reverendentity's Reviews

A great FX unit for adding character, damage, and perplexity

Basically, EchoMelt is the majority of the FX section built into Psychic Modulation's wonderfully emotional Phonec soft synth. You have Chorus, you have Delay (with ping-pong!), and you have Saturation. But most notably, you have the Melt feature, which gives your delayed signal a watery, hallucinatory sound. Combine all of these and you get a plugin that turns any synth into the hazy, melancholy 1970s public television/Boards of Canada warblers we know and love. It's worth having!

It's almost like cheating.

SHORTFORM: This is a random stutter/repeat effect that you can configure to activate at a certain point in a musical bar. I frequently set it to 2 or 4 bars, grid 1/4, variation between 5 and 8, offset between 5 and 7, gate 8/16, and chance at 75 to 100%. Drop it in your drum rack track and voila - instant beat variation with minimal effort.

You may be underestimating its usefulness

There are enough audio software developers with flagship EQs that you would be ill-advised to do an internet search for "software EQ", lest your browser give you side-eye. We sometimes forget that with all the third-party options, most DAW designers include audio processing essentials with their software - and more often than not, the in-box tools will serve you just as well as any other. Such is the case with EQ8 (which you have to at least have the standard version of Ableton Live to get - sorry, Intro users).

As you would expect, it is an eight band equalizer. Each band has a series of parametric filter options - 48 or 12dB low pass, low shelf, bell curve, notch, high shelf, and 48 or 12dB high pass. You can turn each band on or off (it's recommended to only turn on the ones you need to save CPU, but this device is generally not a CPU hog - admittedly, I have never used it in oversampling mode, though). Audio signals can be processed in stereo, left/right or mid/side modes, and the frequency spectrum of the channel's output is displayed in the background as you work (which, even though you have to learn to use your ears when mixing, is still helpful for swift low pass/high pass work).

Rather than go into more detail, I strongly advise you to look up tips and tricks on using EQ8 and find out more about all the capabilities of this device. And remember...you can configure default templates in Ableton, so why not create one with an EQ8 on every channel?

Another of those "why is this free" synths

Straight from the developer's website: "Charlatan is a polyphonic, subtractive virtual analog (VA) synthesizer plugin with focus on sound quality and easy usability." There it is, pure and simple. You have 2 oscillators, hard sync, ring mod, unison, noise generator, LFO, a filter section with 4p/2p LP and BP, and 2 ADSR envelopes. All of this is in an easy to understand, easy to use, low CPU package. Leads, pads, sweeps, basses, you name it - you can create them all. So go get it.

A solid choral pad synth

Allowing you to combine 3 layers of different choral voicings with filter, chorus and reverb, DSK Choirz is an ideal go-to for adding extra space and atmosphere to your music.

Free FSU 4 U

Fracture is like an older sibling of its slightly more basic relative, the delay plugin Hysteresis. Whereas Hysteresis has a low pass filter, Fracture gives you a multimode filter, also adding 3 LFOs and a buffer effect. Basically, when you involve this in an audio chain, the audio will become unclean...mutated...freakish. Add new textures to your sound, scour your pristine atmospheres with steel wool, give your vocals digital anomaly after effects. The fact that this and Hysteresis were free encouraged me to buy other Glitchmachines plugins, and I have yet to be disappointed.

TL;DR - A great way to mess your sound up.

Delay+

Sometimes, you want more than your average echo. You want a bit more texture, something to tease the ear of your audience and encourage them to go back and listen again. What exactly WAS that in the background? Was it supposed to be there?

At its heart, Glitchmachines' Hysteresis is a delay. However, this delay also adds a low pass filter, modulation, and a stutter. Put it in a return bus, adjust the width a little, and experiment. Your echos will sound like warped, mutated, corroded versions of themselves. And this plugin, like its sibling Fracture, is free!

The synthesis equivalent of the monolith in 2001

Obscurium has 8-voice saw, pulse, supersaw and FM synthesis capabilities. It has a motion sequencer and automation abilities. You can create sequences by drawing, using modifiers, or employing the Super Obscure mode (which lets the software conjure something for you).

OK, enough basic feature description. This thing will make your brain leak out of your ears.

It says a lot about Obscurium that the most challenging thing to do is get it to play the melody you gave it. If you're not using a keyboard to play notes in real time, I would suggest creating a MIDI sequence with another synth and then giving the sequence to Obscurium to see what happens. And I assure you, it WILL be transformed. I still haven't gone through all 400 presets, mainly because what it does is both audibly and visually fascinating. Fans of Imogen Heap, Autechre and Tangerine Dream will feel right at home - you will experience otherworldly pads, fidgeting arpeggiations and unique percussive sequences. When you feel ready to explore further, you can design your own sequences on the tapestry-like interface, modifying 16 different aspects of the sound, confining it to specific modalities and morphing through variations of your creation via sequencing or real time manipulation.

YOU CAN LOAD OTHER VST SYNTHS INTO IT AND USE IT ON THEM.

Summary/TL; DR - If you purchase this (and you should), give yourself a couple of hours to explore it. You will be fascinated, transfixed, and filled with a childlike wonder you haven't known in years.

