of Nectar's processing modules and their controls.

Modules available include:

DE-ESSER
The Ess slider will allow you to define the amount of De-Essing that will be applied to your incoming audio. Nectar's De-Esser will apply the same amount of Ess reduction regardless of the incoming audio level and as such, there is no need for threshold or level based controls.
BREATH
Once the vocal take is saturated, compressed or limited, the singers breathing can become loud and abrasive while the vocal take itself might be just the sound you're looking for. The Breath Control module can allow you to reduce the gain of these brea ths, while keeping the sung vocals untouched. The Breath Control module will automatically detect breaths in your vocal takes and suppress them. This can be an essential tool when trying to get a very intimate or aggressive vocal sound that requires the singer to be very close to their microphone. This is a real killer feature and although I was slighlty jubious atbout how this would actually affect the audio sonically I was mighty impressed. This will save me a lot of time drawing in automation data to supres any unwanted breaths.

Here is the Stadium Rock Vocal but with the vocal suppression

GATE
You can raise the Threshold of Nectar's Gate in order to reduce the gain of any low level signals in your audio.
PITCH CORRECTION
"iZotope has leveraged years of research into pitch shifting to develop high quality automatic and graphical pitch correction. The result is natural sounding correction with simple user controls for making subtle adjustments to tuning or reworking a melody."
Allows you to access Nectar’s Automatic pitch correction. Use these controls to adjust the correction speed as well as the scale and root note that your incoming vocals will be corrected to. You can also click the Manual Editor button in order to capture and manually edit any particular note in your audio just as you might do with other autotune plugins..

Enhance
Reconfigured depending on your chosen Genre and Style, use these modules to bring out and sculpt your incoming vocals to fit your session and style.
LEVELS
Use the Preamp and Loudness sliders to adjust the settings and timbres created at the beginning of your vocal chain.
Increase the Preamp control in order to bring up the initial gain of your vocals as well as add in extra color to fit your chosen style. Depending on the Style, this can be achieved by Saturating the signal with certain harmonic profiles, adjusting certain aspects of the EQ contour, or with style appropriate compression controls.
The Loudness slider is most often used to bring up the overall comparative loudness of your incoming vocal audio. In most styles, this is done by adjusting varied compression parameters and other dynamics controls such as Limiting in order to even out your audio’s dynamic range.
SPACE
Whether with added Reverb or Delay, the Space module’s controls can help to add depth and shine to your dry incoming audio. The particular flavor and timbre of the spatial processing that is added will be tailored to suit your particular chosen Genre and Style.
Use the controls to adjust how much processing will be added, the size of that processing, and how dark or bright the added space will be.
"CREATIVE"
Unique to each Genre and Style, the “Creative” module of Nectar’s Main View can represent any number of different audio processes, all designed to further enhance or bring your particular style in a new direction. Using combinations of doubling processing, EQ contours, creative delays and echoes, extra dynamics controls, or varied saturation profiles, the “Creative” controls act as a compliment to the Levels and Space modules.
Equalizer
Adjust any of Nectar's EQ nodes in order to shape your sound to fit into your mix. Click and drag to alter the frequency and gain of any node, and use the node brackets or the mouse-wheel to adjust the Q of that particular node.

Mixing and Tracking

In order to achieve accurate and high quality processing inside of Nectar, certain modules require a larger amount of cpu usage and imposed latency (delay) upon your tracks. In general, this imposed latency is compensated for by your host audio application, aligning your tracks and preserving the timing of your audio with respect to your session. I noticed when using Nectar that it was instantly a heavy load on the processor I wondered how we would be hit in terms of latency, especially if I wanted to track with the plugin in action! Thankfully Nectar comes with both Tracking and Mixing modes which configure Nectar's algorithms under the hood for exactly this.
Mixing
The default state of Nectar, all modules will be available for use and higher quality but more cpu intensive processes will be used.
Tracking
If near zero latency processing and lighter cpu usage are required either in a recording or live scenario, engaging Tracking mode will configure Nectar to run quickly and efficiently.
In Tracking mode, the following changes will occur:
Pitch Correction - Only Automatic Pitch Correction will be available and a streamlined pitch correction algorithm will be used.
Doubler - A lower latency and less cpu intensive doubling algorithm will be used.
Limiter - The underlying algorithm is changed to a zero-latency Brickwall
Breath Control - This module is disabled as a high latency is required for its operation. When in Tracking mode, the Breath Control module will automatically be bypassed.
In order for the Breath Control module to have time to perform its analysis, it must incur a good deal of latency. The result of this latency is that the incoming audio is delayed in time with respect to the other tracks in your session. When tracking (recording) your incoming audio, if Nectar is in Mixing mode and the Breath Control module is engaged, the latency of the Breath Control module will cause a delay between when the audio comes in to your computer, and when it passes through Nectar. In these instances, be sure to switch Nectar into Tracking mode.
I, being interested in the misuse of many items in my studio, decided to run some drum samples through the different presets just to see what this would do.

