Tool Much Fun 2
I have traveled the internet, scrolled in forums and Facebook groups, tapped on ads, and made lists all for your benefit. Here is what I have found since the last post.
Web stuff
Online forms creator. Compare with Typeform.
Create talking videos with AI. Doesn’t this creep a few people out? No mention of where the training data was sourced from. Slick looking website though.
Is it “hit record” as in the button, or as in an album that is selling well? Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s site I just found while looking for something else.
Writing
Michelle Reeves has published a site called Newbie Authors Resource Hub, on a public Notion site.
Lots of links that I won't duplicate here.
Plan your plots for your next story. Works on Mac, Web and Windows. Reminds me of an older program that I can’t recall the name of that Disney used to use.
Audio
There’s been a resurgence of interest in plugins which are for cleaning up crowded mixes. These tools stop frequencies from adding to each other causing muddiness — where two instruments or items are competing with each other and/or make resonant frequencies too loud, causing problems when you’re mixing. Here’s two of them I hadn’t heard of:
Made by the Laboratory Infomatica di Musicale. These might be written by students or interns of some kind, I’m not sure.
Patrick from Secret Base Design, longtime maker of music apps for iOS has made a site about guitar tone while working on his Midimorphosis app. I’m not sure if it’s useful for making music but it does explain how tone changes depending on which pickup you use, or rather where the pickup is in relation to the length of the vibrating string of your instrument.
Full Bucket makes a huge number of synth plugins that do not get enough attention, at least compare to things like Vital. Maybe people think they’re too good to be true?
Delays & Reverbs
I was looking for a plugin that ducks the signal you are applying the delay or reverb to which makes it cleaner overall. I finally found it by looking through my plugins list but while I was searching I found a whole bunch of delays that don’t get much attention.
A delay that includes “ducking" mentioned above. The title reminds me of a Warner Brothers cartoon featuring Daffy.
The title reminds me of 80s video games.
Apparently a low-on-cpu-usage plugin.
A “Multiverb space unit” based on a hardware pedal. Includes an XY control to blend between four different parameters. There is a free version that only offers six of the algorithms and can’t save presets, but at least it’s not a time-limited demo.
apulsoft matches the default Abelton Live skin.
Looks pretty solid.
Free! The interface doesn’t look very fancy but as long as it works…
Savant Audio Labs Quantum 2772
Algorithmic stereo reverb with “unsurpassed realism and depth”.
Ambient Reverb. Cool name that has nothing to do with the movie with multiple endings.
Free! For making things sound like they are in a huge space. Not sure why this is a giveaway, maybe the cinematic reverbs don’t sell well?
Based on a hardware reverb, this one appears to be coded by Kiive audio. 80s digital reverb sound. They also make a compressor and a saturator.
I saw a little criticism that the claims were overhyped. That doesn’t mean it’s not good though.
Free! Warning, this has a wacky, early-2000s looking website. There are some other freebies there I will check out later.
A Free! Suite of four reverbs - Plate, Hall, Early Reflections and Room.
Goin’ down where the water is much deeper.
“Built upon 77 exquisite water sounds”. I guess they made some IRs using water?
Another Free! Reverb, part of a suite of also-free plugins including Ocean Room and ADM delay. What’s with all the water references?
Spatial audio. Can anyone hear the difference if it’s not in a movie theatre?
I have some other items from Tokyo Dawn and I do like them. I should use them more often. But I forgot that they make a few more tools that I never bought such as Infrasonic and Elliptical.
Sometimes you want just one part of a sound to be distorted, usually the mids or highs so that the bass remains more clear and powerful. For this you need a Multiband plugin, rather than having the extra complication of splitting off the frequencies you like with Nugen SigMod or Klevgrand Gaffel, then sending that to a bus with a distortion plugin on it.
At risk of attracting the wrath of people who think all software updates should be free for life, I’m including this. They call it “the biggest online preset library of audio and instrument chains”. I guess it’s aimed at producers who think the secret of success is to use a recipe that has already been created by another successful producer. I have nothing against this per se. I use presets all the time and sometimes they’re so good I barely tweak them at all. But without watching 3 videos my question is: how does it work if you don’t own everything in the chain? Does it just leave them out elegantly or prompt you to buy the missing items the way IK Multimedia does when you’re browsing their presets? I hope it’s more like Softube’s new mastering system, where you can just use what you’ve got. Actually I haven't used that, so I’m not sure if it hassles you too.
Aurora is another indie developer fighting for attention in a crowded market, against more famous offerings like NeuralDSP, Bias, Overloud, STL and Nembrini. This one is a simulator of an amp I don’t recall ever seeing at a gig. Perhaps they’re not popular in Australia?
The world doesn’t really need another compressor, but you might. Kiive sounds great but they are usually overpriced compared to other good sounding ones available. I have seen their Lunchbox amp as low as US$15, but only briefly.
Although Logic has a sampler built in, it’s still kinda basic. This app lets you make your own sample library.
This just in! GS DSP (Gustav Sholda Digital Signal Processing) has released
Quantum Filter control panel
Sure you may have some other filter plugins, but this one has some 🔥 features!
Go retro!
Sonicbirth is a modular tool for sound making. For unknown reasons it was never continued and has fallen into obscurity. I have been looking for and using music software since about 1985. I don’t remember the name of the first app but I do recall using Studio Session to write songs with, and I never heard of this one. Maybe one day I'll do a post specifically about those early days. If you have an older mac, you can fire it up and give it a try.
Autochroma. No chrome detected.
Samples
Looking for something old you can make into something new? Rather than flicking through crates full of unusable crooners at the op shop, you can get a subscription here rather than say, Loopcloud and use samples from a wide range of artists going back to 1928.
Here’s a bunch I’ll leave you to check out
Drums only sampled from songs by The Cult? I doubt it.
The have some free samples of their samples to try.
Techno and EDM styles.
House and techno styles. Also MIDI files.
54 different genres to choose from.
A variety of styles. Also: MIDI, and some presets for Serum and Sylenth, neither of which I own. Some freebies available.
15 different styles including sound effects.
Graphics & Clipart
Photos, Illustrations, Fonts. Subscription based.
Get classy with surplus pixels.
“Resources for creatives” including textures, fonts and mockup files. Some freebies there.
”The ultimate database of creative tools & resources”
For illustrators trying to remember what the human body looks like in a certain position. No need to bother your significant other, as nice as it is to look at them.
Color generator. Compare with this oldie Colourlovers or Adobe Color if you don’t hate them too much.
Free drawing lessons.
Indie display fonts
Join the Kern Club
Cosmos has created a new site Public Work for images that are in the public domain, so there is no royalty fee to pay.
Jawdropping vintage scientific illustrations made before color film was a thing.
Well that’s enough for now. I’ve already started on the next one.