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Ok for 3 days i've been playing with the new monitors Yamaha HS 50M
Time for testing
To see how well they translate to various other speaker system i decided to create a track medley of sounds from Zebra 2 which i'm working on.
Every Zebra patch is EQ'ed and adjusted to the lows and highs i prefer by using the 2 EQ Modules in Zebra. My biggest concern was getting a broad stereo image without the help from external tools but staying within the Zebra architecture.
Now this MP3 file is not abused by limiter, EQ or automation or anything, its just a raw mix with sounds coming out of Zebra 2.
So dont expect a high output, but expect a very clean mix straight out of the box. (MP3 format kills quite a bit of the dynamic, but still...)
If any are interested in the WAV (48 MB) version let me know.
Take the MP3 for a ride on your speaker systems and let me know how the balance turns out. By balance i mean, is there too much high frequency or too much lows or perhaps missing the middle. The HS 50M goes down to 55Hz so there might be a problem in the very lows.
http://www.michaelkastrup.com/synthdemos/Zebra2_YamahaHS50M_Final.mp3 (256bit)
Track length 4:39 min.
1. Intro
The wobble rythm effect (Low Mids bending up)
The most annoying sawing sound on earth (Low Highs)
2. Kick, Hihat and formant sequence with high crickets effect.
This track gives you an instant idea of the max low and max high.
3. The acoustic part with choirs and guitar like things and fretless bas
Good for checking the mids
4. Trance part with stressed highs in the begining which settles down to some percussive noise.
This is the volume check part regarding highs.
5. The crazy organ part for very low check (the kick bomb)
6. Old RnB, The dry and tight test.
7. Mr. Briefcase, Upper mids check via the Hohner clav like thing.
8. Boogie rock, Distortion check, the organ should be percieved gritty with normal distortion.
9. Pink Floyd-Alan Parsons, Sustaining midrange check with added highs in the last part.
Cheers
/Michael
Monday, December 31, 2007
Saturday, December 29, 2007
Shopping for new monitors
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Many times i played with the thought of getting new speakers for monitoring. The old ones i use when mixing at home is an old HiFi set which have been used for more than 20 years!!! No wonder i'm used to these speakers heh heh
Well this night i couldnt fall asleep because my head was spinning around getting new speakers. So i did some monitor checking on the net by reading reviews and viewing data sheets.
My pref. of reference when working in studio is some large speakers and then Yamaha NS10 or Genelec. I know many new brands have showed on the monitor scene and things to look for was among others Adam and KRK speakers. In my mind i had set myself up for a pair of KRK RP 5 or Adam A7 but when i got to the store they only had KRK RP 6 and the new KRK VXT Series.
Anyways the KRK speakers had to much bass for my taste but they were very musical. The Adam A7 was like cutting thru a mix for spotting the tinyest detail. Not very musical but very very natural without any sense of colour. The Adam A7 seemed a tad to big for my desk so i started to look at the small Genelec 8020A, and they sounded damn nice for a speaker of that size. The lows where better than expected but ofcause not great but the rest of the range came out pretty clear so i decided to go for the Genelec. 15 mins later i'm told the shop dont have more in stock.....grrrrr hmmm i want some damn speaker with me today so give me the Adam A7 then..... and 10 mins later....sorry out of stock... lol you gotta be kidding. Ok, i was starting to get annoyed but then noticed a small set of Yamaha HS 50M, now since i'm familiar with the Yamaha sound i thought hmmm why not.... so i took a quick listen and they sounded just as i expected neutral and linear. Funny how things turn out when you out shopping lol
Just as a footnote, i WILL get the Adam A7 at some point. Those speaker are incredibly revealing but for now i settle with my new Yamaha set which i'm sure will cover many needs :)
So in the future i hope to produce a tad more clear sounding synth patches.
/Michael
Many times i played with the thought of getting new speakers for monitoring. The old ones i use when mixing at home is an old HiFi set which have been used for more than 20 years!!! No wonder i'm used to these speakers heh heh
Well this night i couldnt fall asleep because my head was spinning around getting new speakers. So i did some monitor checking on the net by reading reviews and viewing data sheets.
My pref. of reference when working in studio is some large speakers and then Yamaha NS10 or Genelec. I know many new brands have showed on the monitor scene and things to look for was among others Adam and KRK speakers. In my mind i had set myself up for a pair of KRK RP 5 or Adam A7 but when i got to the store they only had KRK RP 6 and the new KRK VXT Series.
