AFTERskool for Zebra2 VST released

Zebra AFTERskool Soundset is complete. At first this was ment to be a release with focus on drums but the workflow with tons of Zebra's used for drums is not that smart after all so drums will be released as a sampled kit later on. However the Zebra AFTERskool Soundset includes 3 drum preset, the White Kit, The Tomblas and the Native War Drums.

The Zebra AFTERskool Soundset is mixed bag of 128 Presets which is fully capable of producing music on its own.

PDF file can be found here:
http://www.zebrasynth.com/downloads/ZebraAFTERskoolSoundset.pdf

Here is the official AFTERskool demo (No External FX used):
http://www.synthtronic.com/demos/Z2_AFTERskool_DEMO.mp3

AFTERskool is available here:
http://www.zebrasynth.com/index.php?item=afterskool

/Michael

ST Chorus released

Guess no one saw this coming being me releasing a chorus but this chorus is from a SE project i stopped working on 2 years ago. The chorus was finished back then but i didn't bother to finish a gui since i only planed on using it myself. Eventually i figured someone was bound to put a chorus on the market that i liked but that did happen in this 2 year time so i decided to wrap this one up and make it available for all.

My reference for this chorus was my work with various Roland chorus over time like Re-301, Jazz Chorus Amp, Dimension D, Juno 60, Boss Pedal etc... I was raised listening to those chorus so that type of chorus is stuck in my head.

Here is a demo where i use the ST Chorus on the following instruments:

Lounge Lizzard Piano, Zebra 2 DX E Piano, ARP Omni, NI Pro 53 Brass, Zebra 2 PWM Pad, RealGuitar Steel Picked, ABL 2 Bassline and Zeta+ Trance Pattern

http://www.synthtronic.com/demos/ST_Chorus_DEMO2.mp3

A limited demo is available here, give it a spin:

http://www.synthtronic.com/stchdemo.zip

You can pick it up for €19 over at

www.synthtronic.com/stchorus.html

/Michael

Zebra 2 After Skool Soundset

Here is a little update on the next soundset for Zebra 2 VST from me. First of all i changed the working title to "Zebra After Skool Soundset", this makes more sense to me since "Zebra Oldskool Soundset" was the name of the previous soundset.

Zebra 2 After Skool Soundset will be a mixed bag of 128 presets.

Here are some demos of the work so far:

(Some Ethnic + Slooow Emo Pads)
http://www.synthtronic.com/demos/Z2_MK_Soundset4_03.mp3

(Let's make some Noise, Despite what you might think, this IS Zebra.) http://www.synthtronic.com/demos/Z2_MK_Soundset4_02.mp3

(Rhythmbox + Various)
http://www.synthtronic.com/demos/Z2_MK_Soundset4_01.mp3

(Various Presets)
http://www.synthtronic.com/demos/Z2_MK_Aug08.mp3

/Michael

Zebra 2 Soundset 4 Progress

A little update on Soundset 4 progress: I've used an insane amount of time on making a rhythmbox kit to my taste. I wanted the set to sound like all coming from the same rhythmbox. Why go thru so much bother for something which is around free all over the net as samples. Well the word samples is the reason. Ever tried EQ'ing a sampled TR 808 or the likes BD just to find that the sample isnt clean. The typical situation is you put more top on a drum and then reveals some unwanted high freq noise/tones. So this in basics is the reason why i sat down and created a rhythmebox from scratch, now i'm 100 % sure no artifacts will appear no matter how hard i boost any frequency because the drum sounds are super clear and pure.

Ok besides the rhythmebox the work has been around a bleeding trumpet. This has taken forever and the outcome is more like a trombone heh heh but i'll settle for a trombone for now ;) Now when making an emulation like a trombone you cant possibly cover all aspect of the sound but what you can do is create something which is GOOD enough for most performances.

Here is a demo snippet of some new sounds, no EQ only limiter and a stereo enhancing thingy on the mix:

http://www.synthtronic.com/demos/Z2_MK_Soundset4_01.mp3

First of all its a journey with the rhythmbox thru various arrangements.

