Alright, I've had a chance to digest this a bit, so here are my thoughts (like you care!): • No support for external plug-ins. This is insane to me. I understand that restrictions can be a good thing in terms of productivity, but Propellerheads' refusal to let users integrate VST/AU plug-ins in their software is a step too far, in my opinion, and seriously effects the shelf life of the product. I hear people all the time who are still using Logic 5. How many people do you know still using Reason 2? Now, the program does implement Rewire, just like Reason did, but if I have to take my tracks out to another DAW to process them with the plug-ins I want, what's the freaking point of having Record?! • That interface. Simply put, it's a nightmare. It looks like it was designed by someone with A.D.D. Over the years I've come to really appreciate the importance, especially in a DAW, of a clean, nice-looking interface. This just looks like a disorganized mess to me. • Dongles Suck. I know some people don't care, but I am of the firm opinion that dongles suck. I make it a point to buy my software to support companies who are doing good work and I find it insulting when a company burdens their honest, paying users with a dongle. Yeah, I understand that piracy is rampant (I'm a professional musician... believe me, I understand it...), but I know I'm not the only one out there who won't buy dongled software, so they're already insuring lost sales from people like myself. On the plus side, they're not charging extra for it, and if you are a dongle hater, you have the option of using an open internet connection as your copy protection, but this option isn't going to work if you're on a plane or somewhere that doesn't have an internet connection, as I often find myself when I am travelling. Neither option is very friendly for laptop users, which is a rapidly growing demographic among electronic musicians. And if you're using Record with another DAW such as Protools or Cubase? Guess what? That's two dongles.
• The Time-Stretching. The effortless time-stretching thing is neat, but, for me at least, this doesn't outweigh the other significant shortcomings. My guess is that programs like Cubase, Logic, and Live will integrate something like this in the future anyway. (That's pure speculation on my part, it just seems to me like that's the direction things are moving in...) • The Old Ways Aren't Always Better. The hype around Record has been its supposed ease of use because its set up just like hardware. I actually think this makes it more complicated than it needs to be. In Logic, I basically open up a blank page and add channels as I need them. When I need send or insert effects, I just click and select the effec I want and I'm done. This means there is nothing on the screen I don't need and my set-up for a song is only as complicated as it needs to be. I guess their approach might be good for people who are used to Reason, but again, they ignored their users requests for audio record in Reason for so long, that most people who need this feature, already have DAWs.
As I said before, I am totally open to being proven wrong. I haven't used the software myself and am relying entirely on what I've read and observed in their promotional videos. But the market for DAWs (and let's be honest, despite Propellerheads' insistance that Record isn't a DAW, that's what it is) is already full, and any new entry really needs to be revolutionary in order to compete. I think they need to bring more to the table than this offers.
Here's the link to the product page. There's still just some basic info at this point (I'm typing this at 3 AM since that's when Propellerheads' Record site went live), but my initial thoughts are, this is going to be a tough sell. It looks like it will mainly appeal to people using Reason. But with how long Propellerheads left Reason crippled without audio recording capabilieis, most people using it seriously already use it with Rewire connected to another DAW such as Logic or Live. I'm not seeing anything here that would make most people want to abandon those and learn a new DAW. The Line-6 and SSL-modeled mixing channels are nice, but probably not enough for most people to switch. There's not much info yet, though, so I freely admit I could be totally wrong. I just think to compete in a DAW market with multiple, well-established programs, they really needed to offer something revolutionary, and at first glance, this doesn't appear to be it. That interface looks like a cluttered mess, too, in my opinion. So what do you think? Is this something that has you excited? Am I just a cranky old fart?
There's no doubt that software has made working with sampled breaks in your music easier than ever. There's no more worrying about getting breaks in sync, no more worrying about time-stretching the proper amount, or any of the other garbage that used to be required when sampling was still in its infancy. One problem that has remained, however, is that a break is a single entity on a single track - meaning that if you want to apply compression, EQ, or effects, you have to do it to the entire break. Or do you?
Normally, when you're producing real or MIDI drums, you can record each instrument on its own track so they can each be effected individually without effecting the other parts. You might want to put some reverb on your snare, but you don't want it on your hats or your kick. Or maybe you want to boost the low end of your kick, but that ends up making your snare sound boxy and unnatural. If you've got a program like Propellerheads' Recycle (and if you're working with breakbeats, you probably ought to be), the solution is actually quite simple. Here's how to do it:
1. Prepare your breakbeat in Recycle, making sure all the slice points are nice and tight and where they should be. Save it as a REX file and be sure to use the EXPORT command to create the corresponding MIDI file to trigger the slices in your DAW of choice.