Anyways the KRK speakers had to much bass for my taste but they were very musical. The Adam A7 was like cutting thru a mix for spotting the tinyest detail. Not very musical but very very natural without any sense of colour. The Adam A7 seemed a tad to big for my desk so i started to look at the small Genelec 8020A, and they sounded damn nice for a speaker of that size. The lows where better than expected but ofcause not great but the rest of the range came out pretty clear so i decided to go for the Genelec. 15 mins later i'm told the shop dont have more in stock.....grrrrr hmmm i want some damn speaker with me today so give me the Adam A7 then..... and 10 mins later....sorry out of stock... lol you gotta be kidding. Ok, i was starting to get annoyed but then noticed a small set of Yamaha HS 50M, now since i'm familiar with the Yamaha sound i thought hmmm why not.... so i took a quick listen and they sounded just as i expected neutral and linear. Funny how things turn out when you out shopping lol
Just as a footnote, i WILL get the Adam A7 at some point. Those speaker are incredibly revealing but for now i settle with my new Yamaha set which i'm sure will cover many needs :)
So in the future i hope to produce a tad more clear sounding synth patches.
/Michael
Friday, December 28, 2007
Zebra Choir Wavetable
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Ok being the geek i am i tried to see just how far i could take the 2 choir oscillators and avoid using more osc's but see if i could paint some waveforms that could fit the original setup. So i ended up with very soft uhh to more airy uhh to more ahh to more ooh using all 16 wavetable slots. In all 4 specific waveforms which blends into eachother.
This is all controlled by Velocity so if i play soft i get the very soft uhh and if i play max hard i get the canned ooh sound and if i play somewhere between i get the airy uhh and the ahh's.
The ahh and ooh sounds have to much can sound over it but i cant change that without affecting the uhhs.. sooo :o)
Here goes a little christmas tune:
http://www.michaelkastrup.com/synthdemos/Z2_Choir_Wavetable.mp3
/Michael
Ok being the geek i am i tried to see just how far i could take the 2 choir oscillators and avoid using more osc's but see if i could paint some waveforms that could fit the original setup. So i ended up with very soft uhh to more airy uhh to more ahh to more ooh using all 16 wavetable slots. In all 4 specific waveforms which blends into eachother.
This is all controlled by Velocity so if i play soft i get the very soft uhh and if i play max hard i get the canned ooh sound and if i play somewhere between i get the airy uhh and the ahh's.
The ahh and ooh sounds have to much can sound over it but i cant change that without affecting the uhhs.. sooo :o)
Here goes a little christmas tune:
http://www.michaelkastrup.com/synthdemos/Z2_Choir_Wavetable.mp3
/Michael
Zebra Choir Patch
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One of the things i also want to get right is a decent choir thing for Zebra. While its fairly easy to come up with a few voice like notes in an isolated place its another ballgame when you want the entire keyrange to produce a choir. You often end up with chipmonk voices in the upper register of the keyboard. So the trick is to come up with something that avoid the chipmonk thing and have close to a full keyboard range.
Here is a try for a Uhh Choir:
http://www.michaelkastrup.com/synthdemos/Z2_Choir_Uhh_01.mp3
For this patch i'm using 2 OSC and i hope i can come up with a Ahh Choir with the remaining OSC's so i can make a crossfade patch between Uhh and Ahh.
/Michael
One of the things i also want to get right is a decent choir thing for Zebra. While its fairly easy to come up with a few voice like notes in an isolated place its another ballgame when you want the entire keyrange to produce a choir. You often end up with chipmonk voices in the upper register of the keyboard. So the trick is to come up with something that avoid the chipmonk thing and have close to a full keyboard range.
Here is a try for a Uhh Choir:
http://www.michaelkastrup.com/synthdemos/Z2_Choir_Uhh_01.mp3
For this patch i'm using 2 OSC and i hope i can come up with a Ahh Choir with the remaining OSC's so i can make a crossfade patch between Uhh and Ahh.
/Michael
Thursday, December 27, 2007
Zebra Zymbells Soundscapes
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Today i had fun with a patch which turned out to be brilliant for dark ambient and misc bell/cymbal soundscapes.
The patch consist of the 4 OSC producing random sample & hold sine notes, 2 FM modules used for Ring Modulation and a COMB module. After roughly 4 hours i took the patch for a spin and this is what came out. First i play the patch dry with various timbres and then i move on to the more ambient soundscapes using delay and reverb:
The hard part was getting that certain cymbal/bell sound without it sounding to FM'ish.
http://www.michaelkastrup.com/synthdemos/Zebra_Zymbells_01.mp3
/Michael
Today i had fun with a patch which turned out to be brilliant for dark ambient and misc bell/cymbal soundscapes.
