Matt Bowdler is a sound designer based in London, UK. He's recently been working on creating sounds for composer Trevor Morris for the film Olympus has Fallen. We took a little time to bend his ear about his work, what inspires him, and any advice he may have for people interested in getting involved in sound design.

Why are you called 'The Unfinished'?

My non-music past is littered with the ghosts of projects never completed. Because all things being equal I have tendency towards laziness. I drive myself very hard to stay focused, motivated and, most importantly, to keep working. So, when I decided to start taking music seriously, I figured I'd call myself 'The Unfinished' as a constant reminder that if I start something I should finish it! It seems to be working so far. Touch wood.

Tell us a bit about your background, about your musical history, and how you got into composition and sound design. Do you consider yourself a composer, a sound designer, or a bit of both? Wearer of many shirts?

I've always had an interest in music, but it's taken me a long time to realise it is my main love in life (apart from the girlfriend, obviously!). I was bought a little, rubbish Yamaha keyboard for Christmas when I was eleven, that I bashed out many terrible, improvised songs on. Beyond that, I wrote a theatre soundtrack on an old Kurzweil workstation at university, did remixes of Star Wars tunes using a bit of software called Play 2000 on the Playstation and eventually actually bought some proper hardware in the form of a Yamaha RM1X groovebox about fifteen years ago.

But, it's only really in the last three or so years that I've truly embraced music and sound. I've been a big fan of Hybrid, the Welsh dance duo, for years and they started working with a composer called Harry Gregson-Williams a few years back. I loved it and devoured every score Harry had done – being particularly impressed by Man On Fire and Spy Game. I decided then and there that that was what I wanted to do with my life – be Harry Gregson-Williams! I haven't become him, but I did get the chance to meet him earlier this year, which was great.

The sound design came about almost by accident. A good producer/composer friend of mine was designing EDM sounds for synths like Sylenth. He suggested I give it a go because he liked the synth sounds in my tracks... and about two years after (and following much badgering by him!) I finally relented last year and released a small set of free sounds for NI Massive. It was reasonably popular, so I released a full bank of commercial sounds for Massive and it all just kicked off from there really.

I still consider myself a composer first, even though I spend more time designing sounds right now. Essentially my projects are about designing sounds for myself to use, then I share them with everybody else.

...to think I could still be sat in my old office, doing my old job fills me with horror. There's nothing more exciting than waking up in the morning and switching the studio on. If you don't try, you'll never succeed and be full of regrets. So... go for it....

Who do you look up to in the SD business? Do you have any heroes?

There are artists whose sound palettes I admire and who I find a constant inspiration. Needless to say Harry Gregson-Williams's soundtracks are always full of inspiring sonics – the Hybrid guys still supply him with a lot of this, I believe, so they are heroes to me too. Also, in the world of electronica, I am continually amazed at the quality of sounds that the likes of Sasha and BT produce. I also like a lot of ambient music (my soundsets are usually awash with atmospheric pads and textures), so artists like Rhian Sheehan, Jon Hopkins and Sigur Ros are always on my playlist. Then there are the great 'hybrid orchestral' composers like Michael McCann, Cliff Martinez and Johan Soderqvist. I look up to all these guys.

You've just been working with composer Trevor Morris, helping create some of the sound atmosphere for the film Olympus has Fallen. Tell us a bit about that. Could you hear your sounds in the film?

I should start by mentioning that I was but one of a team of people helping him out, which included such talents as Mel Wesson and Steve Tavaglione. But to answer the question... I think so! With the cinema sound system punching the film audio squarely into my cerebral cortex, it was a little difficult to pick out individual sounds. Add to that the fact that I was enjoying watching the film. But there were a few places where I was able to say to myself “That's one of mine!” It was pretty amazing sitting in the cinema and knowing that all the people there were hearing something I had contributed to. A very humbling moment and I have to thank Trevor for allowing me to be a part of it.

Let's talk a bit about the technicalities of designing patches. When you approach a sound, how do you start? Do you think of a sound that you want, or are you just messing around and see what comes out?



Very much both approaches. At first it was more the 'messing about' angle. As I've learned more and more about synthesis and sound design, I am more confident exploring the sounds in my head and trying to transfer them to whichever platform I am using. But, even when I take this approach I still allow plenty of room for happy accidents. I frequently create 'save point' sounds, from which I know I can then take off in many different directions, but always return to the original sound that inspired me to take these imaginative leaps.

It is hugely important to have a 'blueprint' for how your collection will sound though. You have to have some idea of what the sonic raison d'etre of the collection is, otherwise you will end up wandering down endless sound cul-de-sacs that leave you with no usable presets and a three hour-long chasm in your studio time. I do still occasionally save completely 'off-topic' sounds that I really like, with the hope of using them in another soundset – but I've managed to minimise the likelihood of this happening now, thankfully.

