$$$PLUGINS$$$

  On 6/14/2022 at 3:54 AM, thefxbip said:

Yeah i guess its one of those things with Zebra...i did use it a bit to make some colundi stuff but the damn interface just turns me off.

Somewhat superficially of me I found Zebra to be a lot more usable with the Neumann Pro skin ( https://plugmon.jp/product/neumann-pro/ )

Same with Bazille, found it a lot easier with the Tokyo Ghost skin ( https://plugmon.jp/product/tokyo-ghost/ )

VCV Rack can be great if you select a handful of modules. I bought Rack 2 for the MI and Instruo modules alone. Otherwise it's easy to be lost / overwhelmed by the countless options.

WRT Bazille, which is certainly my most used synth, I love the Gearporn UI.

I don't want to start a thread for this so I'll ask here instead;

Does anyone know of a good/alright windorgan (the cheap kind from the, I think 70's that have a little motor in them that sucks air into the organ) or harmonium sample pack or vst? I'm looking for something that sounds kind of creaky. Might try something with an additive synth and some added noise later maybe that'll work.

WRT plugins I bought, besides some of the stuff already mentioned I bought the Soundtoys suite/pack/lot a few years ago during a sale. No regrets at all. If you wanna dip a toe in I can thoroughly recommend the lil little plate reverb (think it is or was free, maybe 25,- 99,- now)

  On 6/14/2022 at 12:05 PM, mcbpete said:

Somewhat superficially of me I found Zebra to be a lot more usable with the Neumann Pro skin ( https://plugmon.jp/product/neumann-pro/ )

Same with Bazille, found it a lot easier with the Tokyo Ghost skin ( https://plugmon.jp/product/tokyo-ghost/ )

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same. i like the plugmon skin a lot. his skins for uhe stuff are awesome. 

  On 6/15/2022 at 8:44 PM, user said:

Does anyone know of a good/alright windorgan (the cheap kind from the, I think 70's that have a little motor in them that sucks air into the organ) or harmonium sample pack or vst? I'm looking for something that sounds kind of creaky. Might try something with an additive synth and some added noise later maybe that'll work.

I don't know of one but I would try tweaking a single reed stop from an accordion or Indian harmonium sample pack (detune a little, EQ it to approximate the ugly low-mid reonances that make old air organs sound the way the do, maybe add a little noise to approximate a fan. The main differences between chord organs and accordions (other than overall build quality) is that most of the left hand of the accordion is completely omitted and the bellows are replaced with an electric fan, otherwise it's pretty much the reeds from a cheap accordon (without any of the unison or octave reeds that accordions use for their differend stops), and the bare minimum number of chord buttons they can get away with (I've seen more than one really cheap one that only had enough chords to play in C Major or minor, and a couple that didn't have any).

You could probably do a good job starting with a melodica sample set, too.

I assume you're talking about a little Magnus/Bontempi type thing, like these:

I've owned both of those exact models and 3 or 4 other small plastic ones over the years, they all sound different but the fancy wooden kind don't sound significantly different or better than the plastic ones to me.

If you mean a big, European harmonium like this, then you can probably find something more easily (but the trouble here is emulating the way the foot pump changes the timbre, pitch and loudness if your pumping isn't consistent  which is a big part of the sound).

If you want to get really into the weeds you could emulate one of these:

I picked up the even smaller keyboard-only version at a thrift shop years ago and the fan is too loud to record with (plus it only works with batteries and takes 6 D cells), but the cool thing about these is that the mechanism is so crude that you can actually use key pressure to bend notes a little bit, so it actually accidentally has polyphonic aftertouch.  If you tune your samples about 25 cent flat and set it up so poly aftertouch bends them up to very slightly sharp (maybe 5-10 cents above pitch at aftertouch=127, if that) with a reverse log response since most of the action happens at the lowest key pressure on the real thing. Then for authenticity mix in a LOT of noise, maybe 75% as loud as the actual notes, and then don'tuse it because it's too noisy - that's been my experience with the one I have.

