Plugins
Notes on plugins: synths and sound processing
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Bought this beauty just before New Year, and now rabidly stack new patches for it. While it can read (with limitations) patches and soundbanks from Access Virus TI, it goes way further: aside from VA oscillators there are Multisaw, Wavetable, Grain and Formant oscillators, and you are not limited to Virus’ hardwired selection of waveforms,
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MATRICES is a preset pack for Native Instruments FM8 software synthesizer, one of the absolute pinnacles of 6-operator FM-synthesis. The synth is old: next year it hits 20, but the only thing obsolete about it is its unscalable interface. Otherwise it’s still a hell of a synth with a very broad sonic palette, and immense
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Finally managed to revive Absynth 5 in my system. Native Instruments dropped it from their active roster, and even those who have purchased it earlier may have hard times installing it on Windows 10. In my case it was kinda outrage: Native Access (a controlling/licensing/updating software) would download an .ISO file, then report installing it…
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‘Chromatography’ is the presets pack for Cherry Audio Rhodes Chroma software synthesizer. The demo below features several instances of Chroma. Other than a master bus limiter (ReaLimit from Cockos Reaper), no external effects are used. Rhodes Chroma was a seminal instrument from early 1980s developed by ARP shortly before their demise. The design was purchased
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‘The Day of Life Forgotten,’ the experimental electronics net-label, have released black-sided sun’s latest album ‘Summa Timorum’ (The Sum of Fears). As per label’s message: ‘Dark ambient, post-industrial, experimental electronics. New album by black-sided sun delivers exceptionally dark and precisely detailed sound scape. An epic, and hopeless, sound canvas, both startling and attracting at the
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Developers of Surge XT, a fantastic software synthesizer that I use religiously these days, have included a bunch of my patches into nightly builds, which means they will be featured in the next version of the synthesizer. Many of those patches have been used while making the next album by black-sided sun due to arrive
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Metallic groans, clangs, tinklings, jinglings, blips, radio static with something alien coming through, – PHI MU LABS: COLD FOUNDRY is the soundbank for KORG WAVESTATE & WAVESTATE NATIVE assembled specifically for creating the unsettling, dystopian, grim cinematic atmospheres. It largely consists of field recordings, including those created back in early 2000s. Some of them (not
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PHI MU LABS: DRONOLOGY is a library of presets for KORG WAVESTATE hardware synthesizer and KORG WAVESTATE NATIVE plugin. This library’s primary emphasis are multisamples and programs, as per WAVESTATE’s nomenclature. 16 Performances are available too, but largely for demo purposes. Each multisample is basically a soundscape on its own, so the majority of programs
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Cyanea is the bank for Vital I’ve been working on over the last few weeks. Vital is a mighty thing, although I’d love it to have some features of Surge XT. Just a wishful thinking, anyway. The full version of Cyanea pack consists of 56 presets, with half of them being pads. There are also
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Just dropped another preset library – this time for DCO-106, Cherry Audio’s take on Roland Juno-106. Get it here: https://blacksidedsun.gumroad.com/l/pj106 These timbres are re-implementation of my earlier presets for TAL U-NO-LX synth – PJ-6. The initial idea was to set the sliders in the same positions and see what holds. But that just did not
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My attempts to translate the patches from TAL U-NO-LX to Cherry Audio’s DCO-106 proved to be way more problematic than I expected. These emulators may cover similar instruments (Roland Juno-60 and Juno-106, accordingly) but some of their aspects, such as LFO, inverted Envelope for the LP filter, Arpeggio settings, Unisono mode – they all are
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Just released PJ-6, a new soundpack for TAL U-NO-LX synth, which is an emulation of the classic Roland Juno-60 hardware synthesizer – beefed up to become a sonic powerhouse, despite its somewhat limited architecture. There is a free introductory version, and the full pack is available at Gumroad. PJ-6: a soundpack for TAL U-NO-LX synthesizer
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I see now, how practical was the claim by Enya‘s producer Nicky Ryan that they will never get rid of Roland Juno 60. Dug deep into TAL’s emulator (U-No-LX) and can’t stop tinkering with it. Despite its deceptively simple architecture, the synth is a sonic powerhouse with totally enormous capabilities. Surely it has some upgrades,
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PHI MU LABS: ORIGIN is a collection of timbres created specifically for FM synthesizers. These patches have been also used to produce PHI MU LABS, vol. II library for KORG WAVESTATE and are included in that package as well. ORIGIN also includes the patches in Native Instruments FM8 format. All patches had been dialed up
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The weekend is going to be busy: Quite unfortunately I’ve been hit with nasty flu, so I’ll have to perform wearing a medical mask this time. Not an enjoyable experience. Elsewhere, it is utterly enjoyable to see how many people come to download Luminophore pack. And it looks like it’s not only about being free
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Earlier today have uploaded a free pack for Surge XT synth to Gumroad (as freeware). And within hours got 5 downloads, with sixth extra – someone picked another freeware pack I’ve made for WhispAir previously. Looks like at least some interest is there. I guess, I know which synth I’ll be making patches for next.