What's your favourite software to use when designing sound? Why?

At the moment, I absolutely love creating sounds for Spectrasonics Omnisphere. It's a brilliant synth. The available soundsources are vast in their range, it's hugely intuitive to use and the synth engine is pretty decent too – which often gets overlooked. I have a particular soft spot for the waveforms that have been sampled from classic Roland, Moog and Oberheim gear. It's every bit as brilliant as a synth designed by Eric Persing (the king of synth sound design) should be!

I also have great affection for Native Instruments Massive. It's the synth I essentially learned sound design on, so it has a special place in my heart. It's also a hugely capable synth. Much maligned as being only for dubstep and bass noises, it's quite capable of some wonderful and evocative synth pads and dense, dynamic soundscapes – which you'll hear a lot of in my soundsets for Massive. I do like its aggressive tones too though. Some very punchy and gritty arps and synth sequences can be created. And, again, it really is very simple to use – complexity doesn't need to be walled off in endless menu options and matrices.

Outside of synths, there are a number of plug-ins I use over and over again. Paulstretch is a work of genius, for instance – you can turn anything into a soundscape with it. I'm also a huge fan of plugs by Audio Damage, Camel Audio and Fxpansion. Plus, I must give a shout out to the genius that is Bootsie (Variety of Sound) who creates far and away the best free effects plug-ins that money can't buy!

What three things would you recommend to our readers who are thinking about getting into composition and/or sound design as a career?

1) Enjoy it. You have to enjoy what you're doing. I imagine a lot of people who want to work in this industry have an element of 'desk job avoidance' going on. Well, if you don't relax and enjoy working in music, then essentially you might as well be doing any of those jobs that you hope to have avoided. So, don't make yourself ill working to deadlines that are so tight they can only be described using mathematical formulae. And don't take on so many projects that you can't focus on the ones that are most important to you. Do go to sleep at a reasonable time, take regular exercise and remind yourself what daylight and fresh air are like.

2) Do not worry what everybody else is doing. It's really important for your soul, your ego and your mental wellbeing that you try and ignore what everybody else is doing. You can very quickly become engrossed in how successful your contemporaries are being, and it's madness. Because you never see your own successes in the same light as you see others – the grass is always greener. So, applaud them, admire them, support them, and move on. Equally, don't get too wound up in what the most popular sounds and genres are. Everyone, but everyone is making epic trailer music these days. If you enjoy making that kind of music and are good at it, then all is well. But if you don't, don't waste time being an also ran. Keep working on your own sound, it's time WILL come.

3) Practice practice practice. And practice. Well, hopefully this goes without saying. Always keep writing, always keep designing sounds. You will hone those skills as you go and, hopefully, have a nice backlog of usable work waiting when opportunity finally knocks.

What's are some tips and tricks for a budding sound designer who's looking to start?



A good way to get stuck into synth sound design is to pick one synth (one that has a nice clear GUI and is capable of a reasonably wide range of sounds) and learn it inside out. Learn it till you are able to recreate sounds you like with it from scratch. And only then move onto other synths. What you learn with that synth will stand you in good stead for understanding the architecture of most other synths – as long as you don't pick something obscure, or something pant-wettingly complicated like FM8! Seriously, FM synthesis is evil. :)

There are a great deal of excellent tutorials and videos on the internet, especially on YouTube and Vimeo. Take a look at the work of great sound designers like John 'Skippy' Lehmkuhl and Diego Stocco. They are very generous with their knowledge and hugely talented.

Also, another useful trick is to buy soundsets for synths you're familiar with (or check out the bundled presets) and 'reverse engineer' them. Look at what oscillators, waveforms, filters they use. See how they're connected up. Look at how changing the available parameters very slightly changes the sound. Then use what you've learned working backwards in this way, to reproduce those sounds from scratch. What goes wrong? What goes right? Do you like how the sound is made? Can you do something different with it? Or even recreate the same sound but with different parameters?

What's been the most important thing you've learnt over the last year?

Go for it. I quit my full-time job last year to pursue music professionally. I am lucky that, so far, it is working out. But, to think I could still be sat in my old office, doing my old job – and I had quite a nice job in a very beautiful setting – fills me with horror. There's nothing more exciting than waking up in the morning and switching the studio on. If you don't try, you'll never succeed and be full of regrets. So... go for it.



What is the next year looking like for The Unfinished?

Lots of projects on the horizon. There are new soundsets either finished or under way for Massive, Zebra2, Absynth and Omnisphere. I have just purchased Diva, and also have plans for a project using both Alchemy and Absynth (sample-based synthesis drawing on my collection of ethnic instruments and drums). Plus I have a really exciting collaboration project with a very very talented composer which should be released pretty soon – but that's all I can say at this stage!