  On 6/15/2022 at 8:44 PM, user said:

Does anyone know of a good/alright windorgan (the cheap kind from the, I think 70's that have a little motor in them that sucks air into the organ) or harmonium sample pack or vst? I'm looking for something that sounds kind of creaky. Might try something with an additive synth and some added noise later maybe that'll work.

I used to have one of these, used it loads, it was brilliant to work with

I'd say it's not the kind of thing that can be emulated or even sampled, because you tend to adjust mic position etc to get the tone/room sound to fit with your track.  and in any case it's all the odd sounds, half-pressed keys, stressing/bending the case and wierd interactions you get with chords that get you the good stuff.  infact the best thing I did with it was when I just recorded the motor spinning up and down over and over again

back to OT (plugins) - i've spent plenty of £ on plugins.  everyone has their own personal list of favourites and a lot depends on what host you prefer, but here's what i've got the most use and value from:

synths/MIDI: Harmor, MassiveX, MSoundFactory, Bidule, XPand2, VCV Rack, TAL Sampler, Scaler 2, Phrasebox, all HY-Plugins sequencers

fx: MAutoDynamicEQ, Presswerk, Ohmicide, MTurboReverb, Raum, Chipcrusher, Tantra2, Ubermod, MCabinet, Replika XT, Satin, The Drop, The Scream, SpecOps

@TubularCorporation@xy_politics

Thanks very much. Even though yeah, indeed one will likely end up finding samples way too noisy and/or unable to capture what makes these things so great in the first place your posts made me glad I asked the question. Cheers!

I'm far from a pro studio engineeror anything, but as a committed hack I'd say they're hands down the most difficult instrument to record that I've ever encountered.  It's like trying to record a harmonica 6 inches away from the fan on your computer, the only way to really make it work is to either mic it from far away like mentioned above, or just embrace the fan noise and lean in to it. But that's not so easy to do if you're recording a sample set.

I think the only way to make it work would be to do something along the lines of rigging up a long hose that would connect the intake vent to an air compressor in a different room and using trial and error to figure out the right amount of airflow to make it play in tune, sample the notes that way with the motor turned off, and then get a nice, long loop of isolated fan noise to blend in.

But even then it would probably sound more like the accordion sample in an old ROMpler than an actual air organ, because of all the stuff xy_politics said.

Seems like they're getting hard to find, too, I haven't seen one locally in years and I definitely regret not having one now

As far as the big, console harmoniums with the foot pumps go, if you have a van and are willing to travel long distance you could probably still find one for free with a bit of work. They're like cheap pianos and Lowry organs - 99% of people who have one don't want it, but also don't want to pay to have it taken away so if you can do it they might even give YOU money. An old friend of mine started a moving company back in the mid 2000s and for most of a year he had a couple big box trucks but wasn't open for business yet so they were just parked in a lot.  All summer he answered every Craigslist and public kiosk "free piano (you move it)" type ads, picked up the pianos with one truck and then stored them in the other.  I have no idea what happened to them but at the end of it he had I think 9 uprights and two baby grands stacked up in there, and his only expenses were gas and paying a couple of the freelance movers from his old job that he'd already hired for his company anyhow, so it doubled as employee training for piano moving.

Actually, the first IDM I ever heard was a Squarepusher was a CD-R of Burningn'n Tree he gave me back in 10th grade, too. Unrelated, but it sort of makes sense that the person who introduced me to IDM would go on to own 12 pianos in a truck. Nobody I knew used the term IDM in the 90s, though - we just called it music, "IDM" was a bullshit music critic term that was used to show you were in the know and gain pre-Internet clout as far as any of us knew.

Not really sure where I'm going with any of this, but I'm out all I could find to eat today was about half a cup of dry museli and a cup of coffee for breakfast, a small bowl of museli with almond milk for lunch, and a bowl of yogurt with museli in it for dinner, so I think all things considered I did OK.

