Wondering what the best techniques are when preparing your songs for the iTunes store? Even if you're a seasoned pro it's worth spending a few minutes reading the PDF document that Apple has published on its website. Don't expect anything magic or revolutionary though. Still, these "best practices" for mastering for iTunes shed some light on a process that for some musicians and engineers it's still quite "obscure".
In this document you'll find topics like: providing high resolution masters, being aware of dynamic range, clipping and oversampling, considering iTunes Sound Check and similar Volume Controlling technologies. Again, most of this stuff may not be new to most of our readers, but some details and tips (especially since they're straight from the horse's mouth) make it a worthwhile reading.
On the same page you'll also find a mini-suite of (Mac only) free software tools that can help you in this process: - Master for iTunes Droplet. The Master for iTunes Droplet is a simple, standalone drag-and-drop tool that can be used to quickly and easily encode your masters in iTunes Plus format. - afconvert. The afconvert command-line utility can be used to encode your masters in iTunes Plus format. - afclip. The afclip command-line utility can be used to check any audio file for clipping. - AURoundTripAAC Audio Unit. The AURoundTripAAC Audio Unit can be used to compare an iTunes Plus file to the original source audio file to check for clipping
SoundIron brings another Choir sample library to the table, hot on the heels of Requiem Lite. MARS is a breath of fresh air, as it's a 30-voice male choir. No Alto's or Sopranos in this lot. Grr.
It's a big pile of bytes, containing over 16,000 samples, and weighing in at 18GB. There are over 220 patches, and over 60 multi patches - some of which will definitely test your computer's endurance and ability: One particular combo multi patch loads almost 4gb's worth of RAM. Phew.
The Library is built in a very similar fashion to the Requiem Lite Choir. For more detailed review on the setup - you can look at this review on Audionewsroom. It's built for NI's Kontakt, full version (4 and up) only. The GUI is another Gothicky 'candles and crucifixes' number, very pleasant to look at, with slightly different looks for different sections, and it is well scripted and easy to find your way around. As with the Requiem, all of the patches contain parameters for Attack, release, and tone/fx. There are also performance parameters, selected at the bottom of the window, that enable various important elements to be adjusted, such as crossfade, swell, ranges, keyswitch, polyphony and legato, depending on the patch chosen. If this is not enough for you, it is an open version, and is all customizable to your heart's content.
Soundiron said that with this choir, they're aiming for versatility. With this in mind, the choir is based off not one, but 2 languages; Latin and Slavonic. There are choral phrases for both languages. There are also 3 soloists - one bass, 2 tenors, also containing phrases from both languages. There are 2 microphone positions, stage and hall, which give you the chance to place the choir well in the mix, giving it the balance of clarity and full-bodied sound as it's needed.
Building the choir
There are several tools within this library you can use to create the choral sounds you're looking for. They start from presets containing set phrases sung at a defined tempo, for quicker construction, to straight non-language vowel polysustains, down to the Marcato phrase builder, which lets you get deep into the sound, and control most elements of it for ultra realism.
The preset phrases are taken from popular Slavonic and Latinate liturgical texts, and come in set tempo of 100bpm (slow) and 140bpm (fast). They can be sung polyphonically, as a choir, or legato, as a melodic line. There is also a poly-sustain patch, which essentially holds the last vowel until you release, which gives a lot of scope for flowing melodic lines. Incidentally, there were hundreds if not thousands of legato slurs recorded at all different intervals, which makes for some very smooth and beautiful sounding melodic phrases, with just a little tweaking. There is great dynamic range in the patches, enabled by the 'swell' parameter, taking you from moderately quiet, to ultra fortissimo. If this isn't enough, there is also a 'whisper' patch, to take the phrases well into the realm of creepy, if that's what you're looking for. There is a polyphonic legato, where you can have up to three lines singing legato, as long as they stay a user defined interval away from each other (from a tone on up). This setting is particularly useful if you're writing contrapuntal choral stuff, as opposed to straight chants.