I'm also looking at releasing some sample libraries. I'm already part way through a soundscapes library for Kontakt. And I'm also planning a multi-platform percussion loops collection.

Music-wise, I'm working with a few music libraries, producing a range of interesting tracks that are helping to remind that I do write music! Plus, I am trying to clear some space to write an album. I've wanted to do this for a while and am drawing up a list of vocalists and instrumentalists I want to work with on some tracks. Oh, and I also have a very cool game soundtrack project waiting in the wings.

And last, but not least, I'm planning a little shopping for hardware synths. Time for some shiny knobs, sliders and lights in the studio!

To have a look see what's going on in Matt's world at the moment, and to check out his sound packs, go to these websites:

The Unfinished
Matt's Website

Interviewed by Andy Dollerson

Sinevibes is an indie plugin company hailing from the Ukraine. Founded in 2006 by Artemiy Pavlov, they make creative and fun sound manipulation plugins for use within DAWs. I got the chance to play with 3 of their latest releases, and here are my thoughts..

Shift



Shift is a frequency shifter that takes different components of the audio frequency and shifts them, using a 32 step sequencer to modulate the shifts. There are 8 separate envelopes to shape the modulations. The shapes include square, pulse, saw and triangle variants.

As with all Sinevibes plugins, the GUI is simple and effective. It's very clear what's happening. You can choose the length of the steps from 1 to 32. You can change the rate from one shift a bar to every 1/64th beat.

The frequency shift is portrayed as sliders. If you raise the slider, a plus sign appears, and the pitch is shifted up; downward shift shows a minus sign, and it's shifted down.

Shift uses the Bode Frequency Shift algorithm. Unlike a regular pitch shifter, it moves all the harmonic elements of a tone equally - which changes the relation between them. A pitch shifter multiplies the relation between harmonies, keeping the harmonic relation the same. So the tonal character of sounds coming out of Shift are always changing. Instead of the pitch moving, it sounds more like a dirty ring modulation, or frequency modulation.

There is a swing slider, and essentially a dry/wet slider, enabling the sound that emanates to change from a subtle phasing to crazy tweets and bleeps.

Sequential



sequential is a 32-step sequenced multi-effect machine. There are a total of 16 effects that you can apply one of to each step. Each effect has one slider to change an element of the effect. The effects include: Sine oscillator, low pass filter, FM oscillator, noise, freq shift, saturation, etc. and you can change the cutoff of the lowpass filter, for example. I like how the parameters are slightly limiting - it means you don't get ensnared in fine tuning every element of the plugin, but are having fun experimenting within those limits.

The top line of steps is the dry signal. A simple click on the grid of the step you want, and the effect you want, will apply the effect for that step. You can change the rate of the steps, swing and dry/wet balance of the effects. You can also change the length of the steps to less than 32 if you wish.

This plugin is a ton of fun. just clicking away can really mess with your loops or samples. The sounds are perfect for glitchy type percussive loops, and other percussive stuff. Again, as with other Sinevibes plugins, the GUI is totally simple, and you're up and running within seconds, creating complex glitches and loops. Using the dry/wet slider, you can again choose how subtle you want the effect to be.

Switch



Switch is a 32step gate sequencer. You can really play with the rhythm of the sounds you're using with this plugin, creating rhythmic interest to previously static or boring sounds. The interface is again intuitive and creative. You can create 8 patterns of up to 32 steps, and you can choose to either play or mute each step. You can save up to 8 different patterns for the gating, and automate the pattern choice. The potential for differing rhythm is almost limitless! You can choose how sharp you want the gating, with intensity and gate time sliders, to change the rhythm from a gentle pulse to sharp percussive loops. You can change the swing amount, and the step rate with simple sliders, also.

Here's a track I whipped up, using Switch on the bass, shift and sequential on the pad and drums.



Conclusion
These are fine plugins from Sinevibes. I would recommend them as super fun sound manipulation tools that get you messing with your music immediately, with zero learning curve. Start clicking, and sounds start changing in a musical way. There are a couple of elements that I found myself looking for. Namely, I think it would be excellent if there were presets available on the plugins. After messing around, and creating patterns, I found myself wanting to store and reuse them. *EDIT - after chatting with Artemiy, he told me that you can store presets via the DAW. So you can have presets! However, it would be nice to have them directly within the plugin for us lazy music makers!! Another element that I found myself wishing for was a way to use patterns at different step rates. For example, have one pattern running at a step rate of 1/16th, and then have the next one at 1/32nd. This would have been very useful for fills, or builds. It's easy to work around this, by just loading up two instances of the CPU light plugins on the channel, but it would be great if this was a feature of the plugin itself. Most of the features of the plugins are automatable, which is excellent. I did find a couple of small bugs, which could well have been just the recently released version of Live 9, but if not, I'm sure will be ironed out in upcoming updates.

