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

When I first got into softsynths Linplug’s products were some of my favorites. I have created some wonderful songs using Albino. Curios what they have been up to I went over to Linplug’s website and found they are about to release a new device called Relectro. I’m not sure exactly what it does. Is it a sample manipulator? I couldn’t find any YouTube demos so we will have to wait a few days/weeks for it’s release to really get into it.

“It’s no delay. no eq. compressor. no filter and no pitch shifter. But it does all that on a per wave cyle basis. Fire up some of the most boring, overused, outdated drums you have and relectro them into something completely different.” – Linplug.com

For more info: linplug.com/Instruments/relectro/relectro.htm

Christmas is around the bend and a theme this year is pro-audio software bundles. Linplug and Sugar Bytes are two companies that make goodies worth making noise with so they get some space here. The LinPlug offer gives you CronoX 3 Sample Synthesizer, MorphoX Synthesizer, Rob Papen Albino 3, Octopus FM Synth, Alpha Classic Synth, ElementP Percussion Synth, Ian Boddy Soundset for the Alpha, Summa Soundset for the Octopus (altogether more than 5500 preset sounds) for $399 which is less than half of what you would buy them for seperately. Sugar-Bytes is selling their Sugar Bundle which consists of Guitarist, Thesys, Consequence, Effectrix, Artillery2, Unique, WOW, Vogue and Robotronic for $499.

“This year we celebrate the most insane christmas deal we ever had!” – Sugar Bytes

For more info: Linplug and Sugar Bytes

photo credit: Steve Rhodes

Here’s a screenshot and clip from a new song I am working on called “Into the Universe”. It’s not as dark as my usual stuff. If I can get it to a place I like it will be on my next album. The lyrics are from the point of view of a human who is half machine, sometime in the future. He tells how he used to be only organic and how he now runs on solar power and travels to other planets. The explanation is cheeky I know but that’s the magic of music because in song form I think it works.

The pads are Korg Legacy Wavestation. The vocoder is Prosoniq Orange Vocoder. The drums are Vermona DRM-1 MKIII. On my voice: TC Electronic VoiceModeler. Choir is my voice through a Digitech Talker Pedal. Bass is Linplug Albino 2

Keep in mind this is still in demo form…

Download audio file (Into_the_Universe-The_Horrorist.mp3)

Related post: Ray Kurzweil, the Singularity and the blind phone.

Here’s the heads up on some free patches I came across today. They are from a generous person who calls himself Bearnaomh. He has patch sets available for Rob Papen’s Blue, Native Instruments FM7, the Novation V-Station and a set for the Linplug Albino.

Grab all of Bearnaomh free patches: click here

I believe these are a bit old but since they are new to me maybe you don’t know about them yet either. Bearnaomh also has a few tunes of his available check out. This is a good reminder that if your a musician making some free patch sets is a good promotion tool. Besides naming the patch set after your artist name you can name the patches after your albums, songs, website urls and ex-girlfriends.

Some people like to keep their own created presets a guarded secret but I don’t see any harm in sharing. Success and originality is all about the context the sounds are used in. Remember 99% of people who will download your freebies will probably only ever make a 16 bar loop at most.

I have two free sets of patches online that I created. You can grab The Horrorist soundsets for the TimewARP 2600 and Korg Legacy MS-20 on my record label’s studio page: click here

Have you made any of your own presets available?