Rock Drums

Nice Drums

Motown Drums

HipHop Drums

Conclusion
Nectar is definitely a comprehensive and well engineered plugin. Ultimately this is aimed at vocal production but I feel that this has a place within any instruments heart. The preamp and saturation capabilities would work really well on bass, and I could use the pitch shifting for tight and concise synth lines. The reverb to me is a little 'white noise' sounding, a little like those low end plugins which do not necessarily add room to your sound but white noise instead. The delays are excellent and the ability to change the order of the effects is a cool feature. Like I said - how did I live without this plugin?

Price
$299

...Nectar is definitely a comprehensive and well engineered plugin…

Product page

PROS

Excellent range of effects to get the sound you need
All in one package, no need for other processing
Sounds great

LOVE IT OR HATE IT

You may already have your own way of producing vocals and a set of plugins you tend to use, then you may find this slightly alienating

CONS

Hard on the processor
Reverbs sound a little cheap
Not cheap, but it may help you saving quite a lot of precious time

Bowed Grand Piano review: not your usual piano sample library

2011-02-08T17:17:00.000+01:00

Tonehammer is fast becoming one of my favourite sample library companies that consistently provide fantastic, innovative and unique-sounding products, at a very fair price to the consumer.
One of the later additions to their Piano family is the bowed piano, which is what it says - a piano that has been bowed (amongst other things) with 3 metre fishing line, instead of played the more traditional way, with fingers.

The "package"
The pack is a download only software, weighing in at 1.4GB, and will work on Native instruments Kontakt player version 4 and higher.
The installation process is simple, (although leave some time for the download, especially if your internet access is not the best), this time operating through Native instruments Service center, where you activate the library. It then shows up in the list of libraries in Kontakt.
There are 3 main bowed piano instrument sets - one with a long release tail, a shorter release, and a staccato set. Each of these three have 'lite' versions, to conserve CPU if you're running a tight ship. Additionally, there are FX and Drone Folders, with an extra 34 sound sets between them.

How it sounds
The main sounds are absolutely fantastic. Recorded with the same piano as the Emotional piano they are smooth, deep samples, and in the usual tonehammer scripting brilliance, they are easily tweakable from the performance GUI right there in Kontakt. As you might suspect from a piano, bowing the strings creates piano-like sounds with a slow attack, and are extremely resonant and harmonically rich. One nice addition is a performance legato mode - which enables you to play very smooth phrases even though it would be impossible in reality. Other changeable parameters are the attack and release, pedal dampening, and some dynamic control.

The drones were perhaps my favourite of the soundsets. They are a mixed bunch - predominantly all fairly dark intense pad sounds. But there are some that are more ethereal and I could see a lot of these blended with other pads to create some beautiful atmospheric soundscapes. They are very tweakable, and for the brooding tense atmospheres you might be in need of creating, these sounds are just perfect. Loads of organic grit, subtle distortion and drive, evolving paddy type sounds. One little performance script I loved here was the use of the Mod wheel as a swell. It enables a lot more expressive use of the drones in performance.

The FX are classed as 'bonus' material to the main library, but I thought there were some excellent sounds in there. They are mostly various types of glissandos, running various articles (picks, fingers, nails, mallets) over the strings. There is a set of hits - the sounds of parts of the piano being tapped, slapped or shut, creating an interesting bunch of clicks and hits. The use of keyswitch here is excellent. For a lot of these sets, each note is a different sample entirely (a totally different hit, or scrape, etc.) So the bottom half of the keyboard is devoted to keyswitching - enabling you to set the key of any of the samples that you play, so that they fit harmonically in whatever music you slot them into. You can also tweak the keyswitch to suit your needs. Very nice.

The convolution reverb is very tasty for the included price, and the various rooms simulated, such as the slightly more quirky 'stairwell' as well as the obligatory 'catherdral' all have very distinct characteristics that draw plenty of differences out of the sounds.

