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

Dave Smith Instruments Tempest. An all new analog drum machine. Awesome. If you listen carefully the demo goes from all the way from 606 to 909ish with some nice Simmons tom emulation and synth stabs. There are a lot of specs but does it matter? A lot of buttons and analog stuff. $2000. link

Avid Torq 2. I secretly always liked Torq better than Traktor. I don’t know why I’ve keep it a secret. It’s just more fun to use and I like the flat interface a lot. I’m not sure 4 decks is better than two. Can you say tiny things to see in a big display? The new Traq Morph feature “blends music tracks in exciting new ways by intelligently applying audio effects during crossfade.”. That could be cool right? Lastly, the software is decoupled from any hardware so you can use it stand alone or with any controller. $250 link

Akai Synthstation 49. I want my car dash to be an iPad. Just the same let’s make my keyboard interface and sound source and iPad too! It’s from Akai so a few MPC pads are included. This will win or loose depending on quality. link

Alesis Studiodock. Professional audio and MIDI I/O for your iPad. Oh… and composite video out. I’m getting very close to being able to play an entire live show off my iPad! link

Izotope Stutter Edit. I love plug-ins like this. Stutter, a Stutter Matrix, Buffer Tricks, Bit Reduction, Pan, Gate, Delay, Filters and more take normal audio and mess it up. $149 link

Arturia Spark. I’m going to tell you right now that this new drum machine from Arturia won’t sound as good as the DSI Tempest. Your going to pay a lot less though and it does have a super fun TR style roll by sequencer. All drum machines are awesome. All of them. $600. link

Rob Papen Punch. I sense a theme at this year’s Namm. I remember it used to be work making killer electronic drum sounds, loops and patterns. Boy to kids have the toys today! If your not an analog purist Dutch Papen’s new VST punch could be of use to you. Will it compete with products like uToniq? Time will tell. link

Introducing Venom from Avid on Vimeo.

M-Audio Venom. I wasn’t excited about a new VA synth. Then I learned the price would be $499. I also learned it came with a VST editor. The marketing hype is pretty good for the new Avid synth too. link

MORE UPDATES TO COME. I will be adding things I find worthy to this post as the weekend continues.

Izotope will be releasing a vocal plug-in this month called Nectar. The software will have Pitch Correction, Breath Control, Compressors, a DeEsser, Doubler, Saturation, EQ, Gate, Limiter, Delay and a Reverb. It will be $199 at launch then jump to $299 shortly after. I use Ozone and Trash quite often and considering every song I have is graced with my voice (subject to opinion I know) Nectar could end up in my AU folder. As with other Izotope plug-ins there will be an extensive preset browser too.

“Nectar offers dozens of professionally designed vocal production styles powered by eleven processing modules. Users will select an included style and then customize it with faders tailored to that style. For further customization of their vocal sound, users can switch to the Advanced View and access all of the controls of the underlying modules that power the plug-in… iZotope Nectar is ideal for audio engineers, voice over artists, singer/songwriters, recording enthusiasts, podcasters, and anyone else who records sung or spoken vocals. Its dozens of styles cover genres including: Alternative & Indie, Blues/R&B, Classical, Country, Dance & Electronica, Hip Hop & Rap, Jazz, Pop, Rock, and Spoken Word.” – izotope.com

For more info: izotope.com/products/audio/nectar/

Work in Progress by thingstocome

Here’s clip from a song I am working on. Drums are Vermona DRM1 MKIII, Synth is layers of a Yamaha CS5 no real effects except I’m running the track through Altiverb but only for a Neuman mic IR (Impulse Response) not for reverb and Izotope Ozone for widening. Eventually the song will be longer with vocals.

“Synthpop is a genre of music in which the synthesizer is the dominant musical instrument. It originated as part of the new wave movement of the early 1970s to the mid-1980s, and it has continued to exist and develop ever since. The genre has seen a resurgence in popularity in the late 2000s/early 2010s.” – Wikipedia

For more info: thingstocome.com

photo credit: Whiskeygonebad

“iZotope kicked Beatmaker’s ass” was the title of a forum thread at Ableton.com by user beats me that made me click and read further. After I watched the video above I think beats me may be right at least as far as usability and interface are concerned. I’m a superfan of Izotope Ozone and Trash and this new iPhone app sure looks like fun.

The most interesting thing here is the interface. The way you move from loop to sequencer, pattern edit, then pattern record is all well thought out and how can I put this? Fun and swooshy!

For more info head to Izotope’s iDrum for iPhone page:
www.izotope.com/products/audio/idrum/iphone

Do any of you guys have an iPhone and music apps yet?

