wire to the ear

I once owned a Roland Juno 60. It’s a great synth and certainly has the classic Roland sound. The guys at Togu Audio Line (TAL) released the U-NO-60 a few years ago and have been updating thier emulation often. The 62 brings us even closer to the original.

The U-NO-60 vst plugin is a polyphonic virtual analogue synth with a unique filter sound. An original JUNO 60 is used as reference for the oscillators and filters. Like the original, the plugin is capable of self-resonance and thus could be used to some degree as a tone generator. The filter section also features controls for envelope amount and polarity, LFO modulation and keyboard tracking. In addition, a non-resonant highpass filter is provided to thin out lower frequencies. - kunz.corrupt.ch

It’s free and Mac/PC compatible so go and try it out: click here

When I record old analog synthesizers that do not have MIDI or CV control (like my Roland SH3) I often use a Chopper plug-in to make the synth sync rhythmically. An example where I did this is my song Sex Machine. The main driving bassline is actually the SH3 playing a solid note being chopped into 8th notes (audio sample below)

I recorded that song using Cubase SX3 which has a built-in plug-in called “Chopper”. But Ableton Live doesn’t have a dedicated Chopper plug-in. For Chopper duties in Live select the Auto Pan! If you want a triangle wave cutting your audio into 8th notes like in the Sex Machine audio sample below put Auto Pan on the track you want chopped, choose the Chopper preset and input these settings: Amount: 100%, Rate: 1/8, Phase: 0.00°, Shape: 100%

Sex Machine:

Of course there are many free and third party chopper, gate, trance freakout plug-ins you can also use. What’s your method?

Gearslutz is a probably the most populated pro-audio forum on the net. There is a serious amount of traffic going on there. You find find threads discussing the minor details of a five thousand dollar micpre that go thirty pages long.

Yesterday I started reading a thread started by someone who just found on a vintage Roland RE-201 Space Echo to purchase. The RE-201 is a fantastic vintage tape echo machine. Soon after Mike Manthe’s first post claiming he finally found one another person “tstu102″ answers him also mentioning he just located one and how happy he was. Do you see where this is going? Yep. It didn’t take too long for them to realize they both were talking about the same unit. Seems like the seller said yes to both because the second guy was willing to pay more money.

At first Mike thought thought tstu102 had read the thread and went after the unit. But then tstu102 did a good dead and told the seller he wasn’t going to buy the unit and he should honor his first deal. I thought it was a pretty interesting read about the Space Echo and human nature. Read the thread yourself: click here

I’ve used a real Space Echo and they are very meaty. If you can’t get a real one there a nice emulation for the UAD-1 or the new Boss Space Echo RE-20 hardware pedal. Although not quiet the same beast I find myself turning to Fabfilter’s Timeless for a effects in that ballpark.

photo credit: Lorenzo Desiati

D16’s Drumazon and Devastator. from wiretotheear on Vimeo.

Here is a screencast I put together showing a few features of D16’s incredible Roland TR-909 emulator Drumazon and their new distortion plug-in Devastor. I really like both of these. After watching the video I encourage you to head over to the D16 website and download the demos.

I’ve owned a real Roland TR-909 for many years. In fact I bought mine from Chaka Kahn! I can honestly say Drumazon is a better replacement. It’s a joy to use and you get all the nicesties of software (presets). You also get features a real 909 doesn’t have like random and automation. When you add a quality multiband distortion unit like Devastor to it you can’t help but smile. This is audio software at its best.

http://www.d16.pl/

Do you own any of D16’s products?

I’ve been in the studio a lot lately. I finally finished a string of remixes and now I can take the rest of Spring and Summer and complete my next album. I already have a few songs done and about 30 half finished songs. I’ll now go and listen to those ideas I started and pick about 10 to complete.

The song I am working on now is called “I Know Your Pain”. I get a certain audience at my shows… people like myself. I can really relate to them. I guess they feel the same way and thats why they show up! This song is more or less how I say “Yes I know how you feel”. I know when I go to a concert of a band I really like I feel connected with everyone else there. Everyone there has something in common. This song walks around that concept.

The following audio sample is completely at the demo stage. Just pure simple drum, bassline and vocal. I usually work this way without much trickery until I get a full arrangement done. The kick is my new Jomox Mbase 01, a snare sample being smashed by D16’s Devastator and the bassline is a secret (sorry). Nothing is on my voice except a little compression.

I’ll step away from this song now and not listen again until next week. When I do put my ears on it next I will be ready to move parts around and add fills and effects. The first new fresh listen is critical because I will hear it as “new”. Only then can I be a proper judge of what’s good and what sucks.

In the Nitzer Ebb song Let Your Body Learn one of the lyrics is “The Music of Drums!”. I always liked that line and concept. You can make great songs with just a drum machine and a few effect boxes. I often make songs by creating sounds solely from effects. Ableton Live’s Beat Repeat plug-in can take any audio and spew it into something wild and worthy. Here are three presets I created for Beat Repeat that you may like too:

Lazer Station

Four Four Echo

EBM Sequencer





I like to automate the Mix/Insert/Gate options. Don’t forget to adjust the filter and pitch decay to your liking.