EDIT: back in 2003 or 4 I picked up a weird little Magnus or Bontempi for $10 at an outdoor flea market somewhere in the upper West part of the East Village and carried it back down to Chinatown where my girlfriend and I were catching the bus, and somewhere kind of near maybe 4th and A (I don't know my way around Manhattan very well, if it isn't somewhere along the walking route from Chinatown to the original Kim's Video location and then back down Bowery and over to Green Point then I'm lost, and I probably couldn't even pull that off anymore, which is fine since nobody I know has been able to afford to live in Green Point since like 2006 (because the cost of living in early 2000s Brooklyn was than the cost of living in, like, Fall River or something today and in the entire time I had a bunch of friends there I can only think of one person whose rent was over $400 (and that's becasue he was sharing a nice single bedroom place with a private courtyard garden in back and a remodeled kitchen, so his share of the rent was more like $525).

Anyway I was carrying that Magnus somewhere in Alphabet City and this middle aged guy in an expensive suit who looked quite a bit like Uncle Phil saw us from across the street and waved and yelled something about air organs and we waved back.

That's my story.  It wasn't short and it wasn't good but I think the punctuation's OK.  I should probably have an actual meal before I got to bed...

Yo I paid for 

Absolutely love it!!! My secret weapon or not so now.

fors.fm stuff is inexpensive and really cool. 
 

i also use sound toys. 

NI has removed Absynth from its product line. 

https://twitter.com/RhizomaticSoft1/status/1567576196157677568

  On 9/7/2022 at 9:20 PM, ignatius said:

NI has removed Absynth from its product line. 

https://twitter.com/RhizomaticSoft1/status/1567576196157677568

 

 

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This dude is a beast with Absynth https://www.youtube.com/user/ANTsynth/featured

Subscribed to Vital.
and as for CPU, normally I use it in the lowest setting in oversampling because I can't (or i refuse to) hear the difference.

  On 9/8/2022 at 8:38 PM, rek said:

Subscribed to Vital.
and as for CPU, normally I use it in the lowest setting in oversampling because I can't (or i refuse to) hear the difference.

Hadn’t heard of this before, it sounds interesting and the buying options (if I’ve understood it correctly) seem very good.

is it a cpu hog then as being as you mentioned it?

  On 9/9/2022 at 3:12 PM, Grain Bastard said:

Hadn’t heard of this before, it sounds interesting and the buying options (if I’ve understood it correctly) seem very good.

 

is it a cpu hog then as being as you mentioned it?

some people complain about it needing optimization, but I just suggest trying it out. I guess you need to create a free account to get it. there's a strong emphasis on ergonomics or usability. everything is laid out pretty well. I've been playing around with it for about a year and it doesn't do everything so it's not a killer of every other synth. a lot of people seem to prefer phase plant but it seems to be close to the same level as serum as I gather from serum users. but it's just one developer, not a big company with a team, so updates are slow going. That's one reason why I subscribed, hoping it helps the project. There's an open source fork called Vitalium, but I don't think it is on the level of Surge XT, which is being updated often.

I'm back into the DAW game lately (bitwig) and looking for some good effects that don't have obnoxious DRM and sound good for their price. Mostly reverbs, compressors, distortions, and other interesting effects that might not be covered by bitwig's built-in suite, like maybe one of those IDM in a box things like effectrix (is that still whats cool? though bitwig already kind of does that with the fx selector). I'm mostly multitracking my OTB setup at the moment. But yeah in terms of synths the surge xt and vital synths are good freebies (I used to pay for surge, it was my workhorse).

Also this is kind of unrelated but where can I buy and or download a huge library of convolution IRs? I want like 100s of different kinds of natural spaces, rooms, open fields, museums, city streets. From all kinds of different mic placements. There's gotta be something good like that out there.

