Blood and Guts Sound Library Preview CRFX-013 by crussom

477 samples of Blood and Guts for $50. These were created using pumpkins, yogurt and other gut like sounding products. I wonder how much more this sample library would be worth if they used really living humans?

“Recorded and produced in collaboration with Sound Designer Rob King, this is a collection of gore, stabbing, and impact sounds. Use these sounds as source effects to layer into your fight scenes, zombie feasts, dismemberments, autopsies, or anywhere else you might need to add a little bit of blood, guts, flesh ripping, or bone breaking sounds.” – chuckrussomfx.com

photo credit: g000nz0

via synthtopia

Here’s a trio for Tuesday. Three new interesting pro-audio related products. Number one we have Steinberg LoopMash. LoopMash mangles four loops. It’s an iPhone App. I grabbed it and it has a pretty cool faux 3D swipe to different screen effect worth checking out. Years after abandoning Cubase I’m using a Steinberg product again. Number two is Mike. It’s a microphone from Apogee that goes directing into your iOS device. It’s from Apogee so it deserves mention. Convenience and AD/DA conversion wise it should be a winner however I’m all about high end mic pres and Mike can’t use one. Number three we have SuperAnalog808 a Roland TR-808 sample pack from Goldbaby designed for Loopmasters. If you don’t own a real 808 or Acidlab Miami then samples are your friend. Goldbaby does them right and there’s a million suble differences between 808s and ways to record them so another sample set is always welcome.

For more info: LoopMash, Mike, SuperAnalog808

Puremagnetik creates and sells mini monthly sample packs for Ableton, Kontakt & Logic. I recently met Micah Frank at IMSTA FESTA and thought I would follow up with this interview.

I really like your subscription model. Tell Wire to the Ear readers how it works.

Puremagnetik produces a new “Micropak” each month. A Micropak is a small (usually under 600MB) sound set that is very focused on a particular instrument. You can subscribe for $5.75 per month and download the Current Micropak. We keep each Micropak current for 2 months, so there are two Current Micropaks available at all times. You can also buy a full year subscription or buy the entire catalog. Additionally, users can purchase back catalog Micropaks individually – similar to back issues of a magazine.

Tell us about your recording chain. Are there any microphones or outboard processors your in love with?

I mostly program Puremagnetik’s electronic content. I prefer to keep my signal chain as transparent as possible. Good A/D matters most to me. I rarely use compression during tracking but sometimes I like to use my API Lunchbox’s 512C’s as a DI. Our other sound developer Brian produces all of the acoustic stuff in some great studios. He uses all of the Pultecs, Chandlers and Neumanns.

Digital Blasphemy by micahfrank

How do you go about finding the instruments to record? I can’t imagine you own all the toys ToyBox Micropaks!

Sometimes we go shopping (Toys r Us). We also have a great network of studios and synth geeks all up and down the east coast. If I can find a good deal on eBay, I’ll jump on it – Synthi owners speak up! A lot of the stuff I’m working on now is more conceptual so it requires less defined devices.

What percent of your customers would you say subscribe vs just buy a pack they like?

It’s a 50/50 split. Some people like the subscription model. Just as many people are happy grabbing them once they become back catalogued.

What is your most popular Micropak and what are your top 3 personal favorites?

The most popular Micropak is an oldie but goodie – Eight Bit. It is a pack of sounds from a Commodore 64 SID chip.

The Micropaks I like the most are the ones I enjoyed working on the most. I love the ability in Live to reverse engineer the concepts behind some great synths. If you look at Puremagnetik’s Vector, Waveframe and P-50 Linear you will see that I have broken the synths down into their core components and reconstructed them in Live Racks. In Waveframe for instance, I took all of the Fizmo’s wavetable content and reconstructed the whole synth in Live using Ableton Sampler’s modulation functions.

Brian also did the same kind of reverse engineering in this month’s Omnichord inspired pack. In my opinion, this is where Puremagnetik really shines – when we break away from the same old multisampling conventions.

I know you make music yourself. Tell Wire to the Ear readers some of the bands you work or have worked with and some places online they can hear your music.

The only band I have worked with in the past few years is a local artist named Atarah Valentine. I got in touch with him through Ableton and Damian Taylor (Bjork). The highlight of my work with him was this past June when we opened for La Roux at Terminal 5. He’s a very talented singer so I look forward to working with him a lot more in the future.

My big project for the past year is Tectonic. It is a realtime sonification of earthquake data as interpreted by Max and then synthesized by a Kyma/Pacarana system. http://micahfrank.com/tagged/tectonic. For the past few years I haven’t really enjoyed making horizontal music. By that, I mean music that is pre-composed in a given timeframe by a horizontally oriented DAW. I am finding it much more gratifying to create a system like Tectonic or just grab my DrumKat and improvise under my alias Kamoni (kamoni.net) You can see and hear all of the other stuff I’m up to at micahfrank.com or soundcloud.com/micahfrank.

What music are you listening to lately?

Tim Hecker, Robert Normandeau, Ben Frost, Alva Noto, Zoot Woman

Here’s a public offer. If you want to make a Micropak out of my Electrocomp-101 (number 521 out of 2000) feel free but you have to come to my place. I’m not lugging that thing to Brooklyn!