Conclusion

The tones, timbres and crazy harmonics that are created from this library are just phenomenal. Some really eerie, haunting sounds emanate from the various patches available in this library. For something that creates long sounds that are organic, familiar, but not instantly recognisable - this is a great sample set to have up your sleeve.

Price
$79

... They are very tweakable, and for the brooding tense atmospheres you might be in need of creating, these sounds are just perfect...

Product page

PROS

Unique sounding samples for use within a wide variety of genres, not least film, TV and video game stuff
Brilliant price
very flexible - lots of parameters to mess with/ great convolution reverb

LOVE IT OR HATE IT

If you're looking for unique ambience and atmosphere for your music, definitely worth the try.

CONS

compatible with Native instruments Kontakt player only

Audio Damage Phosphor review: additive addiction

2011-01-22T18:40:00.014+01:00

Audio Damage's new Phosphor instrument (Windows VST, Mac VST & AU) is another truly unique offering from a company renowned for developing innovative, evocative, and inspiring sound tools. Interestingly, Phosphor is based on the alphaSyntauri digital additive synthesizer of the early-Eighties. The original system involved a hardware keyboard controller connected to an Apple II computer – thus making the alphaSyntauri the original softsynth. With Phosphor, Audio Damage has managed to capture the essence of the alphaSyntauri in a cross-platform virtual instrument, priced comfortably at $59 USD.

How it works
Phosphor features two sixteen-part oscillators, with respective filters and delay controls for each. There are two LFO's which are independently assignable to either of the two oscillators or the filters. Audio Damage shows off their skill at making a clean UI yet again in Phosphor. All of the essential features are parlayed into a nicely-contrasting, green-on-black interface. After installation, I found myself molding and tweaking sounds in Phosphor without so much as cracking the manual. Whereas I sometimes find that many softsynths overdose on tweakability, Phosphor seems to get to the heart of the matter by offering a selection of controls that actually affect the sound in a logical manner.

Perhaps the best of Phosphor's on-screen controls is the partial oscillator design. I found shaping the waveform of each oscillator to be an incredibly fun and easy way to tailor the precise sound I wanted. This additive feature lays the foundation for another defining aspect of Phosphor: overtones. The highly controllable oscillators, when modulated by the LFOs, are quite capable of creating a sound that is complex and even mildly unpredictable in a way that hardware synth enthusiasts should find pleasing.

How it sounds
While I have no first-hand experience with the incredibly rare original alphaSyntauri, I could only imagine Phosphor's excellent sound engine to be an improvement on the original. Each of the two oscillator paths have the option of the “lo-fi” sound akin to the original, or a modern “hi-fi” sound. I found the overall tone of this synth to reside in a niche somewhere sonically between a Yamaha DX-7 and a Waldorf PPG Wave, but with more “bite” than either. Sounds could be cleaned up to DX perfection, or nearly as gritty as another great early softsynth: the SID-chip equipped Commodore 64.
Additive synthesis lends itself to creating harmonically-rich, overtone laden sounds and Phosphor is a great example of the additive platform.

The included factory patches give the Phosphor user an idea of the types of sound the synth offers. Pad-like patches showcase Phosphor's robust overtones. The synth does a great job with creating leads and basses, as well as sound effects. A quick scroll through the factory settings demonstrates the tonal complexity that Phosphor's simple controls can conjure. Using the ADSR filters, traditional keyboard sounds, such as electric pianos, are also comfortably within the abilities of Phosphor. Two user-selectable noise generation types add to the sound layering possibilities of this powerful additive design.

In this early stage of Phosphor's development, I could see room for a few subtle improvements. Notably, the oscillators could benefit from a pull down menu with a selection of basic preset waveform shapes. Also, many of the included patches were substantially peaking by default, which is easily overcome by simply turning them down. These minor details detract very little from the sheer quality of both the sound and interface of Phosphor, and will perhaps be addressed in a future update.

Conclusions
Audio Damage's Phosphor steps out above the pack to offer a palette of sound shaping tools that both pay homage to the alphaSyntauri and improve upon it. The clean interface design and top-notch sound engine elevate this softsynth to reside among the most useful and inspiring virtual instruments on the market today. The additive synth's partial oscillators are well implemented and useful. All these factors, when coupled with the synth's global LFOs, delay, and filters readily creature lush, rich (and even downright dirty) patches. With this latest offering, Audio Damage again emerges as a company of truly inspired developers bringing innovative and unique tools to DAWs around the world.