Price
between $19 and $39, although there's a 50% discount if you purchase all 16 available plugins

...super fun sound manipulation tools that get you messing with your music immediately, with zero learning curve...

Product page

PROS

• creative and fun
• Won't break the bank
• CPU light

LOVE IT OR HATE IT

• These are fun plugins, although fairly bare bones. If you're wanting to get into deep sound manipulation, these prob aren't for you. If you like small plugs that can add something interesting to your instruments, these are well worth checking out

CONS

• Audiounit only. Sorry VST fiends


Written by Andy Dollerson

Audiodamage keep cranking out little goodies to mess with your music.

Bitcom is a step sequencer that sends signal to a bit crusher, and a simple synth. Sounds odd, but it can quickly destroy even the most pleasant of sounds. Think Nine Inch Nails destroy.

Each step shows a graphic button of each of the 8 bits. If all 8 bits are selected, the sound is the same coming out as it went in. As you start removing bits, the sound starts to crush. Experimenting with using different bits can really alter the sound of the crushing - so you do get some control on how the bit crushing sounds, which is useful.

There's a useful RAND button for each step, that once selected, will re-draw the bits once they've been played - ensuring that no looped phrase will sound the same if you don't want it to.

Sidechain Synth

The simple mono synth can be played separately via midi, or can be synced and side chained and the volume driven by the audio going through the bit crusher. It has two waveforms, pulse or triangle, which can be tuned finely and shaped.


Conclusion

Bitcom is a fun bit crusher with a difference - the addition of the mono synth adds some interesting elements to crushing the crap out of your sounds. I wouldn't recommend Bitcom as a playable synth - as it's very simple, and not really designed for that. But as a combination with the crusher it gives more options. Lots of fun for the price!

Price
$39

...Bitcom is a fun bit crusher with a difference ...

Product page

PROS

• great control over the bitcrushed sound
• Simple to use
• Synth is a useful addition

LOVE IT OR HATE IT

• looking for subtle analog drive? this isn't for you. Crazy nasty distortion? This is a great option at the price

CONS

• no presets that I could find

Production Voices is a relatively young company helmed by Jason Chapman, and hailing from London Ontario. They create beautiful piano sample libraries for whatever recording or multimedia productions you're needing a piano for.

Towards the end of last year Production Grand was released. It's a meticulously sampled Yamaha C7 grand piano, with 8 mic positions, in various sample and bit rates.

Jason lent me a harddrive at the beginning of this year, and I've since been playing the production grand piano on some of the projects I've been working on, trying it out for size.

First impressions of the company? Excellent. While you wait for the hard drive, Production Voices send you S3 links to download the silver version of the piano, so you can get going while you're waiting for the full drive. I had a few issues downloading the complimentary piano, and the support was very quick sorting it out, and ensuring that I was up and running.

The Production Grand sample library is set up for use with Kontakt, by Native Instruments. It is a whopping 430GB library, with 12 sample layers, pedals, 8 mic positions, all delivered anywhere in the world on an external hard drive.

The Yamaha C7 grand has been meticulously recorded with a wide variety of top notch (think original Neumann, Coles ribbon, API and Neve) studio microphones, pre-amps and converters. The samples have been divided into two groups of four microphone positions; a 'modern' and 'vintage' collection. Each collection has 4 stereo mic positions at various closeness to the piano - from an almost binaural position, to close mic'ed hammers, to room ambience.

SIMPLE



You quickly discover that this sample library is about the piano, and only about the piano. The GUI gives you no gimmicky convolution reverb or FX, just parameters that are related to the actual sounds of the recorded piano. The GUI is a simple, yet effective 2-page affair (plus an extra page which is a diagram showing where the microphones are positioned in and around the piano). Upon loading the modern or vintage edition, the first page presents you with a 4 channel mixer representing each of the 4 microphone positions. you can choose which of the positions to load, and then blend the positions of the mics as you desire. They're all clearly labelled, and run from left to right in terms of closeness to the piano. Furthest left, they're inside the piano, furthest right, they're room mics. The positioning differs slightly on the modern and vintage microphones, as the microphones respond better in different positions.

The instruments fill their titles well - the differences being clearly audible. The clean version is a lot more clinical sounding than the vintage. You can pick and choose what mics you want from what instrument - potentially having a really sterile clean sound for the close mics, to a really warm and rich tonal character for the outside and room mics. Or vice versa. By playing with the mics it's possible to get a lot of different character from the same piano. It is possible to load both instruments and use all 8 mic positions at once, as they've all been aligned phase-wise.

