David’s Adventures Through the World of Music Creation and Sonic Exploration

Just got the following tip in my inbox:

Don’t Crack is selling Sonalksis plugins for a bargain!

Hurry - the offer ends on the 25^th of April.

I’ve started looking at alternatives to my Universal Audio plugins. And here’s why.

Steinberg is adding to the pile of me switching to Mac completely since Cubase 5 doesn’t work at a satisfactional level on my PC, but is working beautiful on my Mac. Since I don’t want to spend money on a Mac Pro all the plugins needs to be native, or use an external box like the SSL Duende. The UAD-2 Solo/Laptop won’t work since Apple decided to not include the PC card slot on the 13″ and 15″ MacBook Pro models so I’m more, or less, looking at the paradigm shift of leaving Universal Audio behind.

I’ve downloaded the PSP Xenon since they listened to the criticism and releaseed the plugin without the iLok dongle protection. A rather unexpected move, but very welcomed. As regular readers know, I’m running a 64 bit Windows Vista installation on my stationary DAW and I’ve got both Cubase 4 (32 and 64 bit versions) and Cubase 5 (native 64 bit version) installed. I first installed the 32 bit version of Xenon, which didn’t appear in any of the Cubase versions I’m running. I then uninstalled it and installed the 64 bit version of Xenon, which only appeared in the 64 bit versions of Cubase – but crashed the VSTbridge upon loading the plugin. Steinberg says they’ve developed the VSTbridge in the upcoming Cubase version 5.5 which will be released in the second quarter of 2010 - and I can’t wait!

PSP Xenon works beautiful on my Mac running OS X 10.6.2 and Cubase 5.1.1 and it’s not the only thing which works neat on the Mac and not the Windows cousin, hence the switch towards a Mac-only platform and that’s why I’ve started to compile a list of alternatives to my favourite plugins.

I know that REVerence isn’t really the same thing as the RealVerb-Pro, but it’s a quite nice reverb effect and I like the addition that it reads impulse response files. It actually completes my needs of a reverb. I would, however, love to try out the Space Designer which ships with Logic.

I’m no fan of copy protection as they only tend to add problems rather than solving piracy. Here are the reasons why SPL uses the iLok protection:

“There are a few reasons why we use the iLok system. Primarily to protect our customers against piracy. Thus the purchase of an Analog Code plug-in from SPL is a safe investment.

Furthermore, the iLok software protection is very common in the audio industry. You can dispose of a very broad range of products with one single protection system.”

(source http://www.spl.info/en/software/ilok-information.html)

A quick search on the Internet shows clearly that the iLok actually didn’t help protecting against piracy at all. I can’t really see in what way that I’m protected. If I lose my dongle, my insurance company have told me that they will replace the donlge itself but not the licenses stored on it. If the plugin therefore is not protected by iLok (or Syncosoft) I can just install it again from a backup and be ready to continue to work.

I don’t mean to bash at SPL as they’re bringing top notch quality hardware and software to us, music producers, but they just happened to be caught by my eye.

So, my point being is that copy protections are adding problems and not protecting users at all but on the other hand cause more expenses and head-ache.

I’ll keep this post up to date with my findings, so tune back in if you’re in the same boat as me or just curious. I’ll try out Softube, SoundToys, SPL and WaveArts to start with, and I guess I have to invest in an iLok dongle too…

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking lately - mostly regarding music, what I’m doing musically and why.
What’s the point, really? Why do I have all the gear I’ve got? What’s my goal?

I don’t strife to be in-the-spotlight-famous - don’t think I could coup with that. But I’d like to become someone. I’d like to produce and be a part of something people refer to as “really good” or “simply amazing”. I’d like to play live at more trance parties. I’d like to support, or produce, a big music act.

I’m not giving up, nor am I selling my hardware equipment even though I’m using software solely today - and I got more software coming…

I ended up in third place in a remix competition which was extremely fun, but it didn’t seem to get me anywhere.

But in the end, it’s the heart-warming comments that really is the driving force behind my music creativity.

Tongue-tied Twisted at the Digitally Imported forum wrote the following when listening to Heliosphere:
“was gonna call it a day at wrk… simply cant now….!!!!! yyeeaahh”
There are some other really amazing comments as well which I’m reading a little now and then when I need it. Those can lift me up when I’m down and inspire me to continue creating music.

Fans, friends, family and lover - Thank You for Listening and boosting my driving force!

Next up: mindXpander Live @ Mimerlaven, Norbergfestivalen. See you there!

Just read on Waldorf Music’s webpage that Largo is under way.

It seems to be meeting all the previous specifications and my expectations are high!

KVR says it’ll cost you $299 / €165 (+VAT) to get your hands on this little bugger.

There are some sound clips available in this post over at Waldorf.

One of the things that I truly love about the Clavia Nord Lead 2 is its filter section. It has got four filter types, as I can remember: LP, BP and HP, all at 12 or 24dB. Correct, that’s only three. So which is the fourth? It’s called LP+Notch and it’s got a LP filter (duh!) with a setting of 12 or 24dB in serial with a notch filter (or band rejection, or band stop) at a fixed roll-off of 12dB. As far as I can remember, the lower roll-off of the notch filter had the same frequency as the LP filter’s roll off frequency. Modulate them both for best effect.

FabFilter released Twin² a couple of months ago. Seriously, it’s fantastic so grab the demo and try it out. It’s worth it! Read about the specifications here.

- “So, what about the trick?” you may wonder. Well, here it goes.
I wrote to FabFilter requesting a notch filter. In the current version, 2.01, it got LP, BP and HP - and you have two of them in either serial or parallel operation. You can build a notch filter using both the filters but then you’re one short for the Nord Lead 2 filter setup. FabFilter gave me a hint of using the filters in the delay section (there’s actually a delay section with two filters just as powerful as the main filters - nice work FabFilter!), so I tried it.
The patch kind of explains itself, so put it among the rest of the presets (preferably in a folder named David since there might be more patches from me and perhaps you’d like to keep them together to not clutter up the preset list) for Twin², fire up an instance and load the sound. Use the modulation wheel for filter cutoff frequency and after touch for some vibrato.