Price
$59 (USD)

...among the most useful and inspiring virtual instruments on the market today...

Product page

PROS

Exceptionally clean interface
High quality sound engine
Inspiring sound editing features

LOVE IT OR HATE IT

Unless you're masochist enough to be in love with the original synth, you should love the benefits of this modern emulation!

CONS

Could benefit from a selection of preset waveform shapes.
Some included patches peaking quite a bit

By Todd Spear: spear.todd@gmail.com

NAMM 2011 quick notes pt.3

2011-01-21T18:23:00.000+01:00

Some more stuff from NAMM 2011...

Moog Slim Phatty

The Little Phatty has already earned its stripes as a modern monosynth workhorse. I have one, it rocks, and it will probably remain part of the permanent arsenal. When I first heard about the Slim Phatty, I have to admit that I wasn't particularly excited. Sure, it could now be integrated into rack based systems, and the lower price is nice for those who have alternate means of controlling it, but there wasn't anything that hit me with a "Wow" factor and/or distinguished it from the Little Phatty. That all changed when I learned about 2 new elements of the Slim Phatty that caused me to linger too long at the Moog booth, much to the dismay of a colleague, whose meeting I missed because I was zoning out in the headphones with a Little Phatty+3X Slim Phatty combo.

1. Poly Chaining. You can link it up with other Phatties to create a polysynth whose voices are controlled by the main controller. The dream of a modern Moog polysynth has been realized. Reliability, tempo sync of parameters, presets, MIDI, CV control, and most of all the unmistakable sound are all there.

2. Support for Phatty Tuner, a free alternate scale editor for Mac and Windows computers. I've been attracted to alternate (non-equal tempered) tunings (specifically Just Intonation) ever since I first heard the early work of Terry Riley and Lamonte Young. However, my ability to explore JI has always been limited to softsynths, or coarse MIDI tuning tables which never allowed me to get precise enough to get the resonances for which I yearned. The Phatty Tuner changes that, and allows me to explore the world of non-equal tempered intervals with the richness of an analog synth. You can edit your scales in terms of Hz, Ratio, or Cents, then send them to the Phatty, which can store up to 32 different tunings. Some of the video demos online show how you can play novel sounding melodic lines in various exotic scales, but I think that they miss a really important point. To hear the unique resonances of the new intervals afforded by these tunings, you need to be able to play at least 2 notes, or have a drone against which you play the altered pitches. So, you could use polychaining with at least 2 Phatties, or pick another machine to provide a reference pitch/drone.

Moog Voyager XL

Moog certainly set the bar high with this one. It's too bad the price tag with keep this instrument out of reach of all but the most dedicated synthesists, but man, this is the best monosynth I've ever played. This is the creme de la creme of expression and realtime control. In addition to the 3 axis control surface and velocity/aftertouch keyboard (now 61 notes) from the original Voyager, this one provides a bidirectional ribbon controller. If you've never played something with an analog ribbon controller, you might not know how cool this is, but it feels like you are absolutely connected to the sound, like a fretless bass on steroids being played in front of a huge subwoofer. The patchability of the CV i/o provides seemingly limitless interfacing with other CV gear, or just within the synth itself. There are certainly many awesome virtual analog (I'm thinking of you, Virus) or softsynths that provide extensive modulation options, but in my experience something extra can happen in the analog domain. This instrument captures that magic in spades.
$5000 for a synth that plays just 1 note at a time? Well, if you're already planning on buying a Voyager plus both CV expansion units, take a deep breath, save some more, and see if you can swing the XL. I have a Memorymoog and I would trade its 6 voices for the 1 of the Voyager XL in a heartbeat.

Izotope Stutter Edit

If you are into this sort of thing, Stutter Edit is so much fun that it borders on addictive. It's unfortunate that they couldn't pick a better name for this plugin. To me it conjures an image of a one-trick pony whose sound will quickly become a cliché. This is not the case. Stutter Edit is a powerful realtime FX instrument whose possibilities go so far beyond simple rhythmic gating or glitching.
Stutter Edit is (the long awaited) BT+Izotope's contribution to the developing field of keyboard controlled performance oriented plugins like Sugar Bytes' Artillery and Effectrix (of which I'm a fan). They blur the distinction between effect and instrument by allowing you to switch between tempo synchronized groups of step sequenced effects with the touch of a MIDI key. This is often done to provide fills or accents to existing material or a live input. However it's not limited to frenetic freak-outs. It can also be used to add more subtle rhythmic or timbal variation to other backbone elements of a track. Some of the effects could be created by extensive automation of chains of existing effects in your DAW, but Stutter Edit gives a fluid interface that allows changes to be made in seconds rather than minutes/hours. Furthermore, changing effect chains on the fly via keyboard beats drawing in program changes and automation curves any day.

