Showing posts with label vst. Show all posts
Showing posts with label vst. Show all posts

Sunday, October 12, 2008

VST Instruments (SoundFonts.it )



In my never ending pursuit for QUALITY VST Instruments I came across SoundFonts.it

Aside from some very good free instruments that have a brief nag screen (donationware), they also sell some wonderful high end emulations.
Classic Hammond B3 and Yamaha CP-70 as well as the timeless Rhodes piano.
The Trumpet emulation, called Miles'Tone, has to be heard to be believed....!

I've bought most of them now and love them all to death.
Payment is through Pay Pal. Registration was fast and painless using either code entry or activation .dll .
I've also had friendly communication with the developer and it's always fast and courteous.

So come on people..... Get the free instruments and try the demo's of the purchase versions.

You won't be dissapointed.....

Wednesday, September 3, 2008

J B Ferox - VST Tape simulator















Digital recording is cold. Let's face it folks, we gained an amazing signal to noise ratio but lost something on the way.
In my never ending pursuit of lush sound in a digital world I've tried lot's of things.

Tubes add a certain harmonic distortion to sounds which is nice...but that's not IT.

Compression can do wonderfull things to sound from fattening to making something really groove...but that's not IT.

It starts with a clean optimum level recording, but with digital you really have to fight the peaks if you want lush and smooth.
What I mean by that is ordinary limiting of the peaks in your audio is not going to give you the warm fuzzy feeling your looking for.

Back when tape was the recording medium that ruled, there was a constant battle to keep the noise level down. Thus, you recorded as hot as you could to the tape. A byproduct of this was that extreme peaks were reduced simply because the tape could not record them. So, with nicely distorted and squashed peaks, the bulk of the important stuff was recorded at optimum levels.

With digital it's ALL recorded (if you don't clip), peaks and all. Not only that, the nature of peak level metering in today's hardware/software means a lot of stuff is not even recorded at optimum levels (more on that in future articles).
Just limiting the peaks actually affects the good stuff immediately after them. It's the nature of limiters, they are stupid and release time dependant. Additionally, tape has a certain amount of noise which actually helps carry the sound. Seriously. A certain amount of noise in a recording can actually be a good thing, dithering being a classic example.

So, finally the point of all this waffle.... A good tape simulator will not only tame your peaks in a way that prevents the good stuff being compromised. It also adds the distortion and noise characteristic's that make us feel warm inside.

J B Ferox is an excellent FREE one available on the net here.

Download it and do a little test. Drums are perfect for this due to their massive peak to RMS ratio. Find or create a snare track, limit it with ANY limiter you care to use. Now do the same thing with Ferox and see which one sounds better.
My money is on your choosing the tape simulation.
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Monday, August 25, 2008

Free plugins

There are a load of free plugins on my studio website.


Directx

VST


Enjoy.......