Info at the link...
Thursday, September 9, 2010
Wednesday, September 8, 2010
Moog Voyager XL to be Released This Fall
Via trashaudio:This one has been spreading on the blogs like wildfire. Apparently what you're looking out here is the Minimoog Voyager XL, a patchable version of the venerable Minimoog with a ribbon controller and longer keyboard. Info is in pretty short supply at the moment, but it's apparently scheduled for a November/December release with a retail price of $4995.
New iPhone App Turns Human Beatboxing into MIDI
Via mikegao85 on YouTube:
In case you missed it over on Synthtopia. How bad-ass is this? Vocal Beater is an iPhone app that lets you "beatbox" a rhythm with your mouth, which it then turns it into a MIDI file you can load in to your sequencer of choice. Anyone used it yet? I can definitely see the next stage of this allowing you to turn your singing into an e-mail-able MIDI file in case you get a melody idea when you're out and about.
In case you missed it over on Synthtopia. How bad-ass is this? Vocal Beater is an iPhone app that lets you "beatbox" a rhythm with your mouth, which it then turns it into a MIDI file you can load in to your sequencer of choice. Anyone used it yet? I can definitely see the next stage of this allowing you to turn your singing into an e-mail-able MIDI file in case you get a melody idea when you're out and about.
Tuesday, September 7, 2010
Review: Loopmasters Scott Rockenfield Drums
Product: Scott Rockenfield Rock Drums
Format: WAV, Acid, Rex2, Reason Refill, Ableton Live Pack, Apple Loops, Halion, Kontakt, EXS-24, SFX, Stylus RMX, NNXT, and Garageband
Genre: Anything Rock-oriented
Distributed by: Loopmasters
Price: €34.95
Demo: Audio demos on product page.
Although drum loop libraries seem to be a dime a dozen these days, it can be difficult sometimes to find a decent collection of rock-oriented loops played by an accomplished drummer. Loopmasters is here to remedy that with more than a little help from Queensryche drummer Scott Rockenfield.
This collection consists of six complete drum tracks divided up into loops consisting of intro, verse, chorus, bridge, fills, and ending. In most cases, multiple variations of each loop are available to help keep things more interesting. The loops range from 130-180 BPM. Perhaps a few slower loops would've been nice, but what's here is very good. The full loops are all fully mixed and pre-produced. Aggressive compression and various reverbs help give each track its own personality, but may make things a bit more difficult to drop smoothly into a pre-existing mix where the compression settings or reverb might not be appropriate.
Fortunately, all of the loops are also available as mutli-track loops, where you can isolate and even mix and match different parts of different loops. These loops are recorded dry, so you have a lot more flexibility producing them the way you see fit. This extends the usability of the collection by quite a bit if you're willing to do some extra work. Adding to that is a collection of "bonus loops" from the sessions giving you still more options to play with.
Man cannot exist on loops alone, however, so it's nice that the collection also contains sampled drum kits from each of the tracks. These are kind of a mixed bag. Most of the sounds are quite good, but some of the tom and snare sounds seem oddly truncated, like they've been cut off too quickly. The best of the sounds are really good, however, and using these in combination with the loops will yield you the most variation and flexibility of all. Just don't expect the standard of some of the round-robin, multi-velocity level samples many dedicated drum libraries have.
As you would expect from a drummer with a 30 year history, the playing throughout is superb. Rockenfield's drumming is precise and creative (very nice cymbal work) and the recording and production quality is quite good. How useful for you this collection is, depends on what you're after. This isn't a collection of hundreds of diverse loops. but rather sub-collections of loops intended to form a complete song. This could be really handy for demo work or any instance when you need a good sounding acoustic drum track without much time to record a real drummer. Producers who aren't afraid to dive into the dry isolated tracks will get the most of out this, as it will allow them to customize the sound of the drums more, as well as mixing up and combining different parts from different loops. [8/10]
Friday, September 3, 2010
Free Sample Friday: Busted Kalimba
The long weekend is here (at least for those of us in the States), and so it's time for another edition of Free Sample Friday. Today's selection consists of 7 notes sampled from a beat up old kalimba my wife has had for as long as I can remember. While the samples are vaguely in tune with one another, don't feel the need to use these as a multi-sampled instrument. Instead, consider using them as attack transients for synth sounds, or twisting them up in your favorite granular synth.
GO GET THEM!
Wednesday, September 1, 2010
ValhallaDSP Announces ValhallaShimmer
ValhallaDSP has announced its first commerical plug-in called ValhallaShimmer. Here's what they have to say:
"ValhallaShimmer is an algorithmic reverberation plugin. It is designed to produce BIG sounds, from concert halls, to the Taj Mahal, to the halls of Valhalla.
There are several reverberation modes available, to allow the user to dial in the preferred initial sound. By adjusting the Feedback, Diffusion and Size controls, the attack, sustain and decay of the reverb signal can be fine tuned. The modulation controls can be set to produce subtle mode thickening, glistening string ensemble-esque decays, and the distinctive random modulation of the older Lexicon hall algorithms. Two tone controls and the Color Mode selector allow the timbre to be adjusted from bright and glistening to a more natural dark decay, similar to that produced by air absorption in large spaces.
In addition, ValhallaShimmer has the ability to pitch shift the feedback signal. There are 3 pitch shift modes available:
• Single, where the feedback is shifted up or down by the Shift value.
• Dual, where the feedback is shifted both up and down (in parallel) by the Shift value.
• Bypass, which turns off the pitch shifting (useful for “standard” reverb sounds).
By setting the Shift amount to +12 semitones, and the Feedback to 0.5 or greater, the classic “shimmer” sound is produced, as heard on Eno / Lanois productions for U2 and others. I have discussed the “shimmer” effect in great (excruciating?) detail in earlier blog posts, and applied the research to the architecture of ValhallaShimmer. The resulting algorithms allow for the classic shimmer effects to be generated with ease, as well as a variety of pitch shifted, evolving ambiences."
The Mac VST/AU version is due early September, with the PC version to follow not long thereafter.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
