I really love convolution reverbs. I don’t really use them with traditional space IRs (like a famous opera house). I have a collection of classic 80s hardware reverb IRs. Of course nothing is like having an actual Lexicon 480L or EMT plate but Altiverb gets you close enough. Altiverb 7 adds a very nice searchable IR photo browser, synthetic brightness add on (if wanted), drag & drop IR creation, chaos modulation and more. I can see using the drag & drop IR creation quite a lot. I would say 90% of my vocals are recorded with a convolution reverb on a send panned to the right a bit. $595 USD.
“Altiverb 7 is the industry standard convolution reverb plug-in. It uses top quality samples of real spaces to create reverb, ranging from Sydney Opera House to the cockpit of a Jumbo Jet. Altiverb 7 is efficient on the cpu, offers many parameters to tweak reverb, is total recall automatable, and has 64 bit support. Every month Altiverb 7 users receive new impulse responses for free.” audioease.com
For more info: audioease.com
This entry was written by , posted on December 11, 2011 at 4:55 pm, filed under plug-ins and tagged Altiverb, Audioease, convolution reverb, reverb. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
IRCAMAX SuperVP is a set of 5 plug-ins for Ableton Max4Live. You really have to head to the Ircam website and watch the demo videos. Each of the plug-ins SimpleTransp, Transp, Scrub, Mover and SuperVPSynth allow for some serious audio rearranging, part transposing, formant manipluations, etc… My favorite is Mover. 139 Euro.
“Mover offers a different way to control time position and transposition performed by the SuperVP engine. It displays the sound on a big waveform on witch the user can move using the mouse, its MIDI controllers or a joystick. It can be easily use to improvise on the sound material thanks to its synchronized random motions capabilities.” – ircamax.ircam.fr
For more info: ircamax.ircam.fr
This entry was written by , posted on December 8, 2011 at 7:29 am, filed under Ableton Live, plug-ins and tagged ableton, Ableton Live, Ircam, IRCAMAX SuperVP, Max4Live, plug-ins. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
There’s a long thread on Gearslutz about a video interview that came with a recent issue of Future Music magazine. Apparently the interviewee John Dahlback gladly showed off his computer screen to the FM cameras. The only problem is he was using cracked software and people were able to take screenshots from the DVD like the one you see above. He tried to smooth things over by releasing the statement below. If artists or business people can’t make a living doing what they are doing they will stop producing art and products. No one’s moral compass is always on straight but let’s try to do the right thing. Plug-ins are inexpensive and take a decent amount of effort to get into your hands. I don’t use cracks and either should you.
“Hey guys. Fun topic! Anyway, just wanted to let everyone know that I DO have the license for LennarDigital Sylenth obviously. But just like everyone else (I suppose), I want to try vst plugins out before I buy them, in case it’s ****. And when it comes to Sylenth, I bought the license straight after. Reason why I didn’t uninstall the previous version for the registered one is because I don’t know if my saved presets would stay or be deleted as well. Anyway, good discussion. I can’t speak for Avicii, but everything I use has a license. To be a producer and expect people to pay for my music and NOT pay for my gear would obviously be ****ed up. Anyway, hope everyone liked the video. The track in the video will never be released due to lack of quality in my opinion. Just wanted to show people my working technique.” – John Dahlback
For more info: gearslutz.com/john-dahlback-future-music-masterclass-crack
This entry was written by , posted on December 6, 2011 at 8:19 pm, filed under plug-ins, political and tagged Future Music, John Dahlback. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
Audiodamage has released Kominat DVA. I recorded about 45 of the presets over a Roland TR-808 loop. The first 4 bars is the 808 dry. If you listen through the presets you can hear some of them are very musical and useful. $49 USD.
“From mild tone-shaping or adding a bit of grit to full-on total waveform destruction, Kombinat Dva, the long-awaited sequel to our popular Kombinat plug-in, is a complete toolbox of sonic warfare. With 13 different options in each of the three distortion engines (plus pass-through), Kombinat Dva is capable of sophisticated and unique sounds. Want to add a ring mod to the low end, a mild tube clip to the mids, and a bit-reduction algorithm to the high end? No problem. Want to run your signal through three sine-warps or fuzz algorithms in series? This is your box.” – audiodamage.com
For more info: audiodamage.com
This entry was written by , posted on at 3:11 pm, filed under effects, plug-ins and tagged Audiodamage, Distortion, Kombinat DVA. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
I really didn’t see Steinberg re-releasing some of the very first widely used VST plug-ins Model-E and VB-1. Cubase VST was one of the biggest innovations in music production. To be able to have software instruments, effects, audio recording and a MIDI sequencer all natively running was quite amazing in the mid 1990s. The first computer I owned that was capable of running the software was a Power Computing Powercenter Pro210 Mac clone. The Pro210 had a 210MHZ processor, 16MB of RAM and a 2GB hard drive. I was able to run Model-E a Moog type clone and maybe one reverb plug-in. You can hear Model-E in my remix of for David Tarrida the “Horrormone” remix. It’s the main detuned synth. The new version of Model-E is unsupported but free. Now where is my 2012 version of Neon?