Great sound, but a couple of minor gripes

Tek'it Audio has some really great VSTs available for free, and the Genobazz series I have used quite often. It's a quick and easy way to add a nice fat bassline to your productions. You have your choice of 8 different waveforms, 8 different filter types, sub boost and full MIDI automation support for sequenced tweaking. There are just two little quirks that keep it from being perfect. First, all the knobs rotate smoothly (as opposed to having graduated increments). This makes it a pain to do fine adjustments because you have to turn the knob very carefully to not overshoot your mark. EDIT: Thanks to Tek'it Audio for pointing out you can make fine adjustments by holding the Ctrl key as you adjust the knob.

Second, even though recent updates have mostly resolved this issue, some of the presets are out of tune by default. And yes, this can be fixed with the pitch knob, but that echoes the first problem again.

Aside from my two minor gripes, it's a great piece of software. Of course, I DID just get the Pro version, so we'll see how that improves on this!

Brutal FM synthesis that will cut through any mix

A three oscillator beastie that lets you sculpt some really ugly sounds, FMetal is a great addition to your collection for making Electro/Dubstep leads and mid-range bass sounds. I always have to back my track level way down when I'm working with this, because the sound goes LOUD and NASTY. And it's free!

Subject of much online debate, but they work for me.

Some producers love them, some producers hate them, but regardless I feel that my work has improved greatly after finally setting these speakers up.

A freeware, no-frills "homage" to a commercial product.

A maximizing limiter type thing, you can slap it on your master channel and get instant OOMPH out of your tracks. Just choose one of the 4 EQ curve variants and dial the knob to adjust the intensity of the effect. While this may be a quick fix for works in progress to see how they shine up, you are more likely to get far better results from this plugin if you take the time to EQ and mix your tracks adequately.
ADDENDUM: Image Line's Maximus maximizing limiter plugin has four "Soundgoodizer" settings which are basically the same four settings of this plugin. So if you like this plugin, and you want more control over what it does and how it's doing it, get Maximus!!!

Another deceptively dirty device

Once you accustom yourself to the compact interface (which is provided in black on yellow and yellow on black), you will eventually find yourself wondering how you went so long without it. A series of multi-chained filters acting in unison, REZ comes armed with distortion, phaser, delay, arpeggiation and step sequencing capabilities. You can use it for impressive leads, nasty bass, ethereal pads or (personal favorite) groove-enhancing arpeggio sequences. It's always great to have for that extra layer of oomph!

Add that extra level of creepy to your next production.

A Kangling is a type of trumpet used in certain Tibetan Buddhist rituals. It is traditionally made from a human thigh-bone, preferably someone who was a criminal or who died a violent death.

Allow the previous sentence to sink in before continuing.

The great thing about Kontakt's instruments is that they are usually an easier way to access something which you either cannot play (or play well), or for various reasons can't own (rare guitars, vintage drum sets). This instrument is a perfect example of this. You get almost 2GB of multi-sampled recordings of an instrument whose sound you can't quite describe (visit the website and listen to the demo - http://shop.dargalon.com/?p=476). You also get two additional sampled instruments, a silver bell and a damaru (a small double-headed drum). This instrument collection will be great for eerie ambient pieces, dramatic tension building, or experimental/ritual music.

Great sounds...can be somewhat hard on the CPU

This is a very innovative and distinctive sounding VST. The Vector Phase Shaping synthesis gives you a way to create new and unique sounds, and the layout is fairly easy to navigate. It also comes with a great range of presets to get you started. That being said, on my 2.30 GHz 64-bit AMD system with 6GB of RAM, I found several times that some of the patches created massive CPU spikes in Ableton Live 9 (of course, you can workaround that by rendering MIDI clips to audio).

If you like the Boards of Canada sound, YOU WANT THIS

Holy cats. That late 70s/early 80s public television incidental music analog synth sound is all over this VST, and it's every bit as warm and melancholic as you're hoping. It has dual oscillators, and also "analog-style oscillator drifting" for that authentic wavering sound. It also has an accent sequencer, 3 LFOs and an arpeggiator. AND it has a "Melt" control to add that extra degree of unsteadiness to your sounds. Everything I have used this synth in benefits from the extra warmth and strangeness of the sound!

So effective it's a little dangerous

This is one of those plugins that you slap on a track and IMMEDIATELY notice the difference. It's basically a distorted saturation effect. I haven't tried it on synths, but if you put it in your drum tracks your drums GET UGLY. It allows you to turn your drums down and still have a good punch, while adding some dirt and grit. FAIR WARNING: you definitely want to turn the volume down before twiddling knobs (if it helps, the knobs have been pre-mapped in Ableton so you can click the triangle button and actually read what each control does) because some of the settings can distort things to the point of audio card/ear damage.

Trance!

Great trance and progressive sounds!

One of those "I can't believe it's free" plugins

Ambience is a terrific plugin for adding reverb to anything. It comes with a wide range of presets for both insert and send modes, and you can achieve some incredible sounds with it.

High-quality saturation

For a while, I was putting this on every drum track. It's a really great plugin for fattening up your kits.