Sound designer Ian Dixon has introduced 1970s String Machines Collection for Korg Modwave, a new sound library that features classic string synth sounds.
The sound library is compatible with the Korg Modwave, Modwave MkII, Modwave Rack, and Modwave Native. Best of all, it’s available as a free download.
What Dixon has to say about it:
“This collection recreates the classic sounds of the Solina String Ensemble, Korg Delta, Korg Trident (a multi-instrument machine with a string section), Roland VP-330 (with Human Voice Choir sound), and Elka sounds.
There are over 40 performances and programs enabling you to recreate the string sounds of Jean-Michel Jarre, Pink Floyd, and Vangelis. There are string sounds, vocal sounds, and even Celeste and the occasional brass sound.”
1970s String Machines Collection for Korg Modwave is available now as a free download.
Audio plugin developer Spectral Devices has announced that they has ceased operations and made its three plugins available as free to download:
“After careful consideration and deliberation, we have made the difficult decision to cease our company operations. This decision was not made lightly, but we believe it is the best course of action for the future of our organization.
However, we are pleased to announce that we will be making our software available for free downloading to our loyal clients and users. We understand the impact that our tools and products have had on your operations, and we want to ensure that you continue to have access to them even after our closure.
We want to express our deepest gratitude to each and every one of our clients for your support, feedback, and loyalty over the years. It has been an honor serving you, and we are proud of the accomplishments we have achieved together.”
The three plugins available as free downloads at their website:
Spacer – a modular creative effects station. Spacer has five effects modules which can be linked in any order, but are also designed to work as independent processing stations in their own right. S
Pancz – an audio plugin equipped with a powerful multiband transient shaper, clipping tool, precise waveform analyzer and additional tone manipulation effects.
OCS-45 – Simulate real life cassette tapes and add a lo-fi, vintage feel to your sound.
The first (now free) plugin is Spacer, which is a multi-effect with five modules – Reverb, Convolution, Grain Reverb, Delay and Grain Delay – which you can place in any order. You can use them independently or in combination and the plugin is, Spectral says, especially good for creating “dreamlike overtones, shifting soundscapes or contemporary ambiences”.
It was the most expensive plugin in Spectral’s range, originally retailing for $119.
Pancz is a multiband transient shaper with a UI that displays your audio and lets you shape its impact. It includes a limiter, and other controls allow you to add presence and air. This one originally sold for $75.
Finally, Spectral OCS-45 is a cassette emulation plugin that lets you choose from four tape types (Ferric, Chromium, Ferrichrome, Metal). You also get four Noise models, five distortion types and 80 presets in a very decent plugin that originally retailed for just $15.
All three plugins (worth over $200) can be downloaded after you sign up for the Spectral Plugins newsletter here. We wish the developers well and thank them for their generosity.
Hardwell has become the latest artist to release a Producer Pack for the iOS versions of GarageBand and Logic Pro for iPad. His free content bundle includes more than 400 Apple Loops, five drum kits, more than 40 Alchemy synth patches and a Live Loops grid, all ready to be used in Apple’s mobile music-making apps.
“I’ve never shared my sound design secrets,” says Hardwell, but with his free Apple Producer Pack for GarageBand iOS and Logic Pro for iPad, he’s breaking that habit.
Dutch DJ/producer Hardwell has established himself as one of the biggest names in big-room EDM, collaborating with a slew of famous artists, remixing the likes of Rihanna and Coldplay and headlining festivals around the world.
“I’m obsessed with making kick drums,” says the Dutch EDM maven, and now he’s giving you a load of them to use in your own music.
Looking back across his career, Hardwell says: “When I started as a producer, the samples never sounded the way I heard them in my head, so from that point on I started developing my sound design skills. I just started to watch tutorials, read about it; how compressors work and all that, and making my own samples, especially kick drums. I’m obsessed with making kick drums.”
Hardwell goes on to explain that, in dance music, the kick drum is the “fundamental of the whole song,” adding that, “writing chords and melodies, I’m not thinking ‘oh, those chords should be really next level, something that people have never heard before’, so it can something really familiar or something really new, as long as the emotion is there.”
One his collaboration with Apple, Hardwell adds that “I’ve never shared my sound design secrets – this is the first time I’ve released a proper sample pack. If you’re a beginner and you download this pack, just start messing around with it. Everything is set to go – you can just drag and drop loops and use them in all your productions.”
You can download the hardwell Producer Pack from inside the iOS versions of GarageBand and Logic Pro for iPad. For more information visit this link.