For me, a good sign of the quality of a sampled instrument is how long I spend playing with it when I first get it. From the moment I received the complimentary silver download, I was rather captivated by Production grand. The response of the piano is truly excellent, and I really felt like I was playing something real. The different positions of the mic give full range to the various nuances of the grand piano - from the up close intimacy of the hammers hitting the strings, to the rich warmth of the piano in studio ambience. I found the tone of the piano to be very nicely balanced. Yamaha grands are very bright tonally, with plenty of bite and attack. If you don't get it right when sampling it, this piano can sound brittle and harsh. But I found none of this, and found it pleasing to the ear all the way through the dynamic and frequency ranges. Lovely. There's one set of mics that is almost binaural in it's setup: Great for shoving on headphones and imagining the piano's right there in front of you. I particularly liked the hammer microphones - it gave the piano a nice bite that I haven't heard in other libraries. I also liked the balance of the vintage Neumann mics, with a really wide stereo spread, combined with the PZM mic, that gave a strong center image, and added weight to the wide stereo sound.

On the second page of the GUI are a variety of extra settings that apply to both the modern and vintage versions of the piano. Here is where I realized the actual attention paid to the detail of the recordings.

Theres a couple of more usual parameters - key release volume control, and a velocity curve slider for dynamic response when playing through your midi keyboard. And then...

Pedal Noise

Great attention to detail has been paid even on this small element to the piano. There are 9 pedal down and 9 pedal up noises. Depending on where you set the modulation wheel, the pedal noises will be soft or aggressive. Or if you want even more control, they're allocated to midi C-2 for an octave and a half (below the actual sounding notes of the piano)

Key Up

A subtle effect, but its the sound of the hammers returning to start position after playing the note. It's imperceptible except in really quiet intimate playing. But it adds another level of realism as you can barely hear the hammer thump when you lift the key. Exceptional!

Recording noise

This is interesting. I couldn't decide whether it was a useful addition to the instrument or not. Generally I find that there's enough noise to deal with on a recording. However, if you find yourself requiring the self noise from the microphones, or the noise from the console, or the room noise, you can turn on, and adjust levels of each.

Authentic pedaling

This parameter's just fantastic. String resonance is something that sample programs have had difficulty replicating, and this is one of the best tries yet. No idea how the algorithm goes, but it sure sounds excellent, especially on slow piano pieces. This was the most intensive work for the whole sample library, I guess aligning the right samples to each note to gradually swell in and create that sympathetic resounding sound requires some maths thought! It definitely works well - as you hold notes down, and play others, you can hear the original notes sounding quietly in the sustain. Beautiful!

Pre attack

This takes the attention to the recording over the top. The team listened to how long the attack happened before the sound emanated from the piano, and then added it in optionally as you play to add the pre attack. The downside to this is that there is inevitable latency to the pre-attack. So it's recommended that the pre attack is turned on after the performance to the sequenced piano parts.

All these elements combined create a depth of authenticity to the piano music you're playing. They work fantastically for intimate or solo piano music. If you are recording busy loud pop music, on the other hand, you can turn all these parameters off to save CPU.

EASE OF USE

The 8 mic positions and 430GB of sample content is unwieldy to say the least. Production Voices have thought of this, and provided 3 versions with different sample and bit rates, from 24 bit 96Khz to 16 44.1. They suggest using the silver (16bit 44.1Khz) edition to record and sequence with while writing, to save CPU power. When bouncing to print the music, simply switch the edition to the topmost platinum 24bit 96Khz version for audio quality. As long as you have 8GB RAM, you can render anything the Platinum edition throws at you.


Conclusion


This piano is truly exceptional. You need a powerful computer to be able to use it to its full potential, but that aside, this easily competes with, and to my ears beats the offerings from other big names in the piano sample world. The detail is stunning, the sound is full and defined, with an attention paid to the mechanics of the piano that just isn't available with any other sample library, and that gives a beautiful realism, especially in softer, more intimate recordings.

I love the thought Production Voices have given to providing you a path to scratch tracks with a lower sample and bit rate, and then upgrade to a higher quality when printing, to save on CPU power while creating. Great forethought.

Already impressed with Production Voices, I was completely sold when I discovered on their website that they are offering free samples of a couple of their pianos to people who might not be able to afford it, if they give their time to charity work. If you volunteer 4 hrs, you get one product, if you volunteer 6, you get a bigger one. I applaud Jason for such a great incentive to get people looking to help others. Bravo!

My only hope is that Jason goes on to record other pianos, to squeeze some character out of those old Steinways, Faziolis, Bosendorfers, and into my computer! I hear on the grapevine that there are electromechanical, and drum samples in the pipeline. Very excited to hear them!