There's a nice touch with the Latin patches provided throughout the library. They are designed to fit in with the Requiem choir, so if you have both libraries, you can use them together seamlessly. The full choir and the soloists have these, with a little variety between them, so you can use them all together.
The phrase builder is a simple sequencer, again built off the success of the Requiem Choir's version. Common syllables, consonants and vowels are grouped together, and you can create 16 different phrases of 16 syllables, sung in either a marcato or staccato form. Every time a note or chord is played, the phrase builder steps to the next syllable. This has potential to be annoying, but is fortunately totally controllable with built in keyswitches, that enable you to choose whether to step to the next syllable or not. Very useful!
The Marcato Builder is perhaps the deepest patch of the whole library. With this patch, you can basically design your Marcato sustained phrases from the ground up, where you can choose the attack sound, the sustain sound, and the release sound, and then balance them with attack, hold and release. Not only that, but there are two layers that you can blend between with the X-blend parameter. With tweaking, it's possible to have the choir slowly blend between two different syllables. It really sounds beautiful. There are over 40 different combinations to try out. This one requires some time to figure out, and it requires a powerful computer. Soundiron recommends you don't try this with a 32 bit system. Here's a video giving a walk-through on the Marcato Builder.
There are other patches, if you don't want to create sung phrases, but want a choral sound. There are sung vowel patches, with 2 layers, so you can blend between two vowels with the use of the X-blend parameter. Very useful for background choral sound. The vowel sounds for each layer, as with many of the other patches, are selectable by keyswitching, so you can change the vowel on the fly by quickly hitting keys at the bottom or top end of the keyboard range.
Singing solo
The soloists here are a nice touch too. They are very richly recorded samples from really excellent singers. They have many of the same patches as the full choir, plus they have a variety of sung melodic phrases (Slavonic and Latin) with timestretch patches, so you can manipulate them into different tempi. Timestretch works within reason, but you can't change it much before you can really start to hear digital artifacts in the sound. The phrases are beautiful, and the rich and resonant character of each singer comes through very strongly. There are breath patches for each of the soloists, for that extra realism. There are sustained legato vowel patches, blend-able between 2 different vowels with the X-blend. You can also select polyphonic legato, to have several different melodic lines sung as a duet or trio. The soloist patches really are excellent, and with the exceptional detail that's gone into the recording of legato phrasing, it's possible to get some lovely sounding melodic phrases.
Effects
There's also a large effects patch section thrown in to the pile. Whispers, drones, clusters, body percussion, and random horror ambiences are a brilliant addition to an already full-stocked choral library. Some of the ambiences really are beautiful, synthesized to the point where you can only just tell it's vocal-based.
As if that wasn't enough to convince you this is worth it's weight, there's also a huge original custom-made convolution reverb library, where you can put the choir in various locations, from the expected concert hall to complete sci-fi madness. Brilliant. Here's some of the demos off the Soundiron website:
Conclusion
After playing with this library for a while, it's obvious that a lot of work has gone on between the previous, excellent choral library and this one. The sound quality is amazing, the thought that has gone into the setup is obvious, and it seems to be a big step up from Requiem. If you want a choir in a flash, you can quickly whip up a great sounding phrased chorus within a few seconds. But from there, you can delve into the library to create extremely authentic sounding choral music. The legato phrasing is lovely, and it's not much effort to create some really sweeping melodies without the usual awkward sounding releases. The soloists and choral effects are lovely additions to the main choir, and the mix options, from EQ, custom convolution reverb, and two different mic positions round off a lovely library package that will fit into the composer's library with ease.
Price $449 (plus shipping and handling if you don't want to download)
...The soloists and choral effects are lovely additions to the main choir, and the mix options, from EQ, custom convolution reverb, and two different mic positions round off a lovely library package that will fit into the composer's library with ease...
New for 2012, established Loop creators Primeloops have released a new samplepack entitled 'Ultimate Dubstep Drummer'. Primeloops are a long established loop creation company - and a bit of a creative machine, cranking out new packs almost every week it seems.