Arturia Spark

Arturia takes a cue from their Analog Experience-The Factory with a drum machine style hardware controller that integrates tightly with standalone software. It can, of course, also run as a plugin. The controller provides both pads and a step sequencer for entering beats, as well as a healthy amount of knobs and dedicated buttons for critical operations. The software combines classic vintage drum machine sounds (modeled with the same accuracy as their synths), contemporary kits that utilize multiple synthesis methods, and acoustic drum sounds created through a combination of sampling and physical modeling. All of these are accessible via a graphical browser. Sequences can include not only the patterns of notes, but also any variations of individual parameters on a per-step basis. These changes can be recorded in realtime or drawn in via the GUI.

You can certainly accomplish some similar things via Live, Logic, or Reason, their respective instrument libraries, and a pad controller, but the workflow isn't always as smooth. Sometimes it's nice to have a dedicated tool that does one job (or group of jobs in this case) very well, and that's where Spark wins. The Library is diverse and powerful, and the tight integration of the hardware and software makes for fun, intuitive beat creation in which you can break free from the computer screen if you so choose. At its price point, obvious comparisons will be made to NI's Maschine. Maschine has many capabilities beyond Spark, but for my taste Spark excels in its area of specialization.

My only criticism is that I did notice a tiny degree of latency when hitting the pads. This could have been due to the computer, or more likely to the fact that I was testing a beta version of the software. Hopefully this will be sorted out by the time it ships, as low latency is critical for any rhythm control device.

Spider Capo

This elegant device allows you to capo each string individually. It can be used for alternate tunings without actually retuning the guitar, creative performance techniques (e.g. changing the tuning during the course of a song), and more.
If you like the Spider Capo, make sure to check out Bob Kilgore's Harmonic Capo, which, when placed above a harmonic-generating fret (such as the 5th, 7th, or 12th), causes the open strings to vibrate at said harmonic. The cool part is that, since it's touching the string lightly from above, you can fret any string and it will behave normally. Great with open tunings.

Fuchs Verbrator tube effects loop and reverb

We live in a golden age of tube amps. New boutique manufacturers seem to pop up weekly with handmade versions or improvements of classic designs at ever-falling prices. However, one area in which they often fall short is in their effects loops. Their levels and impedances often don't interface very well with the rack mounted (or sometimes pedal) delays and multi-effect units. This mismatch causes significant loss in tone and expression that the tube amp worked so hard to provide. Also, in a serial effects loop, the entire signal passes through the effect. If you're using a digital effect, that means your entire signal (including the dry signal) just went through a stage of A/D and D/A conversion. Not always a good thing, especially with older boxes whose converters leave much to be desired.
The Verbrator solves these problems. Placed in an effects loop, it converts the level and impedance to something appropriate to your effect (there is a switch for line or pedal style effects). It sends and receives that signal to and from your effect, then gives the effected signal back to your amp's return (again at the proper level and impedance). It can send your signal to your effect serially or in parallel. In parallel mode you control which portion of your signal you want yo go to the effect, just like when using an Aux Send on a mixer. Using this method you can keep your original dry signal in the analog domain, and just send a small bit to a digital device (which would be running %100 wet). Tone preserved. I've been using another non-tube buffered effects loop device with one of my main amps, and the Verbrator blew it out of the water. Even if you don't need to interface with an external effect, the Verbrator has a very smooth reverb built in. I played it and I prefer it to my main rackmounted reverb currently in one of my guitar rigs.

Alternatively, it can also be used on a pedal board as a tube buffer and standalone reverb. The buffer converts your signal to a low impedance for better signal transmission over long cable runs, and the recovery stage can be used as a tube boost if desired.
If you just need a reverb or a simple buffer pedal, I'd look elsewhere, as there are good alternatives for a lot less $. However, if your amp suffers from the problems I've described, and you are looking to take your tone to the next level, the Fuchs Verbrator is worth a listen.

by Jesse Gay
Jesse is a musician, engineer, and Apple Certified Logic Pro Trainer in Portland, OR, USA. You can reach him here