First we hear a nice square/piano like pad then its the phaser string, the Ride Cymbal and Thee Trombone after that a spacey dark pad with some echo key hits and last its some reggeaton with a synth preset sounding like a sample from an old Mirage Sampler with lots of grittyness and the 8 bit flavour all over it.

Ohh and dont mind my lousy Trombone solo play

I'm going to give the rhythmbox hihat a closer look later on and will create a few other sounding cymbals, ohh and a NEW clap.

Btw, now that i think of it the box sounds somewhat like the mix done for Rock Your Baby by George McCray, in my head that is. I dont dare listen that title now, what if i'm all wrong heh heh.

Thats about it

/Michael

A day with Purity Software Sound Module

Purity is among the (oldies) and is a General Midi software sound module like Roland counterparts such as SC 55 but with its own approach and unique features. With the initial release of Purity it was an expensive investment but now you can pick it up for $99 USD which is cheap compared to what you get. Sure there is noew things on the market which do GM sounds with better quality but if you take another approach and consider Purity as a device for getting ideas down quick then you cant go wrong. My interest is in the build in sequencer which can be used to create ideas for sequences and arpeggios. The fun part is when you combine several phrases, multis, loops etc... into a 1 finger preset sounding like a full orchestra or any kind of arrangement. When doing this you will instantly do a timewarp back to the late 80's synth pop.

I had a little trouble with the install because Cubase forced Purity to look for the sound library in c:\Program Files\LUXONIX\Purity\ but it was installed elsewhere on a extern harddrive but i just copied the files from the extern into the C:\Program Files\......

Now when fooling around with this kind of PCM sound generator you need to think creative. Dont like the drum sounds ? well try turn up or down in pitch and see what comes out.

To get the most from Purity i think you would need to setup your own drumkits using the PCM sounds included. Drums are always a matter of taste.

Anyways, i played around with Purity for several hours to get the grand picture and ended up with a little fun preset. Everything in the following demo is controlled by key note, how long i hold the key and how hard i hit the key. I added some comp and reverb on the total mix.

http://www.synthtronic.com/demos/MK_Purity_Fun_01.mp3

http://www.synthtronic.com/demos/MK_Purity_Fun_02.mp3


You can find more information about Purity at http://www.luxonix.com/

Thats about it for today...

/Michael

A day with CS-80 V

One of the most famous synth of all time has to be the Yamaha CS-80. Funny how things turn up, CS-80 sold around 2000 whereas Minimoog sold 15.000 (i think). Anyway, CS-80 was popular but with a price tag beyond any avarage musicians budget. So i settled for visiting my friend at the Yamaha store quite often just to put my hands on this huge monster. Sooo, we now have 2008 and i've had Arturia's CS-80 V lying around my harddisk for 2 years without some serious use. I find the CS-80 V somewhat hard to work with because some parameters dont behave like i thought they would, mainly the modulation section. Setting a nice smooth velocity transition was so hard i gave up several times.

K, so i played around with the ARP feature which is very cool and simple. Then i moved onto making a split preset with bass in the left and arps in the right. Now since this machinery can be programed to act like 8 mono synths in one preset i decided to make the ultimative CS-80 V single preset. ;)

The preset has 4 oscillators runing the ARP from C#3 and up, each of these oscillators are programed with a different sounds like pure square, brass, etc... This leaves us with 4 osc's left for bass and a 3 osc lead-brass. The bass covers from C3 and lower and the lead-brass covers the whole range but without being assigned to the ARP feature.

It looks a bit like this:

<---1 osc--------bass-><---4 osc----arp------------------->
<---3 osc-------------------lead-brass--------------------->

This gives us a max use of the 8 osc's and can sound like this when played live using this single preset:

http://www.synthtronic.com/demos/MK_CS80_ARPSplit2.mp3

or

http://www.synthtronic.com/demos/MK_CS80_ARPSplit.mp3


For a non-live performance i would probably turn the preset into 2 presets having the lead-brass stacked with the bass and arp on another instance to avoid tones getting clipped.

