As you may have heard on the news, Seattle has had a bunch of unseasonably wintery weather in the past couple of days. The mixture of snow and ice and the fact that Seattle only owns a handful of snowplows means that when it snows here, everything shuts down. And when everything shuts down, everyone goes to the store and stocks up on booze. So in that spirit, today we have 8 samples sourced from beer cans and bottles. 24-bit, 44.1k WAVs. As always, I urge you not to think of these as finished samples, but as the starting point for new and interesting sounds. Time stretch the hell out of them... use them as attack transients for other sounds... just have fun with them. Bottoms up!Friday, January 20, 2012
Free Sample Friday: BOOZE!
As you may have heard on the news, Seattle has had a bunch of unseasonably wintery weather in the past couple of days. The mixture of snow and ice and the fact that Seattle only owns a handful of snowplows means that when it snows here, everything shuts down. And when everything shuts down, everyone goes to the store and stocks up on booze. So in that spirit, today we have 8 samples sourced from beer cans and bottles. 24-bit, 44.1k WAVs. As always, I urge you not to think of these as finished samples, but as the starting point for new and interesting sounds. Time stretch the hell out of them... use them as attack transients for other sounds... just have fun with them. Bottoms up!
Thursday, January 19, 2012
Casio Re-enters the Synth Market
Prior to the teases they started leaking last week, it had been ages since Casio released a "professional" synthesizer. All that looks to change, however with the announcement of the XW-P1 and XW-G1. Pricing is said to be around $699. Here are the specs:"6 Oscillator Monophonic Solo Synthesizer (Both)
Sample Looper - Up to 19 Seconds of sampling time (XW-G1)
Sample Player - 10 user tones with up to 5 samples each can be stored in Flash Memory for instant recall (XW-G1)
HexLayer - A single sound made up of 6 components for gig ready splits and layers (XW-P1)
Drawbar Organ Mode with 9 sliders, adjustable rotary speaker, key click, vibrato and percussion (XW-P1)
Fully editable PCM based sounds like stereo pianos, vintage electric pianos, strings, guitars,
drums and more. (400 XW-P1) 300 (XW-G1)
13 Track Step Sequencer (Both)
16 step programmable Arpeggiator (Both)
Performance mode providing 4 internal or external instrument zones with instant recall of effects, Step Sequences, Arpeggiators and Phrases (Both)
4 real-time controller knobs (Both)
Phrase sequencer to record and playback your riffs (Both)
Stereo 1/8" line input to connect an MP3 player, laptop or tablet (Both)
USB and MIDI ports (Both)
1/4" Line Outputs (Both)
Included Power Supply (Both)
Can operate on 6 D batteries (Both)"
Sample Looper - Up to 19 Seconds of sampling time (XW-G1)
Sample Player - 10 user tones with up to 5 samples each can be stored in Flash Memory for instant recall (XW-G1)
HexLayer - A single sound made up of 6 components for gig ready splits and layers (XW-P1)
Drawbar Organ Mode with 9 sliders, adjustable rotary speaker, key click, vibrato and percussion (XW-P1)
Fully editable PCM based sounds like stereo pianos, vintage electric pianos, strings, guitars,
drums and more. (400 XW-P1) 300 (XW-G1)
13 Track Step Sequencer (Both)
16 step programmable Arpeggiator (Both)
Performance mode providing 4 internal or external instrument zones with instant recall of effects, Step Sequences, Arpeggiators and Phrases (Both)
4 real-time controller knobs (Both)
Phrase sequencer to record and playback your riffs (Both)
Stereo 1/8" line input to connect an MP3 player, laptop or tablet (Both)
USB and MIDI ports (Both)
1/4" Line Outputs (Both)
Included Power Supply (Both)
Can operate on 6 D batteries (Both)"
Studiologic Announces Sledge Synthesizer
Studiologic, mainly known for their controller keyboards previously, have released their first synthesizer, the Sledge. The Sledge is a 3 oscillator virtual analog synth that includes not only the standard analog waveforms, but a full set of wavetables from the PPG Wave. Also includes a Waldorf-modelled multimode filter, selectable white and pink noise, hard sync, an arpeggiator, fast envelopes, and a basic selection of effects. No word on pricing yet.
Waldorf Announces Pulse 2 Analog Synth
Man, remember when Winter NAMM used to be "the boring one"? Not this year, it seems!Waldorf has announced the Pulse 2 Analog Synthesizer. The Pulse 2 builds on the original Pulse architecture of 3 analog oscillators and an analog filter by adding new highpass and bandpass modes for the filter, Filter FM, and ring modulation. It also features a paraphonic mode that allows up to 8 notes to be played at once. All this is in a compact, metal desktop case similar to the Blofeld. No pricing or release date has been mentioned yet.
Arturia Announces Minibrute Hardware (!) Analog(!!) Synth
Wow, did not see this coming! Arturia, most famous for their softsynths, has announced the MiniBrute, a genuine analog synth rumored to be priced around 500 Euro. This would be cool news in itself, but it includes a filter modeled after the rare Steiner-Parker Synthacon, CV/Gate in and out, and lots of other cool features. Granted, NAMM only starts today, but it seems safe to say that Arturia may be the ones to beat in terms of coolest announcement of the show.
Akai Introduces the MPC Fly
A pretty clever design combining a hardware control surface and an iPad2 app.
Wednesday, January 18, 2012
Review: Impact Soundworks Shreddage Bass - Picked Edition: DI Electric Bass
Product: Shreddage Bass - Picked Edition: DI Electric Bass
Developer: Impact Sound Works
Format: Native Instruments Kontakt 4 or later as download
Demo: On the product page.
Price: $59
WHAT IS IT?
An electric bass sample library based around recordings of a Music Man Sterling electric bass run through a high end Avalon DI, sampled at 24bit/96k and downsampled to 24bit/44.1k. The instruments are sampled at multiple velocities (three, to be specific) and in round-robin (4x downstrokes and 4x upstrokes) to avoid static, synthetic sounding basslines.
INTERFACE
The latest sample library from Impact Soundworks consists of 4 expertly-mapped instruments for Native Instruments' Kontakt 4 or later sourced from the classic Music Man Sterling electric bass. The instruments are: Shreddage Picked Bass Combo, Shreddage Picked Bass Mute, Shreddage Picked Bass Open, and Shreddage Picked Bass Slides.
Additionally, the instruments feature a custom interface within Kontakt allowing you to alter Sub, Presence, and Edge. Effects such as Octaves, Amp, Compression, and Limiter are also available to help get you closer to the "ready for the mix" sound.
THE VERDICT
As with their previous libraries, Impact Soundworks has done a bang-up job with Shreddage Bass: Picked Edition. The recordings are pristine, the matching between samples is perfect, and, provided you take a realistic playing technique to mind, it sounds uncannily real in use. One of the things I find especially appealing about these samples is that the tone is a sort of perfect neutral starting point. Although it includes some rudimentary effects to sculpt the sound, the best results will come from applying your own effects chain and coloring it however you like. As it is, though, it's hard to think of a style these samples wouldn't work in. If you need a really specific tone right out of the box, this might not be the library for you, but if you're looking for a good, flexible library of electric bass sounds, this would be a great place to start! [10/10]
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