“Holy crap there’s a 64 bit version of Model E (Diva faces stiff competition)” – aMUSEd
For more info: steinberg.net/discontinued-products-revived
This entry was written by , posted on November 29, 2011 at 4:58 am, filed under music, plug-ins and tagged David Tarrida, Model-E, Power Computing, Steinberg. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
Happy Thanksgiving everyone. I have a mountain to be thankful for. I’m healthy, working and making music often. It’s only 1:30 but so far I demoed some software synthesizers I had my eye for a while. I tried the Madrona Labs Aalto, UH-E ACE and the XILS-3. They were all interesting and if your a soft synth person I could recommend them all. I did the the XILS-3 the best though. That said, they don’t compare to my new AS Telemark so I zapped them from my hard drive. I uploaded an “old” demo to Soundcloud as an apple pie was being created in my kitchen. I’m off to my mother’s house soon for the big eating. I really do appreciate everyone who visits Wire to the Ear so that’s one more thing I am thankful for in 2011.
“I celebrate Thanksgiving in an old-fashioned way. I invited everyone in my neighborhood to my house, we had an enormous feast, and then I killed them and took their land.” – John Stewart
For more info: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thanksgiving
This entry was written by , posted on November 24, 2011 at 11:32 am, filed under plug-ins and tagged Aalto, Apple Pie, Madrona Labs, Thanksgiving, The Horrorist, Things to Come Records, UH-E, XILS 3. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
Even if you don’t want to get into creating your own instruments and effects both Reaktor and Max for Live are worth getting for their user libraries of Ensembles and Devices.
“Dubspot Electronic Music Production and Sound Design Instructor Evan Sutton explains how to make basic connections and building a subtractive synthesizer using Native Instruments Reaktor’s Built In Modules in this new tutorial.” –
youtube.com/user/DubSpot
For more info: native-instruments.com/reaktor-55…
This entry was written by , posted on November 15, 2011 at 4:19 am, filed under plug-ins and tagged native instruments, Reaktor. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
Beginning next March Apple will require Apps sold through the Mac App store to be “Sandboxed”. Sandboxing keeps the app in it’s own space and restricts what it can do system wide. Apple does this on iOS to protect your phone from being hacked, taken over, etc… One side effect is that as far as things stand today you can’t use plug-ins. Obviously for musicians using sequencers this would have serious implications. Before you get into a huff we will still be able to install and use unsandboxed Apps and plug-ins as long they are not sold on the Mac App store. Two things could happen here. First, Apple could eventually require Macs to use the Mac App store. Imagine having to Jailbreak your Mac? A more likely scenario will be a new type of plug-in architecture will be implemented that works in a way Apple likes. What do you think?
“In computer security, a sandbox is a security mechanism for separating running programs. It is often used to execute untested code, or untrusted programs from unverified third-parties, suppliers, untrusted users and untrusted websites. The sandbox typically provides a tightly-controlled set of resources for guest programs to run in, such as scratch space on disk and memory. Network access, the ability to inspect the host system or read from input devices are usually disallowed or heavily restricted. In this sense, sandboxes are a specific example of virtualization.” – Wikipedia
For more info read this article: Why the Mac App Sandbox makes me sad
photo credit: Gilkata
This entry was written by , posted on November 3, 2011 at 10:04 am, filed under plug-ins and tagged apple, macintosh, plug-ins, Sandboxing. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
I’m pretty excited about this plug-in. While aimed at Filmakers NI’s new plug-in Damage has my inner Einstürzende Neubauten feeling happy. Beyond the sound set the plug-in has a lot of tricks up it’s sleeve such as an Rhythmic patters, AMP sequencer, filters, compression, saturation, trigger effects (yay), 3 mic mixer, etc… $339 and 30GB of space required will keep the amateurs away which is a plus. Be sure to check out the sound sources gallery on the NI site to see all the places they went to record all the klanging.
“Dark, aggressive, thrilling and threatening — DAMAGE is breathtaking cinematic percussion with a tense, epic edge. DAMAGE gives you 30 GB of drama, fusing industrial sounds and orchestral drums into a devastating electro-acoustic barrage. Percussive Kits provide more than 200 deeply sampled percussion sources, and over 500 single-shot elements, recorded in up to seven velocity layers and with up to nine round-robins per drum. Over 700 beat-sliced loops come as menu-style loop suites or as single loops for detailed tweaking. Even the most complex sounds are instantly usable, and it’s all in hair-raising, big-screen quality.” – Native Instruments
For more info: native-instruments.com/powered-by-kontakt/damage
This entry was written by , posted on November 1, 2011 at 8:30 pm, filed under plug-ins, sounds and tagged Damage, native instruments. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
I absolutely love audio mangling software. I cherish plug-ins like Effectrix, The Finger and Stutter Edit. The amount of wiring, tape splicing, copy, cutting, pasting, and effort you would have to go through to get some of the output these plug-ins can produce is massive. While you can go nuclear using these tools with wet at 100% I also love to kill loop monotony in subtle ways with these tools. The video above is a demo of the new kid on the block Linplug’s Relectro. I’m not sure I like the loop used but you can hear this plug-in definitely can produce some interesting stuff.
“If you’re looking for a new kind of beat/sound mangler you really should check out the manual or the description on their site. It sounds completely different than one would imagine. If you like hardcore, noise, glitch, power electronics, idm… this is a neat tool too kick the crap outa your ol’ drum loops!” – salzmanufaktur
For more info: linplug.com/instruments/relectro
This entry was written by , posted on October 21, 2011 at 4:54 am, filed under effects, plug-ins and tagged izotope, Linplug, native instruments, plug-in, Relectro, Stutter Edit, The Finer. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
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