Thats about it :)

/Michael

Zebra 2 Summer Presets

Been awhile, summer, being lazy all and that, and for some reason unknown i started to look at some of the presets ideas that has popped with the new Zebra 2 beta. Its not much because official i'm on vacation but it might be fun to listen too:

http://www.synthtronic.com/demos/Z2_MK_Aug08.mp3

/Michael

Zebra 2 and Smooth Jazz

I'm working on various setups for certain styles. A few weeks ago it was about about Smooth Jazz. My first attemt at this setup consisted of acoustic/real instruments all over but i had a hard time blending Zebra into the arrangements, something just didnt sound right so i started over by keeping the drums and then have Zebra do the all instruments.

The drums are a mix of several libraries, my aim was to have a very dry and tight kit. So here we are, sampled real drums and Z2 having a smooth time:

http://www.synthtronic.com/demos/Z2_SmoothJazzKit_01.mp3

/Michael

Zebra Oldskool Released (Vol 1+2+3)

Zebra Oldskool Soundset is available now. This is the third Volume added and its the last in this series. In short its my work on Zebra 2 VST for 1 year. Volume 1 was released June 2007, Volume 2 was released September 2007 and now (May 2008) we have the last Volume 3 added.

Zebra Oldskool Soundset comes with 512 patches or presets if you prefer and is a walk down olds school lane in terms of various synthesis methods used the last 20 years. You will find that Subtractive, Additive, Waveshaping, Wavetable and much more was used in creating this soundset so it could be a good place to start exploring synthesis secrets.

Zebra has its own page on my synthesis site http://www.synthtronic.com/zebra.html where i usually update with new clips of music made using Zebra on a regular basis.

Zebra Oldskool Soundset is available from http://www.zebrasynth.com/

/Michael

Competition fun with Zebra VST

I've started a competition over at KVR forums. In short you can win a copy of the upcoming Zebra soundset by creating something with a demo bank. Competition ends by May 11 2008

Visit KVR for the competition rules and files:

http://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=214084

/Michael

Zebra 2 Oldskool Vol 3 Jazz Preview

This little preview is Jazz inspired, the main focus is a brass section and some jazz guitar like patches. Its a medley of some of the arrangements i played with while making the patches. All is Zebra 2 playing except for first clip which is also using True Pianos and Stylus RMX.

http://www.synthtronic.com/demos/Z2_Oldskool_Vol3_Jazz.mp3

Thats about it for now.

/Michael

A tiny Easter Egg for your Zebra 2 VST

Hmmm what to say, its easter and i got a little egg for your Zebra 2 VST.

Its a split patch with 1(2) finger chords from C1-C3 and a lead from C#3-C6

This is what it sound like:

http://www.synthtronic.com/demos/Z2_Oldskool_Vol3_EasterPatch.mp3

and the patch can be downloaded here:

http://www.synthtronic.com/demos/MK3_Magic_Jazz_Split.zip

Unzip and put in your Zebra 2 VST preset folder.

Happy Easter :)

/Michael

Zebra 2 Oldskool Vol 3 SFX Preview

Time for another Zebra 2 Oldskool Volume 3 demo. This time its based around SFX but you will also hear sounds used in the other previews. The track is build up around a slow 4 on 4 basic groove arrangement using Stylus RMX. Besides that i've made use of heavy limiter and a 3db EQ boost to high mids.