Price
On sale at the moment for April $279 instead of $329

...The detail is stunning, the sound is full and defined, with an attention paid to the mechanics of the piano that just isn't available with any other sample library, and that gives a beautiful realism, especially in softer, more intimate recordings. ...

Product page

PROS

• Fantastic sound. Really. I'd defy people to tell this wasn't recorded live.
• Flexibility for all levels of computer setup.

LOVE IT OR HATE IT

• If you're looking for a piano that can hold it's own as a solo instrument playing tricky classical to dramatic cinematic music, then this Piano stands alongside the big players in the industry. If you're looking for a quick pop piano, this might be overkill, and you should look at some of the other pianos they have on offer.

CONS

• For what you're getting, not much
• Complimentary piano took a long time to download

Written by Andy Dollerson

Good news from Soundtoys, this time they've been so kind to offer a little but cool plug-in for free! The plug-in is called MicroShift and the name says it all: it adds "massive width, enormous depth, and huge thickness to vocals, guitars, synths, whatever. Emulating three of the most sought after micro pitch-shifting sounds from two of the all time classic pieces of gear that made the technique famous".

We made it easy for you, just get the code below and enjoy your MicroShift! Last but not least, feel free to share this code on your Facebook page, Twitter or anywhere else. By sharing with your friends, you also get a chance to win a classic piece of gear that featured some of the early micro pitch-shifting sounds that inspired this plug-in: a classic hardware Eventide H3000 D/SE autographed by two of the original designers (that just so happen to work at SoundToys).
The top runners up will also get prizes like free SoundToys bundles, plug-ins, free upgrades to the BIG MicroShift, and cool SoundToys swag.

The code is: 391-9598-679 
The direct link to use it: https://www.soundtoys.com/sxsw2013/&rc=391-9598-679

A free Soundtoys account is required, if you don't have one already just sign up and then paste the URL above in your browser.

Enjoy and get us a beer next time!

B2 is the 3rd spatial processing plugin from 2CAudio, after Breeze and Aether, both of which went down a treat worldwide, winning editors award choices, nominations in huge software roundup competitions, and competing easily with some of the other larger companies out there in terms of quality and flexibility.

B2 is an algorithmic reverb unit, with exceptional sound quality, and with a plethora of modular processing options on top of the quality sound. This is how 2C puts it:

"B2 is a modular dual-engine, non-linear spatial processor featuring built-in harmonic distortion and flexible dynamics. It is our most advanced plug-in to date and is capable of both mind-bending creative effects that defy classification as well as stunningly lush reverbs. Its modular design enables an almost infinite variety of sonic possibilities."

One of the immediately satisfying qualities of this plugin is that you can choose to dive deep, and create your reverb from the foundations up, or just click straight through to the browser section, where you'll encounter just under 700 factory presets for quality reverbs, from the more standard rooms, plates and useful standard recording treatments, to sound design-oriented preset categories with titles like Sci-fi, Mystical and granular. They are all laid out neatly in a preset browser that is categorised - so you can quickly get to the particular style of effect you want.

2-4-1

B2 is essentially two reverb engines in one - and they can be configured completely independently; as an early/late reflection model that's used in their other reverb plugins, or you can use one reverb to affect the signal of the next reverb, which creates some extremely interesting results. Using some of the other dynamics tools included in the plugin, you can crossfade between the two engines, wandering between two different spaces!

The main display graphically shows the characteristic information about the reverb you're creating - showing early and late reflection times and shapes. Buttons to the side switch the display between the two reverb engines, in bright blue and bright green. You can toggle to views of the EQ and damping you're using, and any dynamics processing that you're using. The view can be changed to show the individual delay lines that are being used, their shape, size, width, volume, and delay time of both reverb engines. Again delineated by bright blue and green. In this section there are also buttons to link the 2 engines together, so every parameter knob you move is affecting both engines. You can also switch engines, turn one or the other off, and go to the next or previous plugin.

The control room

These are the main controls for each engine, and they are relevant to both. As well as the usual parameters you would expect from a reverb plugin - Pre-delay, time, size (manual refers to the room sizes), Density, and diffusion. You can disable the feedback and reverb itself, which essentially transforms the plugin from straight reverb to more multi-FX unit, by using the EQ, compressor, pre delay, etc. There are many different uses for this - for example, if you disable the feedback and make the reverb size very small, it has a stereo widening effect, but doesn't add reverb or ambience to the sound.

Straight lines? Pah!

This is a non-linear plugin. Great effort has been made to ensure that there are sonic inconsistencies, varying results, and other generally non-linear attributes to the treatment of the sound. This gives the sound the character that we love - the non perfect sound.

