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