Free Prophet 08 Ableton Instruments

To celebrate hitting 10,000 fans on my Facebook page a couple of weeks back, I took a poll to see what synth in my studio you wanted me to sample next.

The overwhelming response was my beloved Dave Smith Instruments Prophet 08.

So… Here ya go! :)

The Simpler instruments in the file are as follows:

P8 Saw - Basic single oscillator Prophet sawtooth.

P8 Square - Basic single oscillator Prophet square wave.

P8 Pulse - Basic single oscillator Prophet pulse/rectangle wave.

P8 2x Fifths - Two octaves of fifth intervals. Super thick and Mau5-ish.

P8 Big Octaves - Four octaves of a basic dual-oscillator patch. "Undertaker" and "Ghosts-n-Stuff" fans are gonna love this one.

P8 Detuned Saws - One of the hallmark sounds of ALL Prophets.

P8 Deep Drone - Big, throbbing detuned bass drone.

P8 Sync Sweep - Long slow hard sync sweep with tight short loop at the end. If you want to have a lot of fun with this patch, start by adjusting the sample start point. You'll see ;)

P8 Res Sweep - Resonant sweep with a touch of white noise and a tight loop at the end. As with the Sync Sweep patch, try tinkering with the start point.

As with the Minitaur and Doepferheim packs, these Simplers in their default state, with filtering, LFOs and envelopes off, so you can use them as starting points for your own sounds.

I did handle the looping tasks myself, because several friends commented that it's rather tough to get them right if you're inexperienced with the process.

Here's a fun aside: The "Marina" lead sound is in this collection, but it requires some additional programming. See if you can find it.

Here's the Ableton Live file containing the presets.

Download:
Francis Preve - Prophet 08 6-pack 
(compatible with Ableton Live 9.7 and higher)

Note 1: If you like any of these sounds and want to keep them for future tracks, just click the little save button in the upper right corner of the Simpler and add it to your library (it will copy the waves too).

Note 2: If you don't use Ableton and just want the C3 samples, you can download the file and fish the waves out of the "Samples" folder, then use them in your DAW or sampler of choice.

Much love, kids.

Free Oberheim/Doepfer Ableton Instruments

Fans and friends of mine know that my studio consists of a ton of analog gear, arranged in a semi-modular configuration - and I'm constantly experimenting...

One of the cornerstones of this rig is a baby modular, created by pairing a Doepfer Dark Energy Mk 1 and an Oberheim SEM CV-edition.

You can find all of the tech specs in this article I did for Keyboard Magazine last year.

A lot of people have asked what this beastie sounds like, so I decided to whip up a new Ableton six-pack that showcases some of the sounds it can generate.

Free Moog Minitaur Ableton Instruments

The Moog Minitaur is one of the most buzzworthy hardware synths of the year.

It's an all-analog bass synth, with a knob for every function, that costs around $600 (US).

To honor the release of this synth - and commemorate hitting 3000 Facebook likes for my Official page  - I whipped up a four-pack of Ableton Simplers that demonstrate how amazing this synth sounds.

And yep, they're free and you can use them in your tracks - royalty-free.

Free Ableton Instrument: Sharkjumper

Wubwubwubwubwubwubwub. Urp.

I swore I'd never make a straight-up dubstep bass patch, but since that train shows no sign of stopping this year, it's time for me to jump the shark.

Of course, I couldn't resist calling attention to that fact, so the preset is named... Well, you KNOW what it's named.

Free Ableton Instrument: One Trick Pwnage

Alrighty then!

I promised I'd release a preset once my new "Official" Facebook page hit 500 friends, so here ya go.

Some of you may recall the nifty video for Swedish House Mafia's hit with Pharrell Williams, "One". In the video, the intro (0:10-0:35) apparently used one of Teenage Engineering's white hot OP-1 synths to morph a kick drum into the lead riff.



Well, as cool as the OP-1 is, you can also do this trick rather easily with Ableton Live, so I created an Instrument Rack based on one of the free kicks from Matt Lange's isoRhythm packs (Thanks, Matt).

There are three macros that duplicate the programming and effects used in the intro part for "One" - Loop Rate for the kick sample, Reverb amount and a touch of Flanging at the end before the riff begins.

To make everything crystal clear, I created a passage in Live's arrange window that uses automation to duplicate the process SHM used in their track (but of course with a different riff, so no one gets annoyed with me).

Here's the Ableton Live file containing the preset. If you dig, just click the save button and add it to your library.

Download:
Francis Preve - One Trick Pwnage ( compatible with Ableton Live 8.1.5 and higher)

The next preset comes when my Facebook page hits 1,500 - so get clicking :)

Where's Francis?!?

Oh god, where do I begin? My last entry was in August 2011, FFS!

Since then, I've decided to focus ALL of my energy on Academik Records. Not that I don't love making and giving away free sounds and tech tidbits, but between music, DJing, running a label, writing for Keyboard Magazine (and soon, a very cool EDM blog you may have heard of ;), and being a college professor, something had to go.

So it's this blog. Don't worry, I've actually been working on a few cool goodies for Live users. That's coming later this spring.

But for now, I'm all about Academik and making killer tracks with heroes, colleagues and protégées. When I take a break, I'll get back to blogging regularly. Promise.

Until then, friend me on Facebook, like Academik on FB, and follow me & the label on Twitter. I assure you, I'm making a LOT of noise in those channels.

Much love and thanks for the support last year.

Vibelung: Circuitflu - Now available at Beatport.com

Changing things up a bit, Academik's second EP veers into techno territory with the contagious vibe of Circuitflu.

The original mix is a mutant hybrid of minimal techno fused with hints of clever IDM, courtesy of Dallas-based electro/techno DJ, Vibelung (aka Jimmy Freer). With Circuitflu, Freer's approach to minimal blends clever robot voices with pounding 808-style kicks and a synth riff that evokes the Knight Rider theme without reeking of irony or litigation.

Francis Prève's reinterpretation of Circuitflu turns up the boom with his infectious brand of techno, gene-spliced with a strand of DNA from the better strains of electro. Starting with a handclap-heavy dark groove reminiscent of classic Peace Division, Prève's remix builds to a massive peak that bounces and throbs its way into one of Preve's trademark rising leads. The result is a big room monster that's guaranteed to pack summer floors both at peak-time and after-hours.

Here's what some of the world's top DJs are saying about the Circuitflu EP:

Ableton Preset: Mattel Synsonics

In the pantheon of vintage analog drum machines, there's an unsung classic that isn't from a big name manufacturer like Roland or Korg, but from a toy company. Released in 1981, the Mattel Synsonics was an affordable black box that housed a fully analog kit consisting of kick, two toms, snare, cymbal and hi-hat - all playable via velocity sensitive pads.

Of course, since it was a "toy", few artists took it very seriously - with one notable exception: Kraftwerk.