What did I just buy? 4
Lots of people test things and review them, but what do they actually buy? Generally I find out in comments on Facebook group or X posts, or Threads threads. So in case you’re new to my blog I decided to post my purchases with a quickly digestible comment about why. This is as an addendum to Tool Much Fun which is generally stuff that I only heard about that week.
Music & Sound stuff
Where phasers are made. No PPE needed.
iOS
weirdly named midi plugins bundle
Alexey Nadzharov makes some very complex tools that can help you make quite experimental songs if that's your thing. This bundle includes midi sampler performance tool, takeamidi, a MIDI recorder/monitor/filter and mididelay, which isn't a new idea as I have seen it in another app a few years ago, but gives you different results to adding a delay effect to the audio from an instrument.
It’s not my first Hammond. But often in rehearsals with the band I am looking for a certain sound for a given song, and it was on sale.
Genuine Soundware Phaser Factory
I'm a phaser junkie. I'm not sure if this is due to my age or that it pleases my brain. Also obtained while on sale.
Desktop
This is a free reverb given away to promote the real thing.
It's essential to use red LED's to get that old-school feel.
Relab QuantX Essentials
Relab make some very good reverbs and this was was quite cheap. I hope I don’t lust after the features in the full version. I think the essentials was only offered to mailing list subscribers, so the link above goes to the full version.
BLEASS Fusion
Wavetable distortion. I like the Bleass stuff. I haven’t looked up why their name like MNTRA’s is spelled in all caps.
Phil Speiser The Smoother
Will this thin out unwanted frequencies better than the other items I have that claim to do this? Who knows. Phil says it does, and this was on sale so it saves money just buying it rather than downloading the demo, thinking about it, then having to uninstall the demo and reinstall it as the real version.
United Plugins Bitpunk
I was impressed by the sound mangling possibilities of this one.
Distorted glockenspiel? Unheard of!
Kontakt Libraries
Tiki Instruments - Ka’Eke’Eke
This is a free taster to get you interested in their other Polynesian instruments. Warning: I recently tried to use their free Recorder, and I’m not sure anyone has even used it because it throws an error in Kontakt syaing it can’t find the very .nki file that I’m trying to load, and points to a hardcoded path on what appears to be the dev’s hard drive.
Somerville Sounds Antiquarian Echoes
This library was Pay What You Want. He’s given away other stuff so I gave him a couple of dollars. Get rich or die tryin’.
Majetone Extended Glockenspiel
Nice to add a few chime tones on top of other melodies.
Zero 1 Synth
A library modelled from a 1982 CS01 Yamaha synth. It seems simple at first but it's harder than it seems to make it from scratch using other software synths.
Authentic Soundware Jazz Drums for Kontakt
I already have a jazz drums library and one as a plugin by Klevgrand but this one sounded different enough to get it.
Kompose Audio Equuleus Nano & Arcturus
From their epically-titled “Galactic Voyager” series, it’s no surprise to find its super long and slow soundtracky, ethereal pad stuff. Panos Cosmatos would enjoy it.
Steel guitar for calligraphers.
A simple steel guitar that has some sweet tones to it. Through a nice reverb and/or delay this will sound great.
Marcos Ciscar Eternity Church Organ
Sure I may not use all the tones available, but there are a few gentle ones that will sound nice.
Straight Ahead Samples Art of the Alto
Saxophone libraries must be tricky to make. I wasn't satisfied with the one I bought from 8DIO so I got this.
Noisy Michael Overtone & Sample & Hold
Overtone has some interesting textures and I love the 70s style in Sample & Hold. These were so cheap they didn't need much consideration time.
Couldn't find a website, so above is Michael's Soundcloud full of demos.
I think this will make some nice drone textures. Not a paid link, but a quick search did not show Hideaway's own website and I bought it from Loot, so that's what you get.
You are the magician though
Loops de la Creme Magic African Drums
I once told myself I had enough drums and percussion, then I didn’t listen to myself. Includes patterns and oneshots.
Video
I like a lot of their offerings. Sometimes the text ones are a bit overcooked but the other effects are much welcomed when you are tired of the stock Final Cut stuff. They also make a lot of products for DaVinci Resolve.
Bored by FCP stock? Check out MotionVFX.