Dr. Device Overview… from Audio Damage on Vimeo.
Ever since I saw André Michelle’s software physics demos I knew the concept would make it’s way into audio applications. Bouncing balls attached by strings colliding with walls, creating sounds all said to me: glitch sequencer. Audio Damage’s Dr. Device has kinetics built into it so you can start flinging filter and delay nodes around. Audio Damage does not offer demos so until today when Chris Randall posted the above video I wasn’t sure how cool this feature was. The good stuff starts at 7:55.
I expect a few years from now we will see sequencers that look like realistic rivers which you can drop objects/sounds into. You would control the flow of the water instead of tempo. The wind, sky, roads or even a heard of buffalo could be other “tracks”. Finally we will have a productive use for super expensive Nvidia graphics cards. And of course we will control all of these elements by reaching out and touching them on our screens. I can’t wait!
Check out André Michelle’s physics demos:
http://lab.andre-michelle.com/tag/physics/
To see more videos from Audio Damage head over to their new video channel on Vimeo:
www.vimeo.com/audiodamage
This entry was written by , posted on August 26, 2008 at 1:18 am, filed under plug-ins, video and tagged Andre Michelle, Audio Damage, Chris Randall, delay, Dr. Device, filter, kinetics, physics, plug-in. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
D16′s newest plug-in Fazortan has come out of beta. It’s part of their Silver Collection. I use Phaser effects to make pads and string sounds shimmer. Want to see over 80 photos of vintage Phaser pedals? Head over to 
PedalHeaven the online guitar effects museum: click here
Have you ever wondered where does that unique magical breeze so audible in most of Jean Michael Jarre’s tunes come from. Suprisingly the backbone here isn’t the synth itself but the effect unit coupled with the synthesizer, saying more precisely – analog phaser of which our Fazortan seems to be a fine equivalent.
Therefore You can think about Fazortan as of the exact copy of a retro phaser taken out from 70′s and redone to become a virtual unit. – D16.pl
I installed Fazortan and can happily report it sounds nice and doesn’t crash or anything weird. I recorded some audio samples of Fazortan inserted over a simple Sawtooth wave from Fabfilter Twin and a TR-808 loop. My examples have the LFOs going a bit more crazy, tremoling than you probably would use them. In fact, I recommend going to D16′s Fazortan page to hear a more conventional use of a Phaser (it’s hard for me to be subtle!). The player will load each sample in succession. The first sample is the loop 100% dry, no effect:
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Download the 24bit WAVs here: Fazortan_Examples.zip
There is a fully working demo and more audio samples over at: D16.pl
photo credit: ted.sali
This entry was written by , posted on August 15, 2008 at 1:39 am, filed under plug-ins and tagged d16, Fazortan, phaser, plug-in. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
I really enjoy Chris Randall’s blog Analog Industries. He’s definitely got his own voice. Some people would say he’s rude but I like that he tells it like it is. More importantly his company Audio Damage makes some great 
plug-ins. The next release from AD called Automaton has peaked my interest. In fact, I’ve left some money in my PayPal designated for this new baby.
Chris describes it as, “…cellular automata plus buffer effects = complete and total chaos.” Check an an audio sample he posted: Automator MP3
From what I see and hear it has some Tenori elements, cool iPhone style icons matched with some audio mangling ala Smartelectronix DestroyFX dfx Buffer Override.
On a side note I can’t leave comments on the Analog Industries blog. I’ve signed up and logged in but a message tells me “You must have an access level of 1 to post a comment.” Anyone know why?
www.audiodamage.com
www.analogindustries.com
This entry was written by , posted on July 26, 2008 at 4:40 am, filed under plug-ins and tagged Analog Industries, Audio Damage, Automaton, buffer, Chris Randall, Destroy FX, plug-in, Smartelectronix. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
How many of you own the Korg Legacy Collection? How often do you grab the little MDE-X effect processor it comes with? Not often? Well you should! I consistency find the MDE-X useful and it sounds great. It has 19 effects including compressors, limiters, overdrives, equalizers, a talking modulator, flangers, phasers, chorus, delays, reverbs and more. Even though the interface is small compared to other modern plug-ins if you spend a minute looking closely at most presets you will see they are quiet adjustable.
There is a new free bank of MDE-X presets available at Le Lotus Bleu.
You’ll find here 87 new patches for the Korg MDE-X Multi effect.