Download the presets: click here

I really like all of AudioRealism’s plug-ins. They sound really good and have features like randomize which I covet. I gave an artist endorsement to the original ABL and I am happy to see they have updated this excellent Roland TB-303 clone. If your doing any kind of modern music the swing parameter is really import (ex. minimal techno). I recently did a post about swing you can check out here: Global Groove and Swing parameters in Ableton Live. So what else did that add? Take a look:

Since 2003 ABL has established its sound as the industry standard. In 2007 ABL2 achieves important improvements in several key areas. Amongst new features the most important thing is the sound: The bass is improved for less muddiness. The filter has been improved to incorporate subtile nonlinear effects for additional squelch. The distortion unit has been improved with less aliasing. The controls have been calibrated to better match the response of the original. Moreover several new features are present: The new pattern analyzer which can be used to edit patterns and will even detect patterns from audio files. - audiorealism.se

It’s 95 Euro, Upgrade your old one for 25 Euro. VST 2.4 for PC, Audio Units and VST for Mac OS X.

Most new laptops have webcams (or as Apple calls them iSights) built in. So it’s great to see music applications starting to use these cameras. The above tech demo from the Deep Listening Institute is designed for people with disabilities but there’s no reason anyone can’t benefit from this technology. I can imagine some guitar samples hooked into the interface and a long haired metal guy moshing away!

A commercial ready music webcam application is Cycling 74’s VTheremin:

Another example of our unique approach to instruments is the VTheremin plugin. Using your webcam, you can control a pair of oscillators by moving colored balls in the air. - www.cycling74.com/products/hipno

Vtheremin is part of Cycling 74’s Hipno plug-in package. Audio Unit, RTAS, and VST. $199. Available as download or CD-Rom package.

There is also an open source webcam controller called Peripheral MIDI Controller from Ben Tan (Windows only so far):

Peripheral MIDI Controller (pmidic) is a software program that intends to act as a MIDI controller by using various peripheral devices. The initial release(s) will be focused on using a webcam as a MIDI controller with 3 dimensions (XYZ). - http://sourceforge.net/projects/pmidic/

When I perform live I have a video that plays in sync with my music dual screening from Ableton Live (remember this post?) to a video wall behind me. I just realized that I can open iChat, click the video preview window and drag that over to the video window too. This way the audience can see my face as I control Ableton. More reasons to go to the gym everyday!

Want to see a futuristic use of webcams? Check out seesmic.com. On this site people have public video conversations using recorded video messages. Anyone can read the conversations then post a video and jump in. There are already several music threads with people playing live music to each other. It’s sort of a video version of Twitter. You have to sign up for a beta invite but they send it to you within a day. If you sign up send me a video message, my screen name is: thingstocome

Lastly, on the webcam video note I have been considering doing some video posts to Wire to the Ear. I’m not sure if it’s something I want to do yet. What do you think?

p.s. “Metal Fan” T-shirt: available here

Do you remember my post “Feedback as a sound source.“? I talk about how it can be useful to add feedback into your sterile digital recordings. Up until now I have had to aim my microphone at my speakers and hit record. One major thing I don’t like about doing that is the chances of blowing a woofer are pretty high when using Yamaha NS10Ms. So I was really pleased to see a new plug-in called Acoustic Feedback by Softube which simulates feedback.

I wanted to try the demo today but when I got to the download page I realized it requires an iLok. This maybe a deal breaker for me because I’ve lost dongles and USB Flash Dives in the past. I’m also out of USB ports on my Macbook Pro. I don’t want to get into the whole copy protection debate. I don’t steal or pirate software. Companies have the right to use iLok or Syncrosoft if they so choose.

Release your inner beast with the first realistic guitar feedback simulator on the market. Go from moderate and subtle to rampant and wild by the twist of a knob (or two). To break new musical ground, try inputting a synthesizer, a violin, or even your mother’s grand piano. - www.softube.se

I really want to hear a drum machine and vocals run though this plug-in. Acoustic Feedback is $99 USD and is available in Native formats for VST/AU/RTAS, Mac/PC.

Spectrasonics has been creating a series of videos for it’s upcoming super soft synth Omnisphere. The latest video is quiet excellent. Eric Persing knows how to get you excited about a product. The video takes a time line tour of arpeggiators in vintage synths. You get to see a Moog Modular, Roland Jupiter 4, Jupiter 8, Juno 60, Sequential Circuits Prophet VS, Roland JP-800 and Access Virus all “arping” away.

I like the implementation of the step sequencer/arpeggiator in Omniphere too. The “oh nice” moment comes when he drops a Jazz midi groove template into Omnisphere and the arpeggiator locks to it. The Omnisphere arpeggiator also has a swing parameter which is vital in today’s electronic music.

To see the video click on “Continue Reading…” because it’s a Quicktime I didn’t want to have it slow down the main page of this site (it autoloads). Read “Superb arpeggiator history video from Spectrasonics.”