In this pack there's almost 700mb of material, and like most of Primeloops samplepacks, they're focused on one element of one genre at a time. This one is for killer drumbeats within the Dubstep genre. Available in all the common formats, they are divided into 6 folders that make up separate elements of a quality construction kit; 808/909 loops, live drums, Programmed machine, one shots, midi loops, and the loops fully mixed. There are just over 100 loops total, named after areas or streets in London.
Each of the folders compliments each other, so you can build loops quickly and effectively. Each folder has the same street/area in it, including the midi file, and one shots of the drum sounds. This gives you effectively complete control of the loops, and are able to really manipulate them how you want.
They're all locked at 140Bpm, and they sound great! They're pretty solid foundational beats for dubstep. The live drums are recorded and processed really nicely - huge sounding, with just the right amount of reverb. The loops all mix together nicely - not too much EQ'ing required to make really phat sounding rhythm. The overall sound of these loops cover the bases nicely from darker to warmer atmospheres. And of course, once you've created that number one hit - the loops are all 100% royalty free, so no hassles picking up your millions.
Here's a weird little track that I wrote - not really dubsteppy apart from a small break in the middle. But all the drum loops you hear are from this pack.
P.S.Primeloops also has a New Year sale on: Most of their loops are 25% off. While already not being too expensive, they're now letting you have these excellent sound palettes for the price of 2 nice lattes (£13.46). Check them out here.
Happy new year everyone. Starting us off in 2012 is a couple of sample packs from new company Samplephonics. They're a British company; a combined group of composers that approach the sample creation technique as if they'd use the samples in their own music creation. The composers are all from varying musical backgrounds too, from electronica to rock. This definitely gives a fresh look at the samples they create.
Here's the packs I got to review:
Organic loop elements
George Baldwin is a composer/player based in the UK. Amongst other instruments, he plays the rather unique chapman stick - which features heavily in this sample pack, alongside creative vocalisations, and other guitar instruments. He's played on Charlie Brooker's show , and anyone who does that has kudos in my book. Brilliant.
The samples are split into four folders of different tempi - 100, 125, 140 and 170 Bpm. Within these folders are a dozen or so (mostly) rhythmic soundscapes recorded instrumentally or vocally, layered and sliced to fit the tempo. Some of the sounds are just recorded straight, but a lot of them are processed to varying degrees. The soundscapes created are generally very lush, pretty, layered sounds reminiscent perhaps of the folktronica sound of early fourtet or simliar. Each sound comes with the layers separated, so you can mix them more to your liking if you're not keen on the pre-mixed version.
One thing I really liked about them was that rhythmically, even though they're very organic sounding, they're nice and tight, and have a really nice groove. Quantizing loops is a pet peeve, and I really enjoyed the feel of these ones. I also liked the Chapman stick. It seems to have been used fairly extensively throughout this sample pack, and I like the tone of it. Here's a track I wrote using some of the loops from this pack:
Balkansky Darkdub and Glitchstep
On a different tip -
Ivan Shopov aka Balkansky is the creator of the second sample pack. He's an electronic music producer, that has specialised in creating music that blends electronica of various kinds with eastern european soundscapes and samples. Really beautiful music.
This sample pack is aimed squarely at the dubstep end of the market. Everything is tight to 140bpm, the Dubstep tempo. There are 9 folders that cover all the elements of creating a great track - Ripping hard and heavy basslines, ambiences, rises, hits, rhythmic and melodic loops, and of course, killer drum beats. There's a lot of stuff there, almost 1.5 GBs of sound. The quality of the sound is excellent, and I think it stands out with the creativity within it. The drum beats for example are solid rhythmically, but most of them have something else going on - creative compression on a cymbal, or noise sample, that really just brings some life into these samples. I'll definitely be coming back to this pack if I need to create some Dubstep. I liked also how there were many different ambiences possible with this set. It does provide a lot of downright evil sounding bass and drums, but there's other atmospheres to tap into with the soundscapes. All the (harmonic) content is provided with key signature, so you know where you stand when blending samples.
