XSynth Reason products discontinued

Building and associating the XSynth name with quality products have had a side effect which i didnt see coming. For some odd reason people in the pirate business have started to use the name XSynth as a kinda stamp for quality products.

I guess it all started with a person made a pirated version of XSynth Library and included another sample library with it and kept the XSynth name for the bundle. This has turned into a trend and now you can find tons of various XSynth bundles on torrents and pirate sites. None of these bundles have the full version of XSynth Library or at least i have not found any version 1.11 out there yet.

Take a look at this picture which includes the latest 100 versions out there:

http://www.xsynth.com/xsynth_lastest_100.png

What i'm going to do is put XSynth on ice for awhile and surface again when things have settled down and meanwhile i will continue my work over at www.synthtronic.com which will function as a hub for things i work with.

For now my work on the Zebra platform is finished and i'm recharging for a new project. I have no idea of where or what the next project will be until i'm buried deep into something.

So until then.... :o)

/Michael

Zebra Oldskool Vol 1 + 2 Released

Dont care about details then jump over to Urs at www.u-he.com

My 6 months exploration of Zebra2 Softsynth ends today with the release of Zebra Oldskool Soundset Volume 1+2. The Volume 1 which was released in July has merged with Volume 2 into one single entity called Zebra Oldskool Volume 1+2.

Let me put it this way, if was to be stranded on an island with 1 instrument, it would be Zebra2 from Urs Heckmann. I have managed to make this softsynth come up with just about anything worth using for music and sound production. Pads, Leads, Bass, Keys, Synths, Drums & Percussion, FX, SFX and pretty good emulations of acoustic instruments.

My first encounter with Urs and his ideas was 4-5 years ago when i learned about Zoyd. I thought, damn this guy is on to something but Zoyd was not for my platform. Then a bit later i learned that Urs had begun a new project named Zebra. When Zebra was announced for Windows PC i was glued to the news from Urs for a long time. Time went by and i forgot about Zebra and moved on to other things. Then about 2 years later the Zebra popped on the scene. At that time i was commited elsewhere so i didnt pay much attention to it but i bought it, played a bit with it and then put it away because i had other stuff to do.

My work on another platform ended and i started to look for a new project. Then out of the blue Howard Scarr dumps in on the Zebra and shows some controlled versions of Zebra, by control i mean classical sound synthesis. He showed he could tame the Zebra into an instrument you can actually play. So i gave it a go, my first goal was to see if Zebra could sound nice and warm and thus this little famous MP3 " Zebra Jazzy " showed its way to the public.

Well after the creation of Zebra Jazzy i thought i better go deeper and see what this synth is really about. After creating 17-18 patches i realized that the synth engine was ideal for just about any kind of sound design. 2 Months (July 2007) later the Zebra Oldskool Volume 1 was released. I had made a promise to put out the soundset just before summer, well i delivered but i wasnt finished. There was still much to be explored so during the summer i decided to make a follow up to Volume 1. This particular summer was VERY wet so i had no problems with staying indoors commited to sound design. The purpose with Volume 2 was to turn Zebra into a workstation with all needed instruments for putting down a basic track. The first challenge was to come up with drums, after a few weeks i had the basic recipe for making drums on Zebra and thus this MP3 " Zebra Drums " hit the public. This was later refined into " Zebra Drums & Percussion ".

Once drums & percussion passed the exam it was time for some fun like in this example " Zebra Boogie Down " and this " Zebra Kool " , now while these demos are more like oldschool disco there is tons of other demos ranging from ambient to rock and new age to minimalism over at " KVR Zebra Oldskool thread " .

I could go on and on with praise about Zebra, if its not in your arsenal of VSTs you are going to miss the train. The train i talk about is the train that reclaim its throne at sound making, synthesis and NOT some 50 GB synth sample library where you never get full control anyway.

I dont think i been this excited since i got my first real synth Yamaha CS-30 in year Gods knows when.

Take the full step, learn synthesis and you will be rewarded with the ultimative sound, the sound of you!

Thats it, over and out!

/Michael

Spirit World Finished

The idea of having this track run for 20 mins is a bit too much so i ended up with 12 mins. The mix is a bit dirty in some places and i could have used some EQ on various stuff but i need to let it go now before i get bored with it. Then hopefully i feel like mixing it another day when i have recharged my batteries ;o)

Hope you enjoy this full 12 mins track (MySpace Version is 10 mins)

http://www.michaelkastrup.com/MK_Spirit_World.mp3

/Michael

Spirit World Part 3

Ok i think i need to sleep on it now and will give the new stuff a fresh listen in the morning. I kept the beat parts, made a theme and a ending. Dont think there is much more in this piece of music besides mixing so i'll let put it away for some time.

http://www.michaelkastrup.com/synthdemos/MK_SpiritWorld_Part3.mp3

/Michael

Spirit World Part 2

I think i got the descend into Spirit World covered but i'm not sure if the next part should be with any beats but i have come up with something as a base for diving into part 2. My basic idea for part 2 is something melodic and perhaps minimal beat like but also with unusual sounds here and there. As it is now the drums which pops up seems natural to me and not disturbing the mood. The trick now will be to keep the mood and add more rhythmic stuff without creating stress.

http://www.michaelkastrup.com/synthdemos/MK_SpiritWorld_Part2.mp3

/Michael

Spirit World Part 1

Today i felt like making something very different, my initial plan is to make a 15-20 mins piece of music which is a blend of sound fx and chill/relax. I want it to be something that place the listener in another (world) so lets call it spirit world. It starts of a bit spookey but that is just to sharpen your attention. This first part i would like to think of as a descend into that world. Once there new stuff will happen (part 2 i suppose).

http://www.michaelkastrup.com/synthdemos/MK_SpiritWorld_Part1.mp3

/Michael

Inspirational Mega Patches

Last night i tried build a mega patch with the following ingredients:

Zebra = Low end string, Violins, Flute
Sampler = Cellos ensemble
Sampler = 7 Sweet Ann vowel samples controlled by crossfade velocity.

The harder i played the brighter vowels and more strings and flute would come in.

It turned out to be something i jammed with all night and couldnt stop, so today i decided to post one of the examples i came up with last night:

http://www.michaelkastrup.com/synthdemos/v2_sweetann_05.mp3

/Michael