Tuesday, July 19, 2011

Freeware: Togu Audio Line synths & effects


When it comes to free - and I mean literally free - plug-ins, one of my favorite companies is Togu Audio Line.

Their filters, vocoder, reverb, and softsynths like Bassline (pictured above) and Elek7tro ooze presence and character. In fact, I'm using the TAL-Bassline on one of my newest tracks. Their Juno-60 emulation's pretty darn good too.

Available for both Mac and PC.

Here's the link. Check 'em out.

http://kunz.corrupt.ch/home

Monday, July 18, 2011

SoundBible.com


Just stumbled across this site yesterday.

Definitely worth checking out.

Friday, July 15, 2011

Magic New Wave Time Machine #5

Now before you accuse Spandau Ballet of ripping off early Duran Duran, you might want to check the date on this track (1980) since it came out a year before Duran's first album (1981).

Yeah, it's like THAT.

Before they got into producing pop that even my Aunt Suzi likes, Spandau Ballet were purveyors of edgy New Romantic brilliance like this barely-known gem: "To Cut A Long Story Short"

(And for synth trivia buffs, it's a Roland ProMars Compuphonic that Gary Kemp's playing.)

Monday, July 11, 2011

Free Bootleg: This Back & Forth Rhythm


This month's bootleg is a bit of a departure - and very much a labor of love.

Last month, one of my favorite area DJs, Remington Steele, dropped this track at the Academik Records photoshoot at Austin über-club, Kingdom. I kinda dropped everything and ran to the DJ booth and asked "What is THIS!?!"

Thursday, July 7, 2011

Ableton Preset: Sine Of The Times

Ah, the sine wave...

For years, I have referred to this wonderful little waveform as "the atom of sound". Without the sine wave, no other waveform could exist, since every complex or single-cycle wave is comprised entirely of sine waves - whether they are harmonically related or a cacophony of chaotic tones.

So, as an exercise, I created this month's preset - Sine Of The Times - out of two single sine waves an octave apart, just to see if I could make it do as many tricks as possible via clever macro assignments.

The result exceeded my expectations and hopefully yours too.

To prove this, the Sine Of The Times Live set is comprised of four sequences that all use the same patch as their starting point.

Track 1 is a hip-hop style jeep bass that consists of a single low sine wave. Classic. Timeless.

Track 2 is a soprano/choir patch that's reminiscent of the lead from Real Life's "Send Me An Angel" (or if you prefer, the original Star Trek theme).

Track 3 is a plucky sequence with a touch of pitch bend in each note's attack.

Track 4 is a fairly accurate recreation of the legendary Roland TR-808 tom/conga that can be further modified via the macros.

All from the same pair of sine waves, with a touch of chorus and reverb.

TECH NOTES

- I'm posting the patch within a Live Set, as opposed to a Live Pack or single preset, so you can hear the patch with example clips and twist the macro knobs to see what's what. If you like it, then hit the preset save button on the macro and add it to your Library.
- The patch will run on Ableton Live 7.0.18 or higher.
- What you see/hear is what you get. I tested it on a couple of systems and the Zip file works as expected.

Download Sine Of The Times