There are over 700 loops, and unlike many sample packs, these are all extremely usable. If you need some inspiration, some of the sounds that are in this pack will really get you going!
Here's a very loose track I whipped up. Love the sounds in this pack. Excellent!
Conclusion
Samplephonics is a new company, but if they keep producing sample packs of this quality with the very reasonable price tags attached, I think they will quickly establish a good reputation in a lively market.
Price £34.70 and £39.70 respectively
... If you need some inspiration, some of the sounds that are in these packs will really get you going! ...
SoundIron is a fledgling company - and already a rising star amongst the many sample creation companies out there. Helmed by Mike Peaslee, SoundIron is creating stunning sample libraries useful in many different fields of music creation. In this article, I'll review the Requiem Lite Choral library. It was originally part of (Peaslee's old company) Tonehammer's repertoire, but has undergone some major updating and has been re-released recently, under the SoundIron banner.
Requiem lite is a full, realistic-sounding choral sample library, featuring recordings of vocalists from the San Franciscan VOLTI choir, amongst others. Requiem lite offers a full SATB (soprano, alto, tenor, bass) choir, divisi sections (male and female) a couple of Soloists, and various choral fx and ambiences thrown in (more on that later) It runs on Native instrument's Kontakt. Note though, it only runs on Kontakt 4.2.3 or later. Previous editions, including Kontakt player (the free Kontakt) will NOT be able to run it. There is talk of SoundIron releasing a version that will work on the free player in the future.
Requiem Lite is definitely not a featherweight. It weighs in at just under 6GB fully installed. Thankfully there's an excellent installer that comes with the purchase. It takes a long time to download 6GB of .rar files, but the installer remembers where you are in the download process, so if you have to stop for any reason, you can resume from where you left off. No issues. If you're not often connected to the interwebs, DVDs are available for shipping and handling fees.
The GUI is a pleasant parchment looking script for Kontakt, with all the basic information on the page. There are a couple of buttons below, to toggle between performance, and Tone/FX parameters for each sound.
There are 62 .nki patches to choose from, divided into 7 folders. Most patches have different versions - such as full choir, men, women, lite, etc. So there's plenty of variety. All of the patches contain parameters for Attack, release, and tone/fx. Many of the patches have layering built in, where the choir can sing two different words, or vowels, and you can blend between the two (each of the layers selectable in-performance using keyswitching) And some of the patches have legato options. More on that later.
Sustains, poly-sustains and legato
There are several patches that allow you the use of the Whole choir in full SATB format, or in divisi sections (of Male and Female) all these patches are available in lite format too, in case your equipment is struggling with resources.
The sound quality is absolutely excellent. It's nice to hear distinct vocalists, but with the overall sound still being cohesive. 8 mic placements were used to record the choir, and those signals were carefully mixed together to give a full, balanced sound. Because it is the Lite version, there are no options on mic placement. But the big advantage of this is that you're using a ton less memory and cpu, as there is just one signal. To be honest, the choir is so well mixed, I never really missed having the placement option. There is an included convolution reverb that can be used to place the choir in different spaces.
You can play these choirs with thick full chords, or you can press a switch and change to legato mode, in which one note is played at a time. The legato mode is truly excellent. Historically, sample packs like this have fallen down when you try and connect notes together to create a flowing melodic line. The attack and release of each note would just not sound right. With the legato patches, SoundIron have got this just right. There's a little tweaking required, but for the most part, it's possible to get beautiful flowing lines from the choirs, with a very slight slide from one note to the next. What takes it over the top is the fact that you can do this polyphonically - enabling up to 3 legato lines at once. The only limit is a range parameter, that requires distance between the notes you play (the minimum distance being 2 tones). There were times when I wished the range could be closer, so I could play suspensions and resolutions to a chord. But that's a minor niggle.