  On 9/16/2022 at 5:09 AM, Bubba69 said:

I'm back into the DAW game lately (bitwig) and looking for some good effects that don't have obnoxious DRM and sound good for their price. Mostly reverbs, compressors, distortions, and other interesting effects that might not be covered by bitwig's built-in suite, like maybe one of those IDM in a box things like effectrix (is that still whats cool? though bitwig already kind of does that with the fx selector). I'm mostly multitracking my OTB setup at the moment. But yeah in terms of synths the surge xt and vital synths are good freebies (I used to pay for surge, it was my workhorse).

 

Also this is kind of unrelated but where can I buy and or download a huge library of convolution IRs? I want like 100s of different kinds of natural spaces, rooms, open fields, museums, city streets. From all kinds of different mic placements. There's gotta be something good like that out there.

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impulse responses

commercial or name your price

http://signaltonoize.com/?page_id=4188

bunch of free ones at voxengo

https://www.voxengo.com/product/pspace/

there's a bunch here too. 

https://resoundsound.com/4-impulse-response-reverb-packs/

as for other reverbs.... valhalla, valhalla, valhalla and if you make an account there and pick up a reverb you get a couple things for free.. or they may be free even if you don't buy anything. 

https://valhalladsp.com

and for fuckshit up plug ins.. the destroyFX bundle got updated recently. works a/new OS and apple silicon etc. classics and so good. 

http://destroyfx.org

i'd take a look at unfiltered audio plug ins as well. BYOME is super cool adn versatile beyond just fucking shit up.. and it goes on sale alllll the time for like $30

https://www.plugin-alliance.com/en/products/unfiltered_audio_byome.html

michael norris bundle is free and full of spectral things. mac only though. 

https://michaelnorris.info/software/soundmagic-spectral

also look at the 'free music software' thread here wherever it is. 

  On 9/16/2022 at 5:09 AM, Bubba69 said:

and other interesting effects that might not be covered by bitwig's built-in suite, like maybe one of those IDM in a box things like effectrix (is that still whats cool? though bitwig already kind of does that with the fx selector). I

Databroth seems to have all the cool new stuff covered
https://www.youtube.com/c/DataBroth/videos

woo! thanks for the recommendations @rekand @ignatius - yeah I'm definitely eying those valhalla. Have heard good things.

  On 9/17/2022 at 8:29 PM, Bubba69 said:

woo! thanks for the recommendations @rekand @ignatius - yeah I'm definitely eying those valhalla. Have heard good things.

 

i haven't tried it but devious machines Infiltrator seems like a solid fuck shit up beat mangler.. the new version just came out and looks like it has FFT processes in it now. 

databroth is taking it thru its paces now.

  On 9/20/2022 at 3:44 AM, ignatius said:

i haven't tried it but devious machines Infiltrator seems like a solid fuck shit up beat mangler.. the new version just came out and looks like it has FFT processes in it now. 

databroth is taking it thru its paces now.

 

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Yeah I've been messing with this a bit and it's insanely good. Probably going to buy it. Feels like cheating but whatever.

  On 9/21/2022 at 6:14 AM, Bubba69 said:

Feels like cheating but whatever.

there's no rules.

do the thing. 

I am trying to find an easy and free way to make my own convolution reverb or impulse responses.  I hav ridiculous ptsd and no patience at all.   Looking for a way to implement this sound as VST convolution reverb through either Audition or Audacity, in a way that a hamster would understand, if possible.    I have done this before, but have no recollection of what I did.   Ready to kill.   

dang, Vital is great! Can't believe I slept on it for so long. Not quite as immediately intuitive as Pigments (IMO), but still, a joy to use. and y'know... can't argue with free. time to make some more NDC

  On 9/25/2022 at 11:18 AM, no part of it said:

I am trying to find an easy and free way to make my own convolution reverb or impulse responses.  I hav ridiculous ptsd and no patience at all.   Looking for a way to implement this sound as VST convolution reverb through either Audition or Audacity, in a way that a hamster would understand, if possible.    I have done this before, but have no recollection of what I did.   Ready to kill.   

Pop ballon in room

Record pop