The patch consist of the 4 OSC producing random sample & hold sine notes, 2 FM modules used for Ring Modulation and a COMB module. After roughly 4 hours i took the patch for a spin and this is what came out. First i play the patch dry with various timbres and then i move on to the more ambient soundscapes using delay and reverb:
The hard part was getting that certain cymbal/bell sound without it sounding to FM'ish.
http://www.michaelkastrup.com/synthdemos/Zebra_Zymbells_01.mp3
/Michael
Saturday, December 22, 2007
Happy Holidays & Oldskool Vol 3 Sneak Peek
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I wish all Oldskool friends and XSynth Library users happy holidays and best wishes for 2008.
What could possibly happen in 2008, well it COULD be something like a Oldskool Volume 3 for Zebra VST but its too early to tell yet. I dont want to rush things, i just want time to be creative and enjoy myself and hopefully something pops up someday which i can share.
Here is a sneak peek of 19 maybe Oldskool Volume 3 patches:
http://www.michaelkastrup.com/synthdemos/Zebra_Oldskool3_Preview1.mp3
Lots of great synths saw the light in 2007 and i want to explore them all. I highly recommend Atlantis VST by Jeremy Evers which is a free synth for people who like to experiment with soundshaping.
/Michael
I wish all Oldskool friends and XSynth Library users happy holidays and best wishes for 2008.
What could possibly happen in 2008, well it COULD be something like a Oldskool Volume 3 for Zebra VST but its too early to tell yet. I dont want to rush things, i just want time to be creative and enjoy myself and hopefully something pops up someday which i can share.
Here is a sneak peek of 19 maybe Oldskool Volume 3 patches:
http://www.michaelkastrup.com/synthdemos/Zebra_Oldskool3_Preview1.mp3
Lots of great synths saw the light in 2007 and i want to explore them all. I highly recommend Atlantis VST by Jeremy Evers which is a free synth for people who like to experiment with soundshaping.
/Michael
Tuesday, December 11, 2007
Weird Ambient Granulator
Today i came up with an idea to create 16 waveforms which would create a clean rhythmic pattern at very low keys when combined with FM modulation. Then everything went into a COMB module and weird stuff startet to come out. A patch like this is best suited for ambient tracks i guess. I have a feeling that something is hidden within the patch which is still to be figured out. Anyways, here goes something weaird and ambient with a tad of Granular to it:
http://www.michaelkastrup.com/synthdemos/Z2_Granulator.mp3
/Michael
http://www.michaelkastrup.com/synthdemos/Z2_Granulator.mp3
/Michael
Monday, December 10, 2007
Emulating a guitar
I'm almost fully recharged by now so i'm starting to pick up on new ideas.
Today i sat down with Zebra VST and created some additive waveforms with a typical digital flavour with pluck instruments in mind. I ended up with a project patch called E-Deck which is supposed to have the same feel as an acoustic guitar and with some luck also electric guitar.
As it is now there are 3 parameters which can change the overall sound slightly. It can go from very metalic to very soft.
5 examples of different body parameters:
http://www.michaelkastrup.com/synthdemos/Z2_E-Deck.mp3
and just for fun, Deer Hunter midi theme exposed to the patch:
http://www.michaelkastrup.com/synthdemos/Z2_E-Deck_Cavatina.mp3
Its far from finished because i can go in many directions and i need to try all of them out. In this demo i'm using SYNC as a vital ingredient. The patch itself consist of 1 OSC and 1 VCF so i still got 3 OSC and 3 VCF free which means it could end up as a 12 string guitar or a combined guitar-string etc.. patch.
/Michael
Today i sat down with Zebra VST and created some additive waveforms with a typical digital flavour with pluck instruments in mind. I ended up with a project patch called E-Deck which is supposed to have the same feel as an acoustic guitar and with some luck also electric guitar.
As it is now there are 3 parameters which can change the overall sound slightly. It can go from very metalic to very soft.
5 examples of different body parameters:
http://www.michaelkastrup.com/synthdemos/Z2_E-Deck.mp3
and just for fun, Deer Hunter midi theme exposed to the patch:
http://www.michaelkastrup.com/synthdemos/Z2_E-Deck_Cavatina.mp3
Its far from finished because i can go in many directions and i need to try all of them out. In this demo i'm using SYNC as a vital ingredient. The patch itself consist of 1 OSC and 1 VCF so i still got 3 OSC and 3 VCF free which means it could end up as a 12 string guitar or a combined guitar-string etc.. patch.
/Michael
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