Since launching Symplesound, my focus has been to create intuitive instruments and presets that make it easy for producers to create their own sounds – without having to be an expert at synthesizers.
Because of that, I decided to redesign all of the instruments on this blog and collect them into one pack, making everything much easier to use. The pack also includes tutorials, integrated effects and MIDI clips for inspiration.
They're still 100% free – because I want to continue supporting synth fans everywhere – and they're now available at the Symplesound shop, along with more free downloads and goodies.
So... Last week, I released my latest single on Audiophile Deep - "A Night At The Opera" - which is a dark track that's ideal for Halloween sets. At the time of this writing, it's still climbing the Traxsource tech house chart, so I'm stoked for that :)
But that's not the sole purpose for this post. In addition to making tracks and designing presets, I've been working on a different approach to sound itself that I hope you'll dig.
The idea is simple: Recreate real-world soundscapes as accurately as possible using synthesis – in this case, Ableton's Operator softsynth – so that the result is a virtual environment that sounds real, but was created entirely in Live.
In keeping with all of this Halloween spookiness, my first work in this medium is called "The Haunting" and it's a two-minute composition inspired by the classic haunted house meme.
Below is a Soundcloud audio preview. I'm also including the entire Ableton project file so people with Live and Operator (or Suite) can check out each sound and explore how it was created. And yes, you can use it in commercial projects - as long as you please credit me and send a courtesy notification. I'm easy that way.
This is completely new territory for me as an artist, so I hope it inspires people to delve deeper into sound design. I definitely have more projects like these and I plan to give them away on this blog as a way to teach producers that there's more you can do with synths besides make them beep.
Dave Smith's Prophet 12 is one of the most buzzworthy keyboards of 2013. It's arguably the deepest analog-hybrid polysynth ever released - and since all of my previous packs have used single note samples, I decided to create a pack entirely from chord stabs.
Because chord stabs are all the rage with the kids these days.
I'm also breaking with tradition and including twelve presets instead of the usual six. See what I did there?
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.
A few weeks back, I got a request to post a tutorial and/or tips piece on Saturator. Since there's already a lot of coverage for Ableton's nifty digital distortion device, I decided to go one better and create a preset that utilizes a more exotic attribute of Saturator: Waveshaping.
An interesting detail about waveshaping is that it works best on audio with very little harmonic content, like sine or triangle waves - or strongly lowpass filtered source material.
A few years back, I did an Instrument Rack for Live 6 that used this technique as a synthesis tool. Of course, that was ages ago and I've refined the technique a bit more, so I decided to revisit the production methods and whip up a new patch: Wavescraper.
Just got my MeeBlip last week and I'm in loooooove.
Peter Kirn (from Create Digital Music) and James Grahame (of Retro Thing fame) have a winner on their hands with this affordable, hackable digital synth. It's a duuuurty little guy and you can expect to see some loops from this in the coming weeks.
It's got a very cool, unique, edgy sound... And at a price of less than $200, I'm certain that the MeeBlip is gonna be a massive hit.
One of this season's trends in EDM tracks is a focus on voice-like synth sounds. Pleasurekraft's 2010 hit "Tarantula" is one of the main influences for this synthesis technique.
Whenever a new sound hits the clubland zeitgeist, I'll find myself spending spare time analyzing the timbres and textures and reverse-engineering the techniques for future reference. For this particular trend, I've found myself experimenting with vocoders and formant filters.
This month's preset is an homage to my favorite new softsynth, NI's RAZOR.
Yeah, yeah, I've been going on about RAZOR incessantly since it came out, but savvy readers know that I just don't gush unless a synth is incredible - and RAZOR is truly incredible.
So I got to thinking... How do I capture some of that magic in an Ableton preset that's compatible with Live, without using Operator as its core?
The result is a simple additive instrument called "Gillette".
For starters, I created four single-cycle waves: fundamental (1st harmonic), odd harmonics, even harmonics, and prime-numbered harmonics. Then I placed each in its own Simpler and placed those Simplers inside an Instrument Rack.
When it comes to synth exotica, this year's Musikmesse was one of the best I've seen in years. No, no, no... I was too busy with Academik to make the trek, but considering I've already had my grubby mitts on a couple of these delights, I can safely say that the world of synthesis has been going through a bit of a renaissance lately.
Here's a rundown of my favorite products of this show. It is by no means comprehensive, it's just the stuff that I plan to either buy, review, or recommend.
[Update: Some browsers are having problems displaying this piece's layout, notably Safari. Not sure what's going on, since I've posted numerous YouTube videos in the past without incident. Looks great in Firefox, for what that's worth... Apologies...]
ROLAND JUPITER-80
With three months of teasing and rumors, Roland's Jupiter-80 made one of the biggest splashes in tradeshow history - and I'm not just saying that because I designed a fuckton of its presets.
This performance-centric synth sports a three-oscillator analog-modeled synth, Roland's new SuperNATURAL modeling/sampling technology, massive array of world-class effects, and a whopping 256 voices, making it worthy of its $3999 price tag.
How does it sound? Well, having had one in my studio for nearly four months, I can tell you first-hand that it's a true beast of a synth with a VERY Roland vibe. Kind of like a menage a trois between a Jupiter-8, D-50, and Fantom X8 - but targeted directly at live performance.
Howard Jones also designed a bunch of the Jupiter sounds and gives his take on the beastie in the YouTube video above.
These are about as cool as it gets. And my birthday's only a week away!!!
Earlier this month, I was asking the guys over at Switched On if anyone had made a decent Roland VP-330 softsynth. Well apparently, someone did - and if it's Windows-only, I'm gonna key their Chevy.
Developed in conjunction with Berlin electronica artist, Errorsmith, this ensemble is targeted at the Dubstep community, but there's a helluva lot more to it than that.
With its über-pretty FFT display of harmonic motion, tons of really unique filters and a couple of beat-synced LFOs, RAZOR makes a deep cut into additive synthesis territory (sorry, couldn't resist the pun).
So, I decided to beat everyone to the punch and drop a RAZOR-edged free loop six-pack on ya, so you can get a taste for yourself.
Last week, fellow Sentinel Billy Jay and I were tinkering with our Korg Monotrons and I decided to record the experiments. Since Billy's a bit of a Monotron virtuoso, the results were worthy of posting as a Sixpack.
We really dig the Monotron, not 'cause it's cute like a little raccoon, but because it's duuuurty. So don't expect pristine little riffs. That's not what it's about.
One of the artists I'm working with these days is an extraordinary guitarist, DJ, producer, teacher, and Zen badass named Shreddward. He has some top-notch tech house tracks in the pipeline and recently added some moody guitar parts to a track I'm working on. Now, he's got his own blog too.
It's been a fun week for free stuff too... More info after the jump.