Most SFX generators i created use random generation with in a certain limit. So in this case identical tracks never happens unless i choose to sample the SFX and use it that way.

http://www.synthtronic.com/demos/Z2_Oldskool_Vol3_SFX.mp3

/Michael

Zebra 2 Oldskool Vol 3 Keys Preview

Ok time for last preview in awhile. This time its Keys and a few other things which i hope you can identify ;) There is nothing much to say about these patches other than they are the ones that takes forever to come up with because you have to compromise on lots of factors.

http://www.synthtronic.com/demos/Z2_Oldskool_Vol3_Keys.mp3

/Michael

Zebra 2 Oldskool Vol 3 Pads Preview

Here is the snippet preview of Pads category from Oldskool Volume 3 for Zebra 2. Some of the patches resembles ambient patches but can be used more broadly. Like all the other categories i tried to fit in sounds which was not present in Oldskool Vol 1+2, so most of these are symphonic big patches which is suitable for film score and old school symphonic arrangements.'

This preview features 11 patches:

http://www.synthtronic.com/demos/Z2_Oldskool_Vol3_Pads.mp3

/Michael

Zebra 2 Oldskool Vol 3 PolySeq Preview

Here is a snippet of 13 new patches from the category Poly Sequenced coming in Oldskool Vol 3 for Zebra 2. These patches are under the control of Arppegio or MSEG based patterns. I've added a few of the new drum and perc sounds to the track so you can get a feeling of how the beat and patterns mix together. On the final output i have put a good portion of limiter to bring the overall volume up, but besides limiter its all Zebra 2.

http://www.synthtronic.com/demos/Z2_Oldskool_Vol3_PolySeq.mp3

/Michael

Zebra 2 Oldskool Vol 3 Ambient Preview

I'm starting to tie up the loose ends for Oldskool Volume 3 for Zebra 2 and made a status of the progress. So now i can say that Oldskool Volume 3 will be at around 128+ new patches.

I've started to put the finishing touch to each category and the first category is Ambient where i made a preview of 6 patches included in the Oldskool Volume 3.

The preview i fairly long due to the nature of ambient patches with all kinds of movement. I've used no automation for XY controls cause then the preview would be like 10 times longer so just play the standard setup on each patch.

This preview is about 5 mins long:

http://www.synthtronic.com/demos/Z2_Oldskool_Vol3_Ambient.mp3

/Michael

Zebra 2 Electric Forest Part 1

Time to make some noise again and this time something organic.

In basic its my first try to create something organic using Zebra 2 synth only.
By organic i dont mean 100% replica of natural sounds but sounds which kinda takes you the same place in mind. To create the organic life in the arrangement i made a sort of tropical patch which spits out random sounds which are (similar) to sounds i would expect to hear in a real world enviroment.

The main goal is to fool the mind into a tropical feeling but on closer look you will notice its all synthetic sounds. For me, thats the fun part.

Anyways, here goes, part 1 of Electric Forest:

http://www.synthtronic.com/demos/Z2_Electric_Forest_01.mp3

This is the initial idea, and there will probably be a part 2 and 3 before i'm finished. In part 2 i plan to focus on the theme and chords.

The technical side:

Cubase SX
Zebra 2
Sonalksis EQ and Comp
Kjærhus Limiter
Artsacoustic Reverb on a few things.

Hope you enjoy this as much as i enjoy making it.

Cheers

/Michael

Zebra 2 Morphing Voice

One of my big passions is synthetic choir's and voices. By chance i found a new waveform which could be used for a morphed ooh-aah voice but as always with voices you have to compromise between getting as much notes covered compared to avoiding chip monk effect. With 2 waveforms i make the transition between the Ooh and the Aah using velocity to control the crossover.

The patch uses 1 OSC with 2 wavetable waveforms.

Here is an example with some soft background:

http://www.synthtronic.com/demos/Z2_Morphing_Voice.mp3

and here is a Jazzy example of use:

http://www.synthtronic.com/demos/Z2_Jazzy_Oohs.mp3

Both demos is straight out of Zebra 2 and nothing added.

/Michael

Glass Viper first try

Glass Viper is a relative new synth from QuikQuak which is mostly known for the RaySpace reverb. Anyway, Glass Viper is a weird looking synth, doesn't look like much but is full of surprises.
The most important feature have to be the waveform modulation which is kinda unique but also the filters are worth looking at because its extreme in a good way. I dont remember hearing this kind of filter on a virtual synth before so i simply had to have that synth and see what its about.

