Zebra Oldskool Volume 1 Available Now!

The Zebra Oldskool Volume 1 Soundset is now available over at

http://www.zebrasynth.com



/Michael

Yay, Zebra Oldskool Soundset finished

I didnt expect to finish this soon, and i didnt expect all those nice sounds to come out of Zebra but now its ready, The Zebra Oldskool Soundset.

To define what i mean by oldskool i have prepared 2 MP3 demos.

1. Music made with Zebra (and thats Zebra playing drums, bass, pad, birds or whatever)

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

2. Patches made with Zebra (me going nuts with some of the patches)

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

Whats included in the soundset ?

128 Patches made by me and 8 Midi Files which covers the most popular MP3 demos.

I dont plan to make a manual since i've used the PERFORM page on Zebra for notes in most cases. It makes more sence to me to have the notes follow the patch rather than have to look it up somewhere else like a PDF document. Also the MIDI files are there as tutorials to see how things are done. The MIDI files also have the purpose of showing people that this is Zebra and not some super mix treated with super outboard fx's.

All demos used TL's Pocket Limiter in the total mix (Great little Freebie from TL) and music piece 2+3+4 used Artsacoustic Reverb. (I first started to use the internal Zebra Reverb later on)

The Zebra Oldskool Soundset Volume 1 can be yours for $30 US when i found a way to distribute it.

For those who want to taste a bit first i suggest you download the first 17 patches i made public in the start of the project. These patches have been reworked in the soundset but will give you an idea of how i do things:

http://www.xsynth.com/download/MKastrup_Zebra2_V1.zip

Have fun :)

/Michael

Update on the Zebra Oldskool patches

I'm starting to getting fairly confident with Zebra which helps me to come up with what i feel is essential synth patches and there is about 20 to go for a full 128 patch bank. So far i'm very excited about the results and feel that i'm barely touching the surface. There's no doubt, Zebra will be one of my major workhorses on the VST platform.

There is one more synth out there which needs to be looked over and get some attention but for now i feel most for exploring Zebra fully.

Another thing, the whole oldskool synth concept is starting to more or less be my signature and i'm quite happy about that cause finally i can put a word on what i do. :)

Here are some of the latest patches classified as MOVIE type of sounds:

http://www.michaelkastrup.com/synthdemos/Zebra_Oldskool_08.mp3

/Michael

Oldskool Soundset for Zebra VSTi

I've decided to make a soundset for Zebra VSTi by Urs Heckmann.

This soundset will have a kinda oldskool flavour to it and plan to have it ready before summer.

For those of you who dont know about Zebra i can tell you its a Semi-Modular VSTi plugin instrument.

Here are some demos of sounds i have in mind, some are dry mix and others wet/dry meaning i've added some Reverb to the mix using Artsacoutstic Reverb, besides that its all Zebra generated sounds.

http://www.michaelkastrup.com/synthdemos/Zebra_Jazzy_01.mp3 Jazzy (WET/DRY) (01:10)

http://www.michaelkastrup.com/synthdemos/Zebra_ARP_Fun_01.mp3 Arp Fun (WET) (00:57)

http://www.michaelkastrup.com/synthdemos/Zebra_Oldskool_02.mp3 Oldskool Sequencing (WET/DRY) (01:36)

http://www.michaelkastrup.com/synthdemos/Zebra_Oldskool_04.mp3 8 Various Patches. (DRY) (03:43)

http://www.michaelkastrup.com/synthdemos/Zebra_Oldskool_05.mp3 9 Various Patches, mostly Organ Ambient. (DRY) (03:17)

/Michael

Additive Preview

Here are some examples of very pure waveforms created using additive synthesis.

I've have sampled the waveforms very close within harmonics so they can complement each other when combined into a patch with alternate sample switch. Additive synthesis is a waveform galore when it comes to organ and bell sounds and there are tons of combinations within the harmonics.

I've done additive before but this time i'm using multiple samples pr. waveform. Waveforms are sampled at CO thru C7 with 1 octave apart. Its a bit overkill but i'd rather have the samples in placed all over the keyboard just in case. The bell samples would be doing aliasing after C4 if i didnt make some extreme high tone samples.

Here is a snippet of some additive waveforms used in raw form:

http://www.xsynth.com/demos/XSWS_Additive_01.mp3

I might go back and resynthesis some of the older additive waveforms i've created for XSynth Library and make them multisamples to cover the entire keyboard range.

/Michael

Brass Preview

Here is 2 Brass patches build on the same principles as the Panorama Bass Preview. First example is typical brassy while the second is more bass powered brass and pretty big in sound. The bass brass was made by copying the the initial brass sample zone and add 1 octave plus adjusting the filters a bit.

http://www.xsynth.com/demos/XSWS_Brass_01.mp3

/Michael

Panorama Bass Preview

I've talked about the broad stereo effect on patches before and normally you wouldnt do stuff like this on Bass patches but what if you liked to see how it could be with a broad stereo bass. Well the Bass patches i'm working on now give you the option to choose between plain mono and broad stereo effect. The following Bass patch demo has a Panorama Knob which can be used to spread out the signal:

http://www.xsynth.com/demos/XSWS_Panorama_Bass_01.mp3

So as you can hear my (must_put_stereo_on_everything) sickness is at its prime ;)

/Michael