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Uploaded my bank for Full Bucket Music‘s ‘Code Zero-One’ to Gumroad as a freebie. Code Zero-One is the free bank, which also contains custom wavetables created with AUDIOTERM software. They can be used separately. The winner of the KVR Audio Developer Challenge 2021, WHISPAIR is a 3-osc wavetable synthesizer with significant modulation capabilities, written in
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Messed up miserably yesterday uploading wrong files to Gumroad. Fortunately, fixed the issue before anyone purchased the libs. Aside from this converting the source DX7-compatible patches to FM8’s own format adding bells-n-whistles like filters and effects.
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The months-long work is done: Phi Mu Labs, vol. II – the FM-synthesis based sound library for Korg WAVESTATE synthesizer has been completed and published at Gumroad along with the first one. And here goes the video demo of several performances created with those multisamples I’ve been rendering and looping over all that time: Please
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Second cinematic library for KORG WAVESTATE NATIVE plugin and hardware WAVESTATE synthesizer is coming – with a bonus.
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With Sombra Del Mar band. Same place, later time: Sinori Pub, Batumi; starting at 21:30. Hopefully it will be as fun as it was last time. Besides, I’m going full steam ahead with completing Phi Mu Labs II library for Korg wavestate AND FM-based synths that can read SYSEX from Yamaha DX7. This is pretty
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The independent web-label ‘The Day of Life Forgotten’ (Rus) have just released its seventh VA compilation from ‘Journeys, Wanderings and Immersions’ series. It features a track called ‘1000 Days’ by black-sided sun. The composition had been created using only custom-made timbres for Dexed (a Yamaha DX7 emulator), SurgeXT, Full Bucket WhispAir, and NI FM8. Below
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For some of my projects I used (somewhat maligned, occasionally) Z3Ta+ 2 synth by Cakewalk. The migration is always painful, but with this thing it is a whole new dimension of torture and misery. :-) Thing is, activating it is a very non-straightforward process, and having proper CD keys for Steam-based version in my case
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Going full steam ahead with making the second installment of my Phi Mu Labs – the FM-based timbres library for Korg wavestate. Cherry-picking or dialling up the timbres are fun, adapting them for the synth – much less so. Basically I render 14-16 .WAV files – two per octave (C and G notes). Some timbres
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Finally looked a bit more dilligently into a bunch of SBI files on my hard drive, and discovered a ‘golden lode’ – a number of timbres from Dune II: Building a Dynasty (aka Battle for Arrakis), the ‘mother of all real-time strategy games’. SBI stands for Sound Blaster Instruments: those are tiny files of instructions
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Here goes the first demo for two dual packs of patches for Yamaha DX7/TX7 and all of their ilk provided those are 6-operator+ synths, hardware or software. I’ll make them available later this year, separately and with Korg wavestate version of these timbres.
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…Dialed up yet another double bank for DEXED. Also should be loadable to any hardware or software FM synth capable of reading Yamaha DX7-compatible SYSEX. Surely, the demo will follow soon. Probably these sounds will be offered separately from Phi Mu Labs 2 pack for Korg wavestate. Although I’m still thinking what’s the best source
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I’ve owned Yamaha DX7 for many years. Got it second-hand in a working, but cosmetically drastic condition. For a time being it was one of the keyboards I used religiously both on stage and in studio, considering it much more of an ‘honest’ synthesizer than any ROMplers I owned aside from that. However, since discovering
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A demo to LUMINOPHORE pack had been uploaded on Youtube. And I’ve started working on a new pack – this time for DEXED. It will be, most likely, compatible with Native Instruments FM8, Arturia DX7V, Plogue Chipsynth OPS7, SynprezFM, and every DX7-compatible 6-operator hardware synth that can read DX7 SYSEX files.
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Finished my first pack for Surge XT synth, and must I say I’m incredibly impressed with this synth’s capabilities. Tried to employ them at depth. Earlier today I’ve cooked up a 16-minutes long ambient demo featuring some of the sounds. No other synths, no external effects except for a featureless limiter on the master bus
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