These are all vowel-based patches. You can sing lines with one vowel layer - "ah", for example, or you can blend between 2 ("Ah" to "Oh") or if you're feeling really clever, you can blend between 6 vowels, using keyswitches and cross blending between the two layers you get on each patch. Each of these patches are as a full choir, with the 6-vowel option also available divisi male and female.
The poly-sustains were nice too. Gorgeous-sounding, these patches differ from the sustains in that they are based off pre-sung words, such as "adoramus, Apocalypse" etc. As with most of the patches, these are 2 layered, so you can blend between words, and change them (using keyswitch) to different words mid-performance. There's an option again to switch to legato mode, so that you can change notes mid syllable.
Soloists
There are two soloist patches - a soprano and a tenor. These patches are built identically to the 2-layered poly-sustain patches, other than being solo voices. As with the others, these samples sound gorgeous - very human with lovely vibrato, without sounding warbley or shrill. You again have the option to switch to legato to create very authentic sounding melodic lines.
It's here where I'd like to bring up perhaps the only slight issue I had with the software. It would have been really useful to be able to change the tempo of the sung words. This is only an issue with the soloist and poly-sustain patches. (there is a good attempt to resolve this with some timestretch patches, but you unfortunately have to trade tempo control with sound quality). I think that perhaps this was a decision made to keep the library cpu and memory light.
Ambiences
There are really two main patches here that are split. The 'Requidrone' patches, split into full and lite editions of SATB and divisi, create luscious brassy choral pad sounds. There's a layer for bottom and top end, in which you can change the octave and volume of each, or cut them in and out. The Vocal cues are oh's ah's and eh's, layered on top of big warm pads, and you can blend between any of them.
The second patch is a more ethereal 'Requiembiences', offered in full and light options. There are again two layers you can blend between, titled with greek letters that represent different manipulations of choral sounds. They don't sound choral, but offer nice glitchy raspy pad sounds that would go well in a cinematic score.
Choral FX
The choral fx section is extraordinary. There are some excellent body percussion patches, from knee slaps, to claps, stomps and finger clicks, rumbling feet, applause. There are dissonant and atonal vocal sweeps (think of the 'lost' soundtrack, but with voices instead of strings) there are whispered and hissed full consonants, and other tonal swells. There are some really original sounds in this bunch, that I've not seen or heard in other sample packs. And they're not afterthoughts either - I think they'd be excellent in adding tension and drama to tracks. The choral FX was a very nice addition.
The Phrase builder
This is a standout tool that is excellent for creating clear (allbeit non-sensical) phrases very quickly. It's intuitive, easily accessible, and will create superb phrases with minimal tweaking. Here's a video of it in use:
The phrase builder is included in the marcato and staccato patches. Short (again excellently recorded and mixed) vocal bursts that can be tweaked with sustain, attack and delay parameters. It's a bit of a shame that the phrase builder isn't included in a larger part of the sample pack, as it's a very strong tool to be able to quickly create dramatic sounding phrases.
Convolution reverb
This is also a nice addition from SoundIron. As well as the more expected cathedral, hall, and stairwell presets (All of which add lovely ambience to the choir) there are the more unusual sounding fx-type reverbs with equally unusual sounding titles, such as smear, iron drag and shnivering? Regardless of the titles, the ambiences created are pretty inspiring, from subtle filter delays, to what sounds like a massive thick plate reverb. For the more out of the ordinary usages of choral samples, these could really inspire the writer.
Here are the demos from the website that showcase the various elements of Requiem Lite:
Conclusion SoundIron make it clear what their intentions are with the software, that..
"Requiem Light is intended for users who want a professional choir library at their fingertips, without the usual tradeoffs. It’s designed to excel, whether dropped into the most resource intensive orchestral scoring templates or loaded on a laptop for composing on the road or use in live performance settings."
