MATRIXSYNTH

Tuesday, January 27, 2009

Virtual String Machine Review and Samples on Cafe 80

See the full review with samples on khoral's Cafe 80.
snip:
"The VSM is a sample-based software synthesizer from Gforce Software, recreating those beloved old-fashioned string machines from the 70’s and early 80’s (pictured below, the Eminent 310, which famously provided the atmospheric strings of Oxygène and Equinoxe).

It is sample-based, in that the VSM don’t emulate these instruments from scratch, but starts with recordings, which you can then retune, pan and modify with filters (lowpass, highpass and bandpass) and LFO."

Also be sure to check out the demos section on the official Gforce site.

List of users from the Gforce site for the archives:
"Essential String Machine
* Jean Michel Jarre: Oxygene (Eminent 310 [pictured]), Equinoxe (Elka Rhapsody)
* Duran Duran: Rio (Crumar Multiman)
* John Foxx: Metamatic (Elka Rhapsody)
* Beck: Midnight Vultures (Opus 3)
* Morrisey: You are the Quarry (Opus 3)
* Jeff Wayne: War Of The Worlds (Freeman String Symphonizer)
* David Bowie: Sound & Vision (ARP Omni)
* Roy Ayres: My Life in the Sunshine (Solina)
* Herbie Hancock: Chameleon (Solina)
* Steve Hackett: Spectral Mornings (Logan String Melody), Voyage of the Acolyte (Elka Rhapsody)
* Genesis: Lamb Lies Down on Broadway album (Elka Rhapsody layered with Mellotron®)
* Air: Moon Safari album (Solina)
* Ultravox: Vienna (Elka Rhapsody & Yamaha SS-30), Artificial Life - (Elka Rhapsody)
* Lonnie Liston Smith: Expansions (Solina)
* Gary Wright: Dreamweaver (Solina)
* Goldfrapp: Number One (Roland RS505)
* Vangelis: Heaven & Hell (Elka Rhapsody)
* Joy Division: Love Will Tear Us Apart (ARP Omni)
* New Order: Blue Monday (ARP Omni)
* The Cure: In Between Days (Solina)
* Pink Floyd: Shine On You Crazy Diamond (Solina)
* Kraftwerk: Trans Europe Express (ARP Omni)"

MS2000-chained

flickr by danbroad1000

full size

"Just a cheap and cheesy bit of PSE6 just to illustrate an idea I have for chaining two of these together!"

Admin: Facebook MATRIXSYNTH Group

I've been pretty bad with Facebook lately. Mainly because I process everything through email and RSS feeds. I just haven't had time to check out Facebook directly. Well, I found a solution. I created a Yahoo! Pipe for the group. You can sub to it here. More info on pipes here. In short you can now sub to the group in your RSS reader of choice. Remember you can sub to this blog by just copying and pasting the URL into your reader. I also added a link to Facebook in the header menu above. Feel free to join the group if you are on Facebook.

Monday, January 26, 2009

GSi Genuine Soundware and Instruments

This is one of those I can't believe I haven't posted this before posts. GSi makes a number of quality soft synths and effects, many of which are actually free. If you haven't checked them out yet, make the time to do so.

genuinesoundware.com

this one sent my way via Metasonix
"Apparently, General Soundware has made some of their plug-ins free of charge, including the WatKat, TimeVerb, and Legacy Plugins. Honestly don't understand why people pay hundreds of dollars for old-instrument-simulation plugins, when stuff like this is available. Even their costliest plugins, the VB3 and MrRay73, are only 49 euros."

Schippmann Ebbe und Flut analog modular filter

via this auction

For more details: http://www.schippmann-music.com/

CLICK FOR MORE »

Create Benny Benassi's Bring The Noise (Pumpkin) Synth In Reason 4.0!

YouTube via luckydatevideos
"Instructions for this video:

Take the "Yeah Yeah" synth and on the second oscelator change the semi from 4 to 7.
Next add a RV-7 Digital Reverb and choose the large hall setting set the dry/wet to 12
Create a Mclass Compressor and set the threshold all the way to the left, the ratio all the way to the right, the attack all the way to the left, and the release all the way to the right.
select the "soft knee" button"

Create the "Yeah Yeah" Bodyrox synth in Reason 4.0! (Tutorial)

"Instructions for "Yeah Yeah" Synth:

First create a Thor synthesizer
Set the polyphony to 4
And the release polyphony to 1
Now select mono retrig under keyboard modes
Select on for the portamento
Now click show programmer so we can actually get this synth rolling
In the first oscillator leave it as an analog and move the octave to 3
Now turn the little knob below tune and make sure its a t OSC 1 PW 64
On Oscillator 2 add another Analog Oscillator, the octave should be set at 4 and the semi should be set at 4
Set the tune knob to 11
Once again turn the knob under tune and set it to OSC 2 PW 64
Now add a third Analog oscillator.
The octave will be 2
This time switch the type of synth from the downhill line to the squiggly one
And turn the knob under tune to OSC 3 PW 64
On your low pass Ladder Filter make sure 123 are selected
Now lets move over to the filter envelope
Set a to 1.9 d to 349 s to -48.2 and R to 705
On the amp envelope set a to 1.2 d to 349 s to 0 and r to 1.09
Now we are going to make the sound change for your modulation wheel, for source go to performance and click mod wheel, set the amount to 64, and for destination go to filter 1 filter frequency
Now add a BV512 Vocader switch the fft knob to 4 band and switch the knob from vocader to equalizer
Switch the decay to 127
Move the shift to -30
move the hf emph to o and the dry wet to 127
Now create a RV7000 Advanced Reverb and select all warm plate
Now enable the eq
Set the decay to 0 the HF damp to 25 the hi eq to -4 and the dry wet to 18
Now create an mclass equalizer and selct the 30 hz lo cut button
On the lo shelf set the frequency to 106.2 and the gain to 1.7
Now select the button on param 1 and set the frequency to 114.9
The gain to 4.6 and the q to 4.9
Next create a mclass maximizer and set the input gain to 6
Select the 4ms look ahead button
Set the second fast button to auto
And switch the peak button to vu"

Weird Sound Generator

YouTube via kipptumor
"This is how I dealt with Ray Wilson's Weird Sound Generator kit from musicfromouterspace.com. Ray offers all kinds of cool kits from DIY synth modules to a 16-step analog sequencer. I mounted mine in a Lindberg plastic human skull model kit. We use the thing in our music by running it into the audio-in jack of the Korg Electribe. It can be tuned a bit at least, otherwise it is simply chaos."