Rob Litten (DrumsTheWord.com) Quiz Question
I will be wrapping up the Rob Litten (DrumsTheWord.com) Interview quiz this coming Saturday – You have until midday on Saturday 12th January 2013 (GMT +8 hrs – That’s 4 a.m. UK Time) to submit your answer to win a DrumMasters DVD song pack – courtesy of http://howtprogramdrums.com. Don’t miss out!
** Please note this contest has now finished. The winner has been announced here. **
“Sunrise” 30th Anniversary Edition
I added some ocean waves sound effects to my 30th anniversary recording of “Sunrise” from http://freesfx.co.uk – It’s shaping up. Working on some keyboard (electric piano) parts now. Used another freesfx clip (a drum roll) for Ben’s reading below…
“Getting Ahead” Dramatised Script Reading by Ben Paddock now on SoundCloud
Listened to Ben Paddock’s revamped recording of a key scene in our script for the musical “Gettting Ahead” and it’s posted to Soundcloud – now with royalty free music added for atmospheric purposes. An excellent reading brought to life by Ben’s skilful vocal characterisation.
James Paddock releases new track “Petrichor (Blood of the Stone)” on YouTube
“Have a brooding, orchestral, nine minute track for the new year. : )”
Work continues on vocals for Rainbow Season Debut E.P.
James and Ben have been putting together some new vocal tracks for their set from Battle of The Bands in October 2012 and a cover of Animals by Muse. It’s sounding good. They have a studio date with Bergerk in April 2013. They also have their promotional merchandise from Battle of the Bands courtesy of Westar Music Promotions. Head over Rainbow Season’s Facebook page for emerging news or subscribe to James’s RSS feed and use Google Reader to stay up to date.
Plug In (VST) News
Investigated LiquidSonics website and downloaded Filtrate LE parametric equaliser, I already use Reverberate CM convolution reverb and it’s well worth checking out. That and TAL – Reverb 2 are my go to plug-ins for enhancing drum sounds with reverb.
Native Instruments
Downloaded a demo of Native Instrument’s Battery and Massive and updated Reaktor 5 player. Native Instruments are impressive, I have to say. Battery sounds great and Massive is well, Massive! Well worth checking out.
Freebies
Downloaded “Driver“ distortion plug-in from Native Instruments and Analogic Piano 09 from UVI – a nice sounding Roland type electric piano. It even looks like a Roland Piano!
UVI Workstation Hassle
Got into hot water trying to update UVI Workstation to the latest version – want back to using the VST only 2.0.5 as the .exe file for 2.0.7 & 2.0.8 do not work on Windows Vista 32 bit. It’s a shame as it plays loops well in Mixcraft – It’s the only thing I got to work to play Rex files in Mixcraft so far. Stuck with only using the VST version for now.
VST Plug in List
Compiled a list of current working VST plug-ins I am currently using in conjuction with the Zen universal presets manager by Big Tick Audio The list will soon be available as a useful timesaving tip sheet complete with download links. We are looking to let James make some MP3 Demos for the music community shortly. Watch out for that too!
The Best Bass VST Plug in?
Created a Reaper file with various Bass VSTi’s on for comparison – ended up thinking Muon Tau and Kontakt 5 were front runners. SI-Bass was let down by the samples not going down low enough to play some of the midi riffs. Might be fixable though through tailoring the sfz scripts.
The Best Drum VST Plug in?
Got Rapture for $20 in Cakewalk’s Christmas Sale. Got a $30 upgrade (after using my $20 end of year discount voucher) to Dimension Pro. Used them both to explore what can be done with drum sounds from Session Drummer 2 in Reaper.
Yamaha DD-5 Samples & Kits
Listen to the DD-5’s Demo Patterns Here:
Worked on sampling the demo recording of my Yamaha DD-5 (my brother originally got it for me from a boot fair) and have been creating drum kits for Reason in Kong, Redrum and loops for Dr Octo Rex. Made kits for the Muon SR-202 VST for use in Reaper and also creating a drum kit especially for Acoustica Beatcraft. It has made a profound difference applying different effects to each drum (for example applying SonEQ to the DD-5 Kick drum) courtesy of the tips on EQ from Bedroom Producer’s Blog. I am planning to have a FREE Reason download for the DD-5 available soon. Just need to look and review the fills and Intros already recorded and check their compatibility with the new demo and normalised drum samples.
Yamaha DTXPLORER Acoustic Samples & Kits
After seeing one of these compact and portable electronic kits being used in a stage play at Limelight Theatre in Wanneroo I managed to pick one up second hand from Gumtree in July 2012. I have now created a single Yamaha DTXPLORER acoustic kit for the Muon SR-202 – I will typically create two alternative kit formats for each drum unit (1) “Redrum” formats for Reason type stuff and (2) “GM” formats for standard midi, so they play standard midi files (like Reason’s ID8 Player) with the minimum of tweaking. The Redrum format ones don’t but they will play Reason stuff okay.