I think they achieved their aims. Working from a laptop, I think you'd find this choir more useful than some of the others out there, as it doesn't take up much cpu bandwidth, yet the sound quality is, as expected from SoundIron, excellent. It's a full, yet clear sound that captures vocal detail but still sounds grand. The excellent convolution reverb with impulses gathered by SoundIron only adds to the strength of the library. The legato phrasing really stands out. On top of this, I think the addition of the Choral FX, and the Phrase builder combine to provide an excellent choral package that you'd find quickly indispensable in your sample arsenal.
Price $314 for download only (add shipping and handling if you want a DVD)
...the sound quality is, as expected from SoundIron, excellent. It's a full, clear sound that captures vocal detail but still sounds grand...
full and balanced mixed down sound from 8 mic positions
not heavy on CPU or Memory
phrase builder intuitive and useful
Choral FX a very nice addition
LOVE IT OR HATE IT
for a beautiful sounding SATB choir that you need to be able to dive in and quickly get up and running - this is excellent. If you're going to be spending more time, and want deeper adjustment, especially with phrasing, tempo and mic placement, you'll need to look at other options
CONS
sung latin words at a fixed tempo
phrase builder limited to certain patches
Kontakt 4.2.3 or later. NO free player. (Although they're working on a locked player release)
Goldbaby - the super indie sample creator from the other side of the world, has just released a new sample pack of a variety of analog and digital synths. There are 166 sounds made from over 1800 samples all in 24 bit, and can be used in Kontakt 4, and EXS24. (The raw samples are available if you want to use within another sampler.)
The synths used represent a fairly wide range of sound and history. From classics such as the Roland Jupiter MKS 80, through to the fresh-out-the-oven OP-1, from Teenage Engineering. Other synths from Moog, Dave Smith, Yamaha, and Ensoniq are represented well here.
The sounds are split into 5 different folders -
1 layer Mono 1 layer Poly Drums FX *Multi Mono *Multi Poly *Kontakt only
With the Kontakt sample pack set-up, each preset has been worked through the Kontakt engine, and the important parameters are right there at your fingertips - the Amp and filter Envelope, filter choice, from Kontakt's excellent sounding filters, voicing, LFO, and master volume. It is possible to dive deeper into the Kontakt's architecture to meddle with the sound more, but it's recommended to start another patch if you're going to do that, as it may mess up the lovely GUI. Unfortunately the Multi-layers aren't available for the EXS, however there is a work-around; more information on that on Goldbaby's site (see below).
Within these 5 folders there's a wide variety of sounds - pads, bass, fx, string, leads, bells, hits, etc. all labeled according to the synth they came from. And what a great sample pack it is. The sound quality is fantastic. Warm squelchy analog in one corner, meets crisp digital brilliance in the other corner. I saw a glimpse of a UBK fatso in one of the promo pictures, but whatever else these synths were run through really did the job. I did a quick comparison of the Slim Phatty samples to my own Slim Phatty, and I thought they were excellent - very hard to tell the difference!
I recommend going through the sounds individually, as I think that the choice of presets really displays the sonic qualities of each synth. The presets are aimed vaguely at the electronica vibe (of course there's the almost compulsory Dubstep Bass in several varieties), but the huge advantage of this sample pack is that the sounds really have a nice edge over other softsynths, because of the filthy rich analog signal path they've endured. Don't get me wrong, I love a good softsynth, but I'm still not sure they can quite capture the full richness of true analog - which this sample pack has in spades.
There are some really lovely sounds in there. There were a few that really stuck out to me: I particularly loved the analog brass samples from Yamaha's CS-10. It's a mono instrument, but the advantage of sampling is being able to play poly! But perhaps the highlights of the sample pack for me were the FX samples. They are awesome hits, rises, drones, mostly tempo-synced, and still lush and warm with analog tone. Instantly usable stuff.
Conclusion If nothing else, if you can't afford the thousands of dollars to purchase the hardware - this is a great chance to compare the tones of a small set of some fantastic synths. After listening, I'm definitely keeping my eye on Ebay for a couple of choice tone makers. With the 'VOL 1' extension on the title, I hope this is an ongoing collection that will deepen the choice of sounds from the present keyboard line, and extend the range of keyboards. The sound quality is Excellent, and for instant 'go-to' sounds that you might need to pop in to tracks, this is a great addition to the arsenal.
