What did I just buy? 3
Music & Sound stuff
A competitor to Serum/Sylenth/VPS Avenger or Fathom? We’ll see.
It’s all about music and audio this time, so if that’s not your area, check for the next Tool Much Fun post for a mix of other items. Now on to the goodies…
Synthmaster 3 upgrade
I think I've owned Synthmaster for a couple of versions now. It started with the player which is pretty cheap and then the full thing and there is another one called Synthmaster One. Which is a confusing product range IMHO. But they all sound good. So because I'm a fan of granular synths, and that’s now included, I bought this one, but also to support them. The other thing that's weird is that the presets for iOS and for the desktop are not compatible. So you have to buy them twice if you want to use them on both devices. I know companies gotta make money somehow, but if people can complain about Waves just for charging for upgrades then I can complain about this.
Synth-groovemachine combo. I was so impressed by the demo for this that I had to get it even though I could possibly achieve similar results if I mixed a couple of other plug-ins together. Or maybe not. For iOS, Windows and Mac.
To a graphic designer “solve your masking problems” will mean an entirely different tool. Even though I bought Wavesfactory Trackspacer awhile ago it doesn't work with buses in my main DAW Logic Pro. So I bought this one anyway to see if it would overcome that limitation.
Modern sounds need modern interfaces
Rhizomatic Software Synthesis Synestia
Still in beta. This one is an advanced multi-effect plugin and the people at Rhizomatic makes some pretty amazing stuff. I listen to the demo and thought it sounded pretty impressive.
Welcome to the future
The Crow Hill Company Cosmos granular synth
Did I need another granular tool? I'm not sure but this one seems to be a loss leader for the other more expensive products. It was only €10 so I thought I’d give it a try. I want to you know that they use their own downloader tool which seems to be popular amongst plug-in vendors these days.
Horror-movie sounding company name is cool. Don’t be confused with Waves Cosmos Sample Finder.
Cut Through Recordings - two freebies
POP Sound Shaper - combo of soft clipper and compressor
Faradelay - combo of Phaser/Chorus/Tremolo
Kontakt Libraries
I own the full version of Kontakt, so I am not checking which ones work in the free Player — I leave that up to you. The vendors generally all say so and make you click confirmation tickboxes to make sure.
Silence & Other Sounds Mystery Box 1-3
I’m not sure how often I will use the weird sounds in this collection in part one and two, but part three seems to have some interesting samples of clocks and a way to arrange them rhythmically with their sequencer.
Straight Ahead Samples Big Growlin Sax
I bought some other saxes by their competitor 8DIO and this one sounded like it had more character.
Schallenberg Engineering Framedrum & Toy Guitar
From a vendor I hadn’t heard of. These two both had such nice tones and they were on sale for only €9 each via Pulse so I thought I'd give them a try even though they are one trick ponies. I think I'll be able to use them.
Angels not included
I checked my library and I did have at least one other harp but the samples in this one seem high quality and it was also on sale. If guitarists can have several guitars, I can have several harp libraries.
Fracture Sounds Blueprint Epic Grand
Not sure if the market for piano libraries is saturated but this one is Free! So why not use up a bit of that hard drive space and see if it gives you a different timbre to the one that came with Kontakt?
It seems odd to me to use Kontakt for this- you noodle around with your MIDI instrument and it saves the clips which you can then drag out into your DAW for further use. I’m all for a MIDI looper but I’m not used to working this way, so I’ll have to try it out to see if it works for my brain & workflow (ugh). Did I mention it was Free?
That ought to keep me busy, but not for long.