I did the usual stuff, made an arrangement, rule was like always, only this synth plays whatever you hear. I had a really really hard time coming up with convincing drums, mostly because the pitch modulation isnt fast and high enough. So kick and snare is off limit on this synth atleast for now or until i find a workaround. Besides making various synth sounds i managed to make a roomy tom, hihat, snap and a weak kick.

I havnt even started on the possibilities with the waveform modulation, i just kept to standard synthesis for the following little demo. The demo is 14 instances of Glass Viper playing everything you hear and nothing else added, not even EQ, limiter or anything. I think this little green monster got much more to show and i'm looking forward to explore it.

My wishlist for this synth so far is:

Synced LFO,s Pan modulation and higher delay output.

http://www.synthtronic.com/demos/gv_80jam.mp3

/Michael

Fabfilter Twin first try

Yesterday i played around with Fabfilter Twin synth. Twin is a great sounding synth but lack a EQ feature. Normally lacking EQ wont stop people from getting a synth but as a sound designer you want to make sure that people get the sound as its ment to be and not how it could sound with eq settings.

In short if Twin was to hang on the wall in my Synth Hall of Fame then it would need 2 things:

EQ and a Delay.

When i fool around with synths i really dont care what the outcome is music wise but i do care about the authentic analog touch. I think its fair to say that Twin DO live up to its claim of being authentic sounding as i'll demonstrate in this little 80's pop theme:

The overall mix went thru EQ, comp and limiter:

http://www.synthtronic.com/demos/twin_80jam.mp3

and here is a picture of the overall EQ setting:








/Michael

Zebra Guitar Flavour

I've been playing a bit with creating Zebra guitar like patches, my hope is to come up with an El-Guitar, a Western Guitar, a Spanish Guitar and a 12 String Western Guitar.

I found a MIDI file of Cavatina (Deer Hunter Theme) on the net and had it play the patches as they are atm. I try to keep things simple so each patch is 1 OSC and 1 VCF using additive waveforms and OSC FX to alter the body.

Left side is El-Guitar, Middle is Western and Right side is Spanish. The spanish one will be the hardest to get right.

http://www.michaelkastrup.com/synthdemos/Z2_Cavatina.mp3

Besides that i'm working on a Wurlitzer/Rhodes thing but its a tough one :)

/Michael

Machine Creator VST Released

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To celebrate launch of my new site http://www.synthtronic.com i'm releasing a FREE little fun piece of machinery based on the Maizesoft Sampler.

Machine Creator:



http://www.synthtronic.com/demos/ST_Machine_Creato r_01.mp3

In basic its a rompler with 166 (45 MB) sci-fi sounds split up into 7 categories, each category with its own MIDI channel.

These are the categories:

CH 1. Bright sounds
CH 2. Deep sounds
CH 3. Medium sounds
CH 4. Scanner sounds
CH 5. Static sounds
CH 6. Various Tones
CH 7. Utility sounds

The general idea is you mix some sounds to create a certain type of atmosphere. Want spaceship deep hum, then look in CH 2. Deep sounds, want electric current sounds then look in CH 5. Static etc....

All sounds are looped 16 bit 44.1 kHz Mono and unprocessed.

Many sounds can also be used for weird beats if used with low decay settings and also make sure to try it with delays and reverbs.

Pick it up over at www.synthtronic.com

Hope you like the color RED

/Michael

Zebra JazzGuitar Part 1

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I had a feeble attempt at a Jazz Guitar in a Bossa Nova like arrangement, i didnt get far thou because when i wanted to create a string for this piece and came up with a waveform suitable for Jupiter Brass sounds and that kinda stopped me but i'll pick up the the Jazz Guitar again when my ideas for the Jupiter thing is done.

Here is the little Bossa Nova tune with a Jazz Guitar like patch:

http://www.michaelkastrup.com/synthdemos/Z2_JazzGuitar_01.mp3

/Michael