Price $49
... With the 'VOL 1' extension on the title, I hope this is an ongoing collection that will deepen the choice of sounds from the present keyboard line, and extend the range of keyboards. ...
Gorgeous lush analoguy warm vs Crisp digital brilliance. Really well captured sound.
wide variety of presets representing a wide history of synthmania
Kontakt and EXS24 ready
LOVE IT OR HATE IT
If you want a good selection of usable classic sounds from a rich variety of classic and modern synths, this is a great selection. Obviously if you want more out of one particular synth, then you should go get that instead!
CONS
You need the full version of Kontakt 4 to use the sample
Audio Damage have just released the Filterstation plugin; a stereo filter and envelope follower combined. Modeled somewhat after hardware filters such as the Sherman Filterbank, the Filterstation contains several different filter emulations, routing and modulation options, for creative filtering of your audio
The filterstation follows neatly with the Audiodamage design style - the GUI is dark with bright and inoffensive orange highlights, a very simple layout, and extremely clear numerical readouts of all the parameters.
An XY window contains a graphic of the 2 filters - the axes representing the resonance and frequency of each filter. It's possible to click and drag each filter separately in the window, or click the link between them and drag them in unison.
The 2 filters are available in several tasty flavours - lowpass, highpass and bandpass, with emulations resembling the Moog filter to the MS-20, straight 2, 3 and 4 pole filters and several different versions in between, all selectable from a drop down menu. They sound great and there are a few differences in the tone and vibe of the filter algorithms. There's also an analog saturation slider to increase grit.
The 2 filters can be routed 3 different ways - serial, parallel, and stereo. Serial routing means filter one's output goes into filter 2's input, then out. In Parallel, the same signal goes through filter 1 and filter 2, then the outputs are combined to one signal. Stereo is one channel per filter. It's good to flick between these options as the routing options can create very different sonic results.
For modulation, there is an LFO, that is assigned to the frequency of one or both of the filters. There are different waveshapes, from the usual sine, triangle, square, to slightly more unusual spike and 4 fixed pattern shapes. Enough variety to keep you playing. As well as the LFO, there is a simple envelope follower, with attack and decay controls.
Each filter has envelope and LFO amounts that can go negatively or positively, so that the LFO and envelope can affect each filter differently, and even have the opposite effect, if one is positive, the other negative.
There are a couple of interesting additions to filterstation:
One that you don't see very often, is a sidechain input. The sidechain runs into the envelope, and uses the incoming audio to affect the filter envelope. So drum hits could trigger the filtering of a big bass sound, for example - an interesting alternative to sidechain compression.
The other interesting addition is the Midi control. Not only is filterstation fully automatable within DAWS, but it responds to midi note input too. The filter frequency will set to the pitch of the midi note you play. If you set the resonance fairly high, you can get some interesting results!
There are some useful presets to get you started, and it's easy to save your own presets, and transfer them across different platforms without any problems. Here's a video of me messing around with Filterstation on a simple synth pad.
Here's a track I made whilst messing around with Filterstation. There's an instance of Filterstation on every track, and one on the master buss.
Conclusion I think Audio Damage have created a great little plugin here. It doesn't have many bells and whistles, and while I would have liked some different modulation routing options, I think that it would have taken away from the brilliant simplicity of the plugin. It has fewer options than some other soft filters out there, but it does a few things very very well, sounds excellent, is super intuitive, and doesn't break the bank. Great job Audio Damage!
Price $49
... it does a few things very very well, sounds excellent, is super intuitive, and doesn't break the bank. Great job Audiodamage!...
If you're looking for a fairly simple automatable filter, with a great sound, this is the one for you. If you're looking for more complicated plugins with loads of bells and whistles, loads of Mod and LFO options, there are many other plugin options out there.
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