In this bank you’ll find:
Reverbs and delays patches designed to be used in an aux bus. Factory patches had none. Groovy delays to enhance your tracks. Dynamic patches templates where you can control Fx parameters in real time using Midi CC or velocity. Some standard Fx commonly used in studios (like Kraftwerk style drums). A comprehensive manual/helpware with the list of patches, a short description for each patc, as well as some tips and tricks about using and programming the Mde-x in various situations, including in a Daw like Cubase can also be found in the zip file.
To grab the free set and check out some of their other Korg Legacy presets for sale: click here By the way don’t forget to grab my free Korg Legacy MS20 set over at my record label’s studio page: www.thingstocome.com/studio.html
via Sonic State
This entry was written by , posted on July 13, 2008 at 11:12 am, filed under plug-ins and tagged effects, Korg Legacy, MDE-X, plug-in. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
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
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Four Four Echo
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EBM Sequencer
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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
This entry was written by , posted on April 10, 2008 at 7:26 am, filed under Ableton Live, plug-ins and tagged Ableton Live, Beat Repeat, plug-in. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
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.
This entry was written by , posted on April 5, 2008 at 6:06 am, filed under plug-ins and tagged acid, Audiorealism, plug-in, Roland TB-303, swing. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
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.
This entry was written by , posted on March 27, 2008 at 1:55 am, filed under plug-ins, sounds and tagged feedback, plug-in, Softube. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
I have been working on a new song called “Born this Way”. It’s a dark tale about a killer who is apologizing for his actions. In the first part of each verse the subject states his sadness. The second part of each verse he details the evil he is compelled to do.
I like the first part of each verse clear, up front and with just a small amount of delay effect. However, when the subject states his evil doings I am looking to add more effects and possibly a second or third voice. To add the harmonies I would normal sing a backing track into the arrangement or possibly use Melodyne. I have been reading reviews of a new plug-in by German software making Zplane called “Vielklang” which creates harmonies in real time on the fly. Most of the reviews have been positive so today I downloaded and tried the demo.
vielklang “thinks musically” and prepares the ground. vielklang by zplane is packed with musical intelligence and music theory: it automatically detects the best fitting harmonies for each individual input melody, and automatically synthesizes up to four voices with the voices not merely running in parallel but with their voicings automatically selected to sound most natural (voice leading). vielklang gives you a natural-sounding result immediately and allows you to concentrate on tweaking the results rather than edit them from scratch as with traditional harmonizers. -http://vielklang.zplane.de/
In Ableton Live you load Vielklang into a MIDI track and to hear it you add an Audio
Track and route the MIDI track into it. Open Vielklang and either drag or load an audio file into the plug-in. At first I could not get any sound from Vielklang but after reading the manual I was able to deduce I needed to start playing the song from zero. This worked and then I read the other ways you get Vielklang to play anywhere in the arrangement. It sounds a little fuddy duddy which it is but the end results are good enough it doesn’t matter.
I’m not sure I’m going to use Vielklang’s harmonies in this song but I am going to buy this plug-in. After hearing what it’s capable of I was inspired. Take a listen to a few audio samples:
Vielklang on the second part of the first verse:
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Again Vielklang on the second part of the first verse but with a different key:
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The song in progress:
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photo credit: Dhamma
This entry was written by , posted on November 13, 2007 at 2:19 pm, filed under plug-ins, song writing and tagged harmonizer, plug-in, vocals, voices. Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink and follow any comments with the RSS feed for this post.
I use Audioease’s Altiverb on almost every song I create. I really like convolution reverb’s and Altiverb 6 is the king. When I first bought it I spent almost two weeks hunting down 1980′s digital reverb Impulse Responses. I even put photos of the 
original processing units into Altiverb! Often I will load Altiverb into a return channel, choose a Lexicon 480L reverb Impulse Response and pan the return hard right. Then on a vocal channel Ill turn up the send knob to get a nice thick shimmering reverb vocal in my right ear. Once and I while I will take an Impulse Response from a Neuman U87 microphone and run D16′s Nepheton Roland TR-808 emulator plug-in through it. This gives the Nepheton an extra boost of realism. It’s like you plugged in a real TR-808 in a room and recorded it to tape. Very nice.
A few weeks ago Altiverb released a much anticipated new plug-in called Speakerphone. According to the Audioease website it’s “270 speaker impulse responses powered by Altiverb, 30 Altiverb rooms, 5 gigabyte of ambiances and sound FX, conveniently presented to you in 500 presets.”. But actually it’s even more than that because inside (more…)
This entry was written by , posted on November 2, 2007 at 12:44 pm, filed under plug-ins and tagged convolution, plug-in, reverb. 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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