Humans are born with a musical instrument attached to their face. All they have to do is mush their lips together and blow to make pretty sounds. Germany’s Best Service has released Whistler. A Native Instruments Kontakt library full of real human and bird whistles. I think this is pretty interesting. Why not add a background layer of whistle at the end of a song now and then? Sitting on the Dock of a Bay (iTunes link) by Otis Redding comes to mind.
“With the help of talented whistler Eduardo Tarilonte and a few birds, Best Service has released Whistler (19.99 EUR or approximately $30), a comprehensive library of every type of whistle tone you can imagine. No synths were used to create this library” – gearwire.com
Whistler is about 20 Euros. For more info: www.bestservice.de
This entry was written by , posted on December 14, 2009 at 5:38 am, filed under sounds and tagged Best Service, birds, Kontakt, native instruments, Otis Redding, whistle, whistler. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L9bsSA-OzH4
Here’s an interesting way to show off the portability of a product. Have you ever heard of “Parkour” or the people who do it often called “traceur’s”? Stephane Vigroux make it look easier than it seems. Wikipedia: “Parkour (sometimes also abbreviated to PK) or l’art du déplacement[1] (English: the art of movement) is a discipline that appeared first in France, more similar to a martial art than to a sport, focused on moving from one point to another as smoothly, efficiently and quickly as possible using the abilities of the human body.”.
I used to run all over the mountain near my house growing up. Would that count? In the end it all leads us to the small Native Instruments audio interface for DJ’s the Audio 2 DJ. It seems to fit the bill nicely if your mixing solely off a laptop.
“Renowned traceur Stephane Vigroux demonstrates the portability of the new Audio 2 DJ interface by free-running through London. A film by Julie Angel” – www.native-instruments.com
For more info: www.native-instruments.com
This entry was written by , posted on August 15, 2009 at 5:41 am, filed under hardware and tagged Audio 2 DJ, dee jay, dj, hardware, interface, native instruments, Stephane Vigroux, traceur. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
Here’s a no brainer download for musicians. Native Instruments has released a free playback only version of their Sampler Kontakt with two free sample packs. The motivation is to get you into the NI world and buying new packs but that shouldn’t stop you from grabbing the freebie. I always think sample based sounds cut through a mix a little better than pure computer based synthesizers and drums. If you do end up with a collection of Kontakt “Player libraries” you can browse them from inside the plug-in and each library has a cover image and scrolls in a rack ala Reason. Kontakt Player also will operate stand alone so if your somewhere sans sequencer and bored you set to go.
“Building on the success of its predecessor, the free KONTAKT PLAYER allows for innovative, highly playable instruments that leave existing technological and musical limitations behind. The virtually unlimited flexibility of Kontakt Script Processing allows for instruments with unprecedented functionality and musicality.” – Native Instruments
Native Instruments are based in Berlin and also have an office in Los Angeles. My personal favorite piece of kit from NI is their Massive synthesizer. For more info: www.native-instruments.com
This entry was written by , posted on August 7, 2009 at 4:42 am, filed under sounds and tagged free, Kontakt, native instruments, sampler. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
I met Ritche Hawtin a few times. I played a bowling alley with him in the early 90’s. We were set up inside the area that gives out the rental shoes. More recently in Berlin he moved into the studio next to me. Beyond being a friendly guy he’s got some great marketing tool ideas. I really like his latest move which sends Tweets of whatever track he’s playing directly from Native Instruments Traktor to Twitter. Here’s the copy:
“Pioneering techno DJ Richie Hawtin has announced the development of a new Twitter application that enables him to broadcast his Traktor tracklists in real time over the network. The custom Twitter application was developed in-house by Richie Hawtin’s label Minus, and it works by uploading song metadata through Traktor Pro’s inbuilt broadcasting functionality. Track details are automatically posted to Richie Hawtin’s Twitter account every 30 seconds (you can already see Traktor tracklist updates on his Twitter), giving anyone access to the tracklist of his performance, and providing exposure to the artists and labels whose music is being played.” – beatportal.com
Follow Ritchie on Twitter: click here and follow me (Oliver Chesler) too: click here
photo credit: cena carioca
Related post: Use Twitter as a promotion tool for your music.