The linearality or non, is controlled at the main display using the Range, Random, contour and curve controls. These define the distribution of the sound into the space that you create. You can start from scratch to create the space that you want, with the reflective characteristics you want, how big it is, how random the delay lines are, and how the amplitude curve is shaped. Essentially, the spaces you can create are limitless.

Another way that 2C have really upped the standard is using their spectral modulation algorithm. Claiming that no space ever returns the same impulse response, as nature is always affecting the space, even of rooms (think, temperature, occupancy, humidity etc), they've tweaked their algorithm so that the 'impulse response' that is imitated is always shifting very slightly and imperceptibly to the ear, but simulating more closely the organic and natural response you would get in the real world. This is always present, and is not controllable, being at the heart of the plugin. Of course, even this element of the B2 is still modd-able, with a user definable LFO that can affect the reverb tails by altering the pitch and shift microtonally, which can sound anywhere from natural modulations to much more lush thick chorussy sounding reverbs.

Multi-FX

There is a built in dynamics processing section, containing various tools useful for shaping and placing the reverb. There's a gate, for those wishing to 80's up their drumkits; compression, ducking, expansion, transient processing that can be applied pretty much anywhere in the chain (including side chain!) to really allow some creative manipulation of the reverb. The damping control gently changes the EQ of the reverb over time, so as time goes by, the frequency of the tail lowers, and sounds damped. there are High Low and Band pass filters to use, to enable specific frequency bands to be damped. There's an analog style distortion with many different types that can be added to the sound. There's Cross and Width controls, which give you spatial options - you can cross the signal from one channel to the other, or you can narrow or widen the stereo width of the output signal.

Cascade

This adjusts the amount that you want to crossfade signals between each other. When it's set to max, each signal is output serially. inbetween, the outputs are crossfaded. Another magical and mysterious control that affects the sound, and requires the ears using, to establish a sound that is pleasing.

Building Blocks

This thing is modular! Who would have thought it! Most of the elements of this reverb can be turned on or off, as mentioned earlier. It's so modular that it's possible to use this tool without touching any reverb. Here's a list of some of the building blocks that you can use. 36 damping, 30 EQ filter choices, 33 Attitude types, 4 Attitude routings, 4 Density modes, 12 Contour modes, 2 Modulation modes, 3 Modulation densities, 4 Dynamics modes, 4 Dynamics routings, 2 special spatial modes, and 4 delay feedback/Time modes.

Not only does this give you flexibility in how you want the plugin to affect your sound, you can also not use elements to save CPU - very useful given the typical amount of power a reverb plugin uses.

Here's a track I wrote, using several instances of the B2 for space, and for SFX. Lush!




Conclusion
In the bumpf for this plugin, there are several references to having plugins that become a part of the music-making process, as opposed to plugins that you use every now and again. After getting over the initial fairly overwhelming first impressions, this has become a core plugin for me, even after a short time of using it. As 2C makes reference to in the manual, of the need to use your ears, it's not hard to hear how good the B2 sounds. Its not just a killer reverb tool, it is also an excellent sound design tool, with a large complement of effects to add to the reverb unit. Compared to a convolution reverb, it's light on CPU, but without sacrificing much in the way of quality. Highly recommended, and worth it's asking price. 2C have also just released a 64-bit version on their site. Here you can hear a bunch of different artists using B2 in various ways on their material.

Price
$249

...Its not just a killer reverb tool, it is also an excellent sound design tool, with a large complement of effects to add to the reverb unit...

Product page

PROS

• lush organic sound quality
• Great multi-tasking plugin - dip-in reverb, but also serious sound design

LOVE IT OR HATE IT

• If you're looking for a convolution preset with 3 different versions of the Taj Mahal impulse, then this perhaps isn't the one for you. If you're wanting to create your reverb effect from the ground up, and enjoy almost total control, look no further.

CONS

• Got the potential and ability to be a CPU muncher if you're not careful!

Written by ANDY DOLLERSON

Twisted Tools are a company that use the computing power of Native Instruments' brilliant Reaktor to their advantage, creating killer effects and instruments for use in electronic music and sound design.

S-LAYER is their latest creation: a sample layering sound creation tool for reaktor 5. You can layer up to 8 sounds on top of each other and then blend them in different ways to create new and interesting sounds for your sample collections. There are various sound design effects that are a part of S-layer to manipulate the sound as part of the process.

One down side is that you can't use the reaktor player - you have to have the full program. The flip side of that is that you have to have the full program, which for anyone vaguely interested in electronic music, is pretty much a must.

Blue lines

The interface of s-layer, as with all of twisted tools stuff, is clean and pretty. There's even a completely unnecessary but aesthetically gorgeous graphic of the sound waves of the separate samples playing over the top of the rest of the plugin.