Thanks Oliver! That would be totally awesome. You have just been inducted into PECSGN (Puremagnetik East Coast Synth Geek Network).

photo credit: Rachel Papo

Here’s a link to some audio samples from The European Organization for Nuclear Research’s (CERN) Large Hadron Collider and computer room. Listen and download the samples: click here

“Above all, we want everyone to be able to share in the wonder and excitement of the greatest experiment ever built. We feel passionately that everyone is capable of appreciating what is happening at CERN and that it is the responsibility of those of us already `in the know’ to find new and better ways of sharing the awe-inspiring magnificence of it all. The LHC belongs to us all; you paid for it to be built and you will enjoy the technological advances it brings.” – lhcsound.com

For more info: lhcsound.com

photo credit: AndiH

via Matrixsynth

Free Glitches Vol.01 Demo by Bronto Scorpio

Here’s a free sample pack of glitches from Dennis Harms at Bronto Scorpio Music. To download: click here

“Don’t expect pseudo analog stuff here! You get 120 weird, digital noises with this pack! These sounds are perfect for Autechre, Richard Devine, Aphex Twin like tracks, but can also add some special elements to other tracks. I designed these sounds over the last few months and thought it would be cool to share them with you. The pack contains 120 24Bit/44Khz wave files and a simple Kontakt (3.5 or higher) instrument where the samples are mapped across the keyboard. Mod- and pitchwheel do some crazy things in this instrument too!” – brontoscorpiomusic

For more info: brontoscorpiomusic.blogspot.com

photo credit: mikrosopht [deleted]

I’m lucky to have my own driveway in NYC. I’m also lucky to have a beautiful apple tree that blooms to park underneath. The only problem is hundreds of birds love this tree too. Therefore going to the car wash has become a routine trip. I’m amazed that for $10 you can get a full car wash that includes a full cleaning of the interior too.

Car Wash by thingstocome

My mother is a avid gardener. There were four large planters outside my building that were just dirt and weeds to I asked her to help me choose some plants to fix the situation. You can see the full set of photos of my “garden”: click here

Van Houten Farms by thingstocome

You can hear more of my field recordings here: soundcloud.com/thingstocome/sets/field-recordings

Today I would like to welcome a new sponsor at Wire to the Ear: Wave Alchemy. You can see there advert running on the top right sidebar of this blog. I’ve turned down a lot of advertising requests from companies that were totally unrelated to pro-audio. Why diamond and shoe companies think this is a good place to advertise I don’t know! Wave Alchemy are based out of Nottingham in the UK. They sell sample libraries that are 100% royalty free and every sample is 100% original (not ripped from vinyl or anywhere else). Even if your not ready to buy anything it’s worth a visit to their site because each pack has a free sample set. There’s also a few totally free sample packs such “Club Kicks” and “Odyssey FX”. Robert Babicz (Rob Acid), Chris Lake and Martin Eyerer are a few of the artists using Wave Alchemy’s stuff.

I hope you welcome them as it does help Wire to the Ear stay on your computer screen.

For more info: http://wavealchemy.co.uk

A real analog kick processed by some monster hardware boxes. Record it 65 ways and give it away free. That’s what Wave Alchemy just did. Hey, it got me to their site to look around.

“65 24-bit 100% royalty free kick drum (Jomox AIRBase 99) samples which have been recorded through an A-grade signal chain including devices such as the Thermionic Culture Vulture, Empirical Labs Distressor and API 512c pre-amp.” – wavealchemy.co.uk

Get your free samples here: http://www.wavealchemy.co.uk/club_kicks_2/pid60/fr

via Synthtopia

I think it’s pretty interesting to see where the samples came from. This song also has one of the best music videos ever made attached to it.

“How to make Prodigy’s legendary track “Smack My Bitch Up” in Ableton. Video describes, which samples were used by Liam in this wonderful track.” – jimpavloff

Download the original song: click here (iTunes)

Sometimes I like to add the sound of thousands of screaming fans into my recordings. You can find Creative Commons licensed large crowd samples online at the Free Sound Project. Another great place to search is SugarMegs which is a huge archive of free, legal concert recordings. Be sure that there’s no music playing even softly in the background or you risk the possibility of being outed as faker. If possible grab a section of pure crowd that’s long enough to fill the section of your own song in which your placing it because properly looping audience noise can be tricky.

A fun example of a fake crowd placed into a techno track is Slaves to the Rave by the Inferno Bros:

Download audio file (Slaves__to_the_Rave-Inferno_Bros.mp3)

Sometimes I like to start a track with the large crowd fading in. Next I will add a single kick with a ton of reverb on it creating a boom. I then automated the crowd’s volume envelope to jump up after the boom sound creating the effect that the audience is reacting excitedly. I also use this triangular looking volume curve after a few opening screaming vocal sentences. With some careful placement and tweaking the end result kind be quite realistic.

On the other hand experimenting and creating something wild out of the crowd noise also can work. I’ve pitch shifted, flanged and “trance gated” crowd sounds into really worthwhile parts.

photo credit: stijnbokhove