Price: FREE
Product Link: here
Rating: 5/5 bloops (amazing)

If you’ve been reading the info on this site by now you’ll get the fact that i am into things that are free. As a case and point that free is not bad, this review is about the wonderful free synth Automat, by the elusive developer group, Alphakanal.

Automat is a 3 oscillator subtractive synth that has 7 waveforms to choose from, including sample playback for each of the waveforms. Each oscillator’s portamento can be set individually as can it’s tone, volume and pan.

There are 2 filter sections per patch with 16 different types of filter to choose from, and each filter’s type can be set individually. Types include low pass, high pass, band pass, vowel and more. That is hot. For free.

The synth also includes an effects section, with chorus, delay, phase and other time based sfx available. Automat also has the ability to use alternate tunings! Pythagorean your cup of tea? No problem. Ganassi your preferred tuning? Not a problem at all.

As if all of that wasn’t enough, the real secret weapon of this beast is the modulation section. Modulations can control just about every aspect of the synth, including pitch, filter, resonance, and panning. In one of the versions the modulations can even control themselves. Amazing.

If you’ve heard any of my work (space madness in particular) you’ve heard the Automat. I really use this in just about *every* track. It has to be one of the most versatile and amazing synths available, at any price. Don’t sleep on this. Head over to Alphakanal and get on it.

Price: FREE
Product Link: here
Rating: 4.5 bloops

Just as with movies and music, music production has it’s classics as well. When you think classic console you think Neve. When you think classic compressor LA-2A comes to mind. When you think classic sampler Fairlight is right there. And, when you think “classic really cool off the wall free plugins”, Destroy FX comes to mind.

Part of the smartelectronix.com software development coalition, the super destroy fx
cover a wide range of effects, including delay & pitch shifing the likes of which you have never experienced before in transverb (used in the classic OS2 track on Hobby Industries) to the bit crushing and drop-frame-non-dithering sample rate reductions of geometer. See screen shots below.

Geometer

Geometer ripping up some sound making it happier. Similar Pluggo’s Fragulator yet different at the same time. Something like the difference between Coke and Pepsi yet not at all.

Transverb

Pitch shifting delay goodness with randomize and “tomsound”. This is one of those plugins that makes a wide variety of sounds. When running vocals through it it can make you sound like Darth Vader or Alvin and the Chipmunks, both on a 10 sleepless caffeine binge of course. Sort of like a tape delay that does massive 12 octave pitch shifting with a really long playback loop, but at the same time not at all. This seems to be a common theme here.

*Tip* - When using on an EFX send be sure to turn the “dry mix” slider all the way down. There really is no need to have the dry signal coming through on the EFX buss.

Both of these fine free plugins are available as AU and VST for Macintosh and as VST for the good ole PC.

The UK’s Burial has been making waves and receiving raves (pun intended) with his past 2 release, but has tended to stay a recluse and not expose himself to too much publicity.

In this interview he discusses growing up in the UK in a “post-rave” society, pitched up (and down) vocals, sampling video games for drum sounds and “UK Garage”.

http://www.thewire.co.uk/articles/347/

I just came across an amazing article in Wired Magazine entitled “FREE! Why $0.00 Is the Future of Business” by Chris Anderson. Anderson starts with an old-world example of how Gillette started out by giving away their product (the razor handle with only a few blades) in order to eventually sell more blades and build the empire that is Gillette.

He takes that example and shows how modern-day companies like Google, Flickr, or YouTube are taking this very same idea and running their entire business based on providing free services. Of course not everything on these sites is free for everyone — Google has Ad Words that people pay for, YouTube has premium channels that companies pay for, and Flickr has it’s “Pro” account that also generates revenue, but the bottom line in all of these examples is that you give something away and are able to charge someone else to pay for what you give to the people for free.

Anderson talks about how free impacts the Movie Industry, how we are living in a world of Digital Waste, how the difference between something that costs $0.01 and $0.00 is huge, a brief paragraph concerning Zero margin cost (distributing digital music files) amongst may other ideas.

While I don’t have any concrete ideas about how this directly relates to solving the issues with music distribution and getting artists payed for their work, I do know that free is the future for information and content on the web, and that there is a viable platform here to be created for artists and musicians to benefit in some way from the models of Gillette and Google.