This entry was written by , posted on May 5, 2009 at 11:09 am, filed under business, promotion and tagged native instruments, Ritchie Hawtin, Traktor, Twitter. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
Last week I had to import some Midi files into my DAW (Digital Audio Workstation). It was a commercial jingle I was to revamp and produce. To make it clear what instruments each part of the jingle were meant to be played with what instrument the writer (John) used General Midi. “GM” was created in 1991 and in short sets certain program numbers (sounds) to specific numbers. Doing this allows one to make a sound a flute and when the midi composition is played elsewhere using a GM module the embedded program change number will call up a flute sound.
I don’t often work with GM and when I received last week’s work John was adamant I listened to his fairly complex piece using a GM module at least once before I ripped it to pieces. It’s true that on a Mac one can just double-click any .midi file and it will open and play in Quicktime. However, I wanted to load the jingle into Ableton and view all the separate parts playing from a GM plug-in.
My first instinct was to ask Google for GM plug-ins and Native Instruments Bandstand popped up. Bandstand certainly would have fit my needs. It can be used stand alone or in your DAW and has over 2GB of samples from Sonic Reality, Big Fish, Best Service and others. Bandstand was in my budget at $119 but there was one issue: no download option. I really wanted to get working at that exact moment and as far as I could tell on the NI site there was no demo or download version. I may still grab Bandstand later because it looks to be the best GM player out there. My search for instant gratification continued…
I decided to do a little forum searching and on the official Apple Discussions I found a thread with my final answer. It turns out I already had a complete GM player plug-in installed on my Macbook Pro. Every Mac has a bunch of AU plug-ins installed by Apple for use in Garage Band and iMovie. I’ve used a few of them before in a pinch but rarely look hard into that folder. The Apple GM plug-in is called “DLSMusicDevice”. Very pleased I got to work.
Do you ever have a need for GM modules?
This entry was written by , posted on February 16, 2009 at 8:03 am, filed under apple, plug-ins and tagged Bandstand, Best Service, Big Fish, DLSMusicDevice, General Midi, GM, midi, native instruments, Sonic Reality. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
Ableton Live 8. My passion Ableton Live has reached number 8. Once again the Berlin coding masters give us new features that fit nicely into the Live interface and workflow. So what’s new? Add grooves to clips using the new Groove Engine. Adjust grooves in the new Groove pool. Extract grooves from existing clips with simple drag & drop. Enhanced warp modes and a new warp engine that auto-assignes handles to transients. A new plug-in called Looper: Create endless layers of loops in a live performance jam with auto tempo recognition. Five new effects: Vocoder, Multiband Dynamics, Overdrive, Frequency Shifter, Limiter. Workflow enhancements: Crossfades, Enhanced Midi Editor, Collapsable and easy to create Group Tracks, Multi Parameter Manipulation (adjust several volume faders at once, etc.. (yay!)), Screen Magnifier, Audio & Midi Browser Previews now have a waveform display and scrubbing. Share: Built into Live 8 is a new way to share and collaborate over the internet. A new option in Live’s file menu called Share Live Set will send your song to Ableton’s servers. The song gets it’s own webpage and link. You can set the privacy settings. Songs files can be shared anywhere such as MySpace or Facebook. Suite 8 also got an upgrade: All new Library, new version of Ableton’s FM Synth Operator, Collision a creative percusion synth that uses physical modeling. link
Max for Live. Full integration with Cycling 74’s Max. Create your own audio and midi effects inside the LIve interface. Building and editing of new effects and instruments takes place in real time. Check out the video on the Ableton website of the step sequencer created with Max for Live. I can’t wait to see what people come up with! Luckily there are built in tutorials. link
Akai APC40 Ableton Live Controller. An official hardware controller for Ableton Live from Akai. Clip launch section with buttons that change color to show if a clip is playing or not. Dedicated clip stop and stop all buttons. Dedicated scene launch buttons. Multiple banks and bank selection methods help you quickly and intuitively jump around a large session view. Mixer section with faders, mute, solo buttons, cue and arm track buttons. A track control section of 8 knobs for pans and sends. Tap tempo and sync buttons to match external turntables or devices. Assignable Crossfader. Transport and record controls for studio work. Make this an extension of your arm and your live show will be a lot better. link