A few months ago I performed at a club called Rumours in Leeuwarden, The Netherlands. This required us to get picked up from Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam and be driven about two hours north. In the car I was shocked to see there was no CD player or MP3 jack. Staring me in the face was a cassette deck. Looking around some more I noticed about 50 cassettes stuffed in various places. About an hour into the drive I realized how good these cassettes sounded. There was some very nice high end going on that I had not heard in years. The bass sounded warm and sincere.

There is hardware software that will emulate tape saturation. On the hardware side check out Robert Neve’s 5042 True Tape FX unit.. Software wise there are lots of options including Digidesigns Reel Tape Suite and PSP’s Vintage Warmer.

But what if you want to bring back some good old fashion tape noise? Adding a few seconds of noise before your song starts will trigger your listeners mind into believing your song was recorded in the 1980s or earlier. My favorite plug-in for the task is Izotope’s free plug-in called Vinyl. Here’s a list of some of the “sounds” you can add into your song using Vinyl:

• Mechanical Noise
• Wear
• Electrical Noise
• Dust
• Scratch
• Warp Depth

You can also adjust “Warp Models”, year and RPM of the Vinyl emulation. Lastly, there is a mono/stereo switch. Using the Dust and Scratch settings you can get a nice Portishead sound. I have to say I really love this plug-in and if it cost money I would buy it. Big thanks to Izotope!

There are many other ways to get some noise into your tracks. Sometimes I turn off a synthesizer’s Oscilators and turn up only the Noise Generator. Adding a filter modulated by the LFO to the Noise makes some nice wave or storm sounds. Sonic Charge has a superb software drum machine called uToniq. I use it as a noise generator by clicking the oh so ever awesome random button. Or why not record some real noise with a microphone? Even aiming a mic at your computer’s fan while it edits a large Photoshop document will do the trick!

photo credits: Lee Jordan and Breakfast for Dinner

Here’s a technique I use on almost every song I record. This step gives me a helping hand in making transitions in the arrangement work. It also can add drama at the end of an important verse. I have a few names for this tactic including the Kickverb, Kickboom and the awesome Thunderverb!

Take the kick drum you are using throughout the track and isolate one hit. Make a new audio track and place the single kick drum on it. Don’t forget to render your kick first if you had some effects on it like compression or EQ. Once on its own channel insert a reverb. I usually go for Alitverb convolution reverb or the Korg MDE-X multi-effect which comes with the Korg Legacy collection. Both those reverbs have colors to them. Next, I render a single kick going through a wash of reverb. Do several bounces with different kinds of reverbs. You end up with Kickverb1, Kickverb2 and so forth. If your song calls for it insert a distortion plug-in after the reverb. This gives you a dirty decaying sound. My favorite distortion plug-ins are Izotope’s Trash and Ohm Force’s Ohmicide. Another thing to try is pitching your rendered kickverb down.

I usually create my Kickverbs after the general arrangement is finished. Then, I place them strategically throughout the timeline. Two places they fit include at the beggining of the chorus and in the verse after you say something shocking or important. You can also start and finish the song with them.

Some other things that maybe obvious that you can do is reverse the Kickverb. Place that “Reverse Kickverb” before the chorus comes in to build up tension. Of course you don’t have to stick to the Kickverb at all because real thunder and explosion samples will also work.

photo credit: caddymob

I almost always take the lead roaring synth in my songs and make them wider in the stereo field using a plug-in called Ozone from Izotope. Ozone is a complete mastering suite plug-in with several modules you can turn on and off. It consists of a Paragraphic EQ, Multiband Harmonic Exciter, Multiband Dynamics, Mastering Reverb, IRC Maximizer, Dither and Multiband Stereo Imaging. When I master full finished songs I use many of these modules. However, during the creation of the song itself I only use the Stereo Widener on one sound. I keep the other modules off. From the Izotope website:

Ozone allows you set widening and imaging for the mix using a multiband stereo imaging module. As with the other multiband modules in Ozone (Dynamics and Harmonic Exciter) the module is split up into four bands determined by the multiband crossover points displayed on the spectrum.

I put the plug-in as an Insert (not a Send Return), click on the Stereo Widener, turn off bypass, slide all the bands to the right until the number reaches 6. That’s it. Done.

If I want a dirtier more aggressive tone sometimes I will use Ohm Force’s excellent Predatohm plug-in. Load the plug-in as an insert and the look in the bottom right corner. See where it says “Super Stereo”? Thats your section. Click the little white square button on and turn the phase up. Done.

There are few other plug-ins that do widening such as DUY Wide and the Waves S1. I’ve never used those so I can’t comment how well they work. I have lots of little rules I like to keep when it comes to panning but thats the subject of another post. Do you use any stereo widener plug-ins?