2. Bring the REX file into whatever sampling or looping instrument you prefer. I like Spectrasonics Stylus RMX. For the sake of simplicity, I'm going to describe this process on a simple beat consisting of kick, snare, and hi-hat parts. Obviously, more complex arrangements just require an expanded version of this same technique.
3. Duplicate the instrument track your sampler or loop player is on so that you have 3 tracks, all corresponding to the same sampler or loop player. Next, make 3 copies of your beat's MIDI file, moving one to each of the 3 tracks you just created.
4. Open up whatever you DAW's grid editor is on the first track and find all the notes that trigger kick slices. Delete everything else. Repeat the process with the next track, but this time delete everything except the hi-hat part. Finally, move to your third track and remove everything that isn't a snare.
5. You can now record each part on its own audio track where it can be given its own compression, EQ, and effects settings just as if you had recorded a real drum kit.
Obviously, there are going to be instances where multiple parts are playing at the same time (a closed hat and kick hitting at the same time). Don't worry about this. Just separate the parts our as best you can, and you will have a lot more flexibility to properly produce the loop and although it might not be perfect, it'll sound a lot better than it would if you just tried to produce the loop as a single part.
Want to get really crazy? Give each slice its own track and effects settings for extremely intricate special effects!
Via rt16 on YouTube. Produced by Vince Clarke shortly after Yaz's "You & Me Both", as you can probably tell just from listening to it. That's Alison Moyet on backing vocals, by the way. She and Marlow (real name: Robert Allen) were in a band called the Vandals together in their younger days growing up in Basildon. Despite the star power behind the record, Marlow only found modest success. A couple of years ago, he announced his return to music, this time just using the named Marlow. The new album is apparently nearing completion as I write this.
"hello everyone. i have released my second sample pack today. it's free, as is (and will be) everything else on my blog: http://bedroomproducers.wordpress.com
the name of the sample pack is: FREE Sample Pack #2: Casio SA-10
the sample pack includes: 1 x soundfont with 9 Casio SA-10 instruments 20 x drum samples 19 x rhythm loops 11 x "Super Accompaniment" loops 1 x Casio SA-10 demo song
Don't expect any audiophile-quality sounds here. These samples are cheap, dirty, and noisy, and they are meant to be so. "
Library:Moogalicious Funk Loops Format: Download in Ableton, Apple Loops, Reason Refill, REX2, Acidized WAV, and more… Genre: Funk, Disco, Urban Distributed by:Prime Loops Price: £12.95 Demo: Audio demos on the product page.
According to Prime Loops, this collection of 140 synth loops is "influenced by landmark musicians such as Stevie wonder, Parliament, Herbie Hancock, Motown Records, George Clinton, The Crusaders, Kool & The Gang, Funkadelic, Sly & The Family Stone and many more." While this may be so, the synth loops on offer here are all more contemporary-sounding. That's not a bad thing per se, but if you're expecting an authentic 70's vibe, that's not really what these are about. The loops are sub-divided into folders by BPM (90, 95, 110, 125, and 135 are represented). As the name suggests, this collection is all about synth parts, so these loops are all made up of basslines, chord sequences, and leads lines - if you want drums, you'll need to look elsewhere. The loops are all well recorded and cleanly produced. At first this bothered me a bit, as they seemed to be lacking the dirt and grit that often defines funk, but this is something that the user can easily add themselves with appropriate plug-ins according to their own personal tastes, so ultimately, I think the clean sound is a good thing as it gives you a good starting point to effect the loops however you like.Still, it would've been nice to hear some wah-wah pedals and grime here and there. Most of the sounds are very genre-appropriate... rumbling basses, rezzy synths, squiggly lead lines, warm and fuzzy chord sequences, etc. There are a few gated/pulsating pad sequences that seemed out of place (perhaps more appropriate for dance), but overall, this collection delivers what it promises. In addition to funk styled tracks, I could hear these loops working well in R&B, hip-hop, disco, and other genres. It all depends what context you put them. It's a brief collection to be sure, but the price reflects that, and if you don't feel up to dosing out the funk yourself, this collection may well provide the inspiration you need to embark on your own Fantastic Voyage. (7/10)
This one is ludicrously over-priced (I paid about half what this person is asking for mine and it included a Kenton Pro Solo Mark II CV-MIDI converter). It does look more nicely done than mine, though. Info at the listing...