It is a long article, so do as I do: print it out and take a little break from the daily grind. Fill your brain with some good ole knowledge whilst you take a break from the daily grind of taking care of the things in your life that are not free.

Link to Wired article here: http://www.wired.com/techbiz/it/magazine/16-03/ff_free

Pole, of ~scape fame, has made a name for himself with his deep and dubby minimal productions. Never one to be satisfied, for some of his recent performances he put a live band together to play his material. I saw him in 2006 at Mutek and it was stunning.This week over at Resident Advisor he put together for them an amazing mix of dub, both old and new. A truly fantastic listen.

http://www.residentadvisor.net/podcast-episode.aspx?id=91

Michael Norris’ Soundmagic Spectral AU Plugins

Price: FREE
Product Link: here
Site Link: here
Rating: 4.5 bloops

For those of you that make music, here is a collection of really amazing plugins to do some really fantastic spectral processing. Take that MAX/MSP! They take a little getting used to, and are a little processor intensive (read as: freeze tracks when done tweaking) but they make some truly amazing and unique sounds. Drones, pitch shifting, spectral smearing just to name a few. Visit his site for more screenshots, sound examples and all the info you will need about these amazing plugins.And oh, for those of you that remember, Michael is the person that developed those amazing plugins “Soundmagic EFX” back in the day. Nice to see that he has continued to develop software. He is also a composer, a photographer and other assorted cool things. If you visit his site you will see all the amazing software and projects that he is sharing with us. Thank you Michael!

With the preceding decade’s technology explosion, particularly in the arena of home computing, it has become easier than ever to compose and record music. Unfortunately, as most of us know, it has as a result also become harder than ever to find really good stuff in the sea of song that is being created. Social networking sites like Myspace alone are a labyrinth of sub-par and half-baked ideas, but that didn’t stop electronic label Moodgadget Records from embarking on the daunting task of weeding through the Myspace dumpster in search of a genuine soundmaker. Luckily for all of us the hunt paid off in the form of a talented Brooklynite composer.

Isomer Transition, whose real name is RJ Valeo, has composed four songs in a blend of techno and house styles for the Moodgadget EP Mission to Mars. Some of the beats crafted - although typically techno in their bass-snare 1-2-1-2 pattern and middling tempos - are the overall primary hot draw here. “Loop Me Through to Control the Mains” and “Deep in Space” each start out simply, with thumping drum programming lathered on thick enough to warm up anybody harboring any frigid suspicions as to whether or not Valeo is of ‘real deal’ caliber. Rest assured, frosties - Isomer Transition is legit.

The beat construction on this painfully short joint is most easily likened to that of Matthew Dear’s Audion: dirty, danceable, and constantly building. With each new set of 8 bars, Isomer Transition throws in subtle new sounds like crisp offbeat hi-hats, further subdivided bass drum rhythms, and all sorts of sonic touches (hand claps, ambient curtains, quickly tapped clicks & clacks). In all four roughly six-minute tracks there are no down (read: shitty) moments and the only disappointments with Mission to Mars is it’s aforementioned brevity. One can only look forward to bigger developments from this artist and more gem-like finds from his determined parent label.

Reviewed by Josh Zanger
Joshua Ian Zanger, a native of rural Chicago, rocks many a world with his writing, style, and generally sweet aroma.

link to review

Isomer Transition: Mission to Mars
Moodgadget

Can machine funk be simultaneously cold and warm? The four minimal techno tracks on the Mission to Mars EP, Isomer Transition’s (RJ Valeo) follow-up to last year’s Future Days release Shadowland, certainly suggest as much: the songs’ shiny surfaces may be as cold as deep space, but their earthy dance quality bespeaks bodily warmth too. The sleek textures and punctuating starburst blasts of “Deep in Space” place it in a dance club at some distant docking station but the irrepressible funk of its skipping stomp and bass rumble reveals an all-too-human physicality at its core. “Space Madness” batters rubbery percolations and snappy beats with meteor showers of warped synth lines, while “The Exploration of Region 13” guides a swinging disco groove and slithering bass line through silken stratospheres. Merge the drum machines and synth acid of Plastikman with the pristine elegance of Kraftwerk and the result might sound something like Isomer Transition.

September 2007

Link to textura.org review.