Snapshots and scenes

S-LAYER comes prepackaged with a tasty set of 128 samples and 2500 preset (snapshot) combinations created by some of the masters in the current scene, including Richard Devine, Jedsound, Glitchmachines, and Antonio Blanca.

Each preset loads up 8 scenes, which are essentially 8 different sample layers within that preset, like a small sample set. Those samples are mapped to midi notes C3 to G3. Simple midi drum rack size.

The ubiquitous random button changes every element of your preset, giving you 8 new sample layers every time you press it. As you create your own presets and sample sounds, you can save them simply using the built in process in Reaktor.

You can easily load up your own samples, either one sound at a time, or replace the whole set at once, using Reaktor's sample sets.

Sound mangling

The parameters section contains 2 main sections that hold all the parameters (surprise) with which to choose and shape your samples. These parameters can either be controlled separately or jointly for each of the 8 layers.

The first window contains the essential elements. You choose which sample out of the loaded bank of 128 to use. You choose where you want to start the sample, the pitch, pan and volume of the sample. As a simple example, you could choose the start of one hit, the middle section of another, and the tail of a third. Pitch pan and change the volume, and you've created a completely fresh hit.

The next window along contains the various effects that can be applied to the samples. Grain, stretch, cutoff, resonance and filter mode. The third page is for envelopes. Attack, hold, decay, sustain and release.The final page is the external effects. These consist of inserts and sends to two built in effects - a delay and a reverb. Alternatively, you can route the sound to any of your 3rd party effects which essentially makes the routing possibilities of the plugin infinite. All of these effects and envelopes can be applied independently to each of the 8 samples.

MODULATE

The awesome power of modulation enables you to fluidly and constantly change all the effect parameters, with the potential that you never hear the same sound twice. There are two ways of modulating the effects in S-LAYER. The wrapper enables the assignment of various effect parameters to a single knob. For example you can group the start point of all 8 samples together, and enable a different sample start point for all of them by moving one knob. The next knob can control a cutoff filter for all 8 samples. And so on. There are also four step sequences that can be assigned to any of the parameters. They will trigger automatically with midi signal, and can be synced to host tempo.

Here's a remix I did for Nonclassical records, using S-layer for much of the percussion elements of the track.



If you're unsure where to begin, twisted tools provides some excellent video tutorials, on top of the manual, to give you a kickstart. You can see them here



Control heaven

Perhaps the best way to use this tool is with the free Lemur template that comes with it. Lemur is a modular control app for the iPad, and provides users with templates, and the ability to create and customize templates to control any software that responds to midi or osc. You might recognize it from the now discontinued JazzMutant lemur box. Well now it costs $50 instead of $2000, and is midi control heaven! The iPad app for s-layer, built by Antonio Blanca, enables you to create much more quickly - using fingers to change parameters instead of a mouse. For the latest release, there has also been a Maschine template created.




Conclusion
S-LAYER has been described as a 'happy accident generator', and I don't think it's far off with that description. The speed at which you can create whole new sample sets is inspiring. For the price, you're not going to find anything near as powerful and intuitive to design and create your own sounds. I would recommend this especially for those interested in sound design. You can really create some good sounding stuff very quickly here, and the routing options are almost limitless. There was one small issue that I tried to iron out, and couldn't seem to find solutions to. It seems that S-LAYER takes a little while to settle into a project. When first opened, CPU spikes all over the place. I traced it back to S-LAYER unquestionably, and it seemed there wasn't much I could do about it. However, it calmed down fairly quickly. I'm wondering if it is the Reaktor engine loading samples in the background.. S-LAYER's flexibility, intuitiveness, stability, and it's extras (iPad Lemur template, Maschine template, extra free sounds) make this software is an absolute steal. Even though it seems to be aimed more at beat and hit creation, you are really limited only by your imagination. Fantastic Reaktor ensemble that cements Twisted Tools as THE company to go to for reaktor ensembles.

Price
$69

...S-LAYER has been described as a 'happy accident generator', and I don't think it's far off with that description. The speed at which you can create whole new sample sets is inspiring...

Product page

PROS

• Twisted tools are on top of their game, and are refining and updating their software regularly
• Superb sounds provided to get you started - a really nice mix of crisp snares and booming kicks, out to the more surreal sound design type atmospheres.
• There is a sound design pack provided that gives even more scope to S-layer straight out of the box.

LOVE IT OR HATE IT

• If you enjoy creativity in making new sounds, this is a great instrument to use. If you're looking for a conventional sample player, this won't work well

CONS

• For the price, none other than the very occasional (unintended) glitch

written by ANDY DOLLERSON