"As a Free gift to celebrate the launch of Electronic Critters 3 : The Creaturephonic Workshop and Experimental Percussion, Haunted House Records have made a selection of sounds available for FREE.This sample collection contains 374 retro style computer games one shots and hits. Jumps, bangs, wizzes etc, Just like the great games of yester-year. These samples are great when tuned, stretched, chopped and used as part of your drum tracks.
Rumors are circulating on several websites that Apple may be launching a new version of their Logic DAW software at the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference on June 8th through the 12th. It certainly seems feasible since the last version was released back in the fall of 2007.
(Click image for a closer look at the settings.) I haven't done one of these in awhile, so I thought we might be due for one. Behind the crash cymbal, the snare drum may be one of the more difficult drum sounds to synthesize convincingly. It's possible to get some semi-convincing snare sounds out of well-equipped modular synths or even a full-featured synth like the Access Virus, but for most synths, the best you're going to do is an analog drum machine type snare. And that's actually pretty damn cool. If I want a real snare sound I can sample it. So we're going to use a synth for what it does best: make cool electronic sounds. Today I'll show you how to make a synth snare sound not too unlike the Roland TR-808. I'll be doing this with Sonic Charge's super cool Microtonic drum synth plug-in, but you can get similar results from any synth that allows you to pitch modulate an oscillator with an envelope that also has a noise source. Your typical snare drum sound sounds the way it does because it consists of the initial percussive burst of the stick hitting the head, the ringing of the shell, and the rattle of the snare itself. With this in mind, let's dig in. 1. Open up an instance of Microtonic. If you want to program a couple of notes in the sequencer on steps 5 and 13 (the backbeat), it can make it easier to hear the changes you make as you tweak. The first part we're going to concentrate on is the combination of the percussive strike and the 'tone' of the drum's resonant shell. So for the moment, set the MIX setting all the way left to OSC, so we are only hearing this part of the sound. Because this is a tonal element, we're going to use a sine wave with an envelope modulating the pitch. The first thing we need to do is set the sine wave's pitch, so look for the OSC FREQ setting and set it somewhere around 150 Hz. The 'body' of a snare sound is often somewhere in the 150-250 Hz range. 2. This doesn't sound percussive yet, though, so let's take care of that by heading down to the FREQ MOD AMOUNT knob right below the OSC FREQ section. If you go overboard with this, you're going to get into 'laser gun' types of sounds, which are cool in their own right, but not what we're after. Set this around +6.45. The FREQ MOD RATE is less important here, but if you play around with it, you'll hear the variations in timbre it can provide. I'm setting mine at 0, but you set whatever sounds right to you. By now, you should have something that sounds similar to a TR-808 conga or tom sound. So now you know how to make those, too. 3. With the strike and the tone taken care of, we need to get that snare rattle taken care of, so we need to add in some noise. (This will also contribute to the percussive element of the sound). We need to be able to hear our noise source now, so go ahead and slide the MIX slider just slightly right of the middle so we have a more or less even mix of the sine oscillator and the noise generator (slightly favoring the noise). 4. It already sounds pretty nice, but we'll tweak things just a bit. Set your noise envelope's DECAY setting to around 100-100 ms. Longer settings will give you 'doofier' sounding snares more akin to the famous Simmons sound. Microtonic defaults to a low pass filter which works nicely, but I want a crisper sound out of the noise, so I'm changing it to a highpass filter (the rightmost button at the top of the noise section). Bring the FILTER FREQ up to around 370 Hz. If you've done everything correctly, you should have something that sounds like this:
Now that you have a halfway decent synth snare, start messing around and seeing what other variations you can come up with.
The xOxbOx is a recent replica of the infamous Roland TB-303. I know it is probably one of the most over-used synth sounds ever, but I have to admit I never get tired of the sound of a 303. And the weird, pain-in-the-ass programming style almost guarantees unusual, bleepy riffs.
Alright, I've had a chance to digest this a bit, so here are my thoughts (like you care!):
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