Waldorf Largo. I’m going to quote the Waldorf press release on this one because it says it all, “Many producers and synthesizer enthusiasts asked for a full-blown Waldorf Synthesizer for their virtual rack. We listened, and now we proudly present Largo. Largo mirrors the technology used in Blofeld and Q hardware synthesizers.” If it has the sound of the Q it’s a great win. link
Native Instruments Maschine. A controller built by Berlin’s NI with a companion software instrument perfectly matched to it. It can run stand alone or in your DAW. Maschine can also be a standard midi controller. link
Motu BPM. Don’t let the Groovebox look fool you because the new BPM from MOTU is purely software. 15 gigs of sounds, multi-effects including convolution reverb, Step and Note Sequencers an internal mixer and more. I bet some producers will make their full songs all in this software. Could it gain a cult following? Just like Propellerheads Reason I can see this on my laptop for an alternative view every now and then. AU, MAS, TRAS, VST, MAC/PC, in your DAW or Stand Alone. link
Roland AX-Synth. Finally, the return of the “Keytar” from Roland. You get keys, you get a Ribbon, D-Beam and modulation bar. The new AX-Synth also touts 6 hour battery life and MIDI over USB. I like it but why isn’t this wireless? link
All the above I want in my possession. Some other interesting things that peaked my interest at this year’s NAMM included the Celemony’s Melodyne Editor with DNA, Arturia’s Minimoog V 2.0 and the Moog Etherwave Plus Controller Theremin. Some of you maybe happy about Cubase 5, Novation Automap 3 and the newest Virus TI synth? The weekend is just getting started so I will update this post when I find more goodies that peak my interest. What’s getting your goat going?
This entry was written by , posted on January 15, 2009 at 7:05 pm, filed under Ableton Live, hardware and tagged ableton, Ableton Live, Ableton Live 8, Akai APC40, AX-Synth, Max for Live, MOTU, Motu BPM, NAMM, native instruments, Native Instruments Maschine, roland, Waldorf, Waldorf Largo. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
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?
This entry was written by , posted on September 23, 2008 at 4:41 am, filed under plug-ins, promotion, sounds and tagged Albino, Bearnaomh, Blue, FM7, Korg Legacy, Linplug, MS20, native instruments, Novation, patches, presets, Rob Papen, timewARP 2600, V-Station. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
Native Instruments from Berlin are one of the top plug-in manufacturers. One of their early smash hits was a recreation of the FM synthesizer the Yamaha DX7 called FM7. It could load original DX7 patches but was far easier to use. Many people finally unplugged there old DX and TX’s and put them on eBay.
This year they released the FM8. They added many new features but one component is the bees knees: the appeggiator. I probably would not have upgraded my FM7 but when I saw how much fun this thing was my credit card was out. Something tells me Native Instruments always had plans to release their own sequencer but the market was too saturated. Most of their new plug-ins are loaded with mini arps and sequencers. All of them are great. “NI” should not have a case of sequencer envy.
There is a complete working demo on the Native Instruments website.
Open the plug-in and pick a nice synth patch in the browser. Click on arpeggiator. In the global section click “on”. See the little yellow square stepping though the pattern editor? Hold down a key on your controller and you will hear whatever notes you play being effected stepping along. You can slide the little black triangle in the pattern editor to shorten or lengthen the loop.
Now here’s where all the fun is. See next to each lane on the pattern editor there is a little black dice icon? It’s a random button. Do it! Click them all! Do you hear what I hear? Thats the sound of fun. Thats the sound of… “Oh yeah cool idea I can use in this song!”.
Next try out the shuffle. It’s very strong which in my book means its very good. Lastly, take a look in the global section where you turned the arp on and find the drop down menu. There you can find some pre-programmed sequences. You can also save your own which is handy when you want to try out different sounds with a cool sequence you created.
This entry was written by , posted on October 11, 2007 at 8:55 am, filed under plug-ins and tagged arpeggiator, FM synthesises, native instruments, plug-ins, sequencer. 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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