Extremist - Rough Heavy Metal Sound for Guitarists!

Today I want to feature a VST effects plugin, which is ideal for all guitarists looking for THE extreme Heavy Metal Sound. It is no full featured Amp simulation, but a distortion effect, which has some special features. The plugin has all stuff, neccessary to get a really powerful Heavy Metal sound from your guitar. First, there is a really nice Noisegate, which makes it possible to not let humming or other disturbing sounds get into the signal. You can also "creatively abuse" the noise gate to get some special unusual effects. Additionally this VST has a stereo 14 band equalizer. There are also a few presets, which convincingly mimic the sound of certain Heavy metal subgenres. The spartanic Reverb section of the plugin, does not really convince me and therefore I personally recommend to turn it off and use another reverb plugin with Extremist. Even if Extremist is intended for the use with guitars, I also recommend to test it with other sound sources, such as drums and synthesizers.

Quality: The VST is running stable and did never crash or cause my DAW to freeze. The only unpleasant thing I experienced with Extremist is, that with certain settings it rarely gives no sound at all. The Extremist is not REALLY ressource friendly, but also no ressource hog and should work without problems, if your computer is not too ancient.

Conclusion: Extremist is for sure not the best plugin for guitarrists, but it delivers what it's name promises: Extreme guitar sounds without compromise. Because it is no fully featured Amp simulation, it is neccessary to use it with a couple of other plugins in the effects chain to get the full guitar sound out of a computer. I don't want to say that this VST is a must have. There's simply too many great guitar plugins available for free out there to do so. Still it does no harm to have Extremist in your VST collection.

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD EXTREMIST!

Absolutely no knobs, but great sound - Goldentine by Safwan Matni

Once again I feature a small but great Synthesizer VST by Safwan Matni. And because this plugin has absolutely NO settings, this will most probably become the shortest description of a VST so far. I am talking about Goldentine, a plugin which does not look like it has much to offer if you first look at it. There is a picture of a golden table fork... yeah, and that's it. But there's more than you would expect in this VST. It is the best simulation of an E-Piano I have heared so far. What I like about Goldentine is the unexpected variations of sound it is able to produce. Depending on the velocity  it sounds from silk soft to solid like steel. The lower tones sound smoky and earthy while the higher tones sound bell-like. I used Goldentine myself in some of my productions and each time it sounded great. Listen to my Song "Gettin' Old" to hear Goldentine in action.

Quality: I am not using Goldentine for such a long time like most of the other plugins I featured in this Blog so far but long enough so I can say, that this VST is absolutely stable. It did never cause any problems. It is also very memory saving and doesn't cause a big CPU load. Goldentine should also be able to run on very ancient PCs.

Conclusion: Goldentine surprises with a absolutely authentic sound and a soundvariety, which one would not expect from a VST with absolutely no knobs and controlers to fiddle around. A must have!

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD GOLDENTINE!

My favorite Delay - Kjaerhus Classic Delay

Because of todays of good weather, I want to do a a bit shorter feature today. So I want to feature once again a very simple but wonderful VST effect plugin: The Kjaerhus Classic Delay, by the Kjaerhus company which passed away much too early. I personally use this delay in most of my productions, and you will, if you know my music, surely recognize the sound immediately. With few exceptions, I actualy use no other delay effect. This is because of a bit of lazyness and on the other hand it is because of the quality and the sound of this plugin. The Classic Delay is quite easy to use, because, as with all products of the Kjaerhus Classic series, ease of use is a key feature. You really don't have to fiddle around a lot to achieve superior results. However, this delay comes with some surprising functionalities, which are usually only found in commercial products.

From left to right one finds the following:

1. an input level control, which determines the panorama of the input signal. TIP: This is especially important for the Ping-pong mode described under 7.
2. an often-overlooked little button by which you can convert the input signal into a mono signal. Sometimes this is quite a useful thing.
3. a switch for delay simulation types. The are three choices:  tape, analog and digital delay.
4. two numeric fields, which you can change by clicking them with the left mouse button, holding the left mouse button and moving the mouse up and down. The values set here apply only if the sync button described below is set to ON. In this case, the tempo of the VST is synchronized with the host application. The upper field specifies how many beats a cycle of the delay covers. The second field now indicates how many "echoes" are to occur within the period set in the upper field. I want to be honest and say that these very precise and easy to set up parameters are, in combination with the superb sound of that plugin, the cause for making it my favorite delay VST. Below those fields, there is a small button that determines whether the settings made in those fields are determining the effect and the tempo of the VST is synchronized to the VST host application, or whether the tempo of the effect is asynchronously to the host application. In the latter case, everything is determined by the Time(s) control, described under 5.
5. a Time (s) controller, which only works if the sync button, described under 4. is set to off. Then the tempo of the VST is not synchronized with the host applications tempo and the the settings  of the fields described under 4. are absolutely obsolete. The purpose of the Time (s) controller is to set how long a Delaycycle is. If the controller is set to the lowest level, every 0.05 seconds, an echo is generated, which is too fast to hear it at all. It only leads to an amplification of sound. At the highest setting of the controller every 5 seconds an echo is generated. TIP: If you need accurate echoes, make sure the sync button is on and leave the time(s) control alone ;)
6. a feedback controller that indicates how long the delay will be heared. Sorry, I'm not an expert in electronics. Therefore, I can not tell you much about how it all theoretically runs. One thing is clear: At the lowest setting, the effect stops somewhat immediately. At the highest setting, the sound echoes almost forever and will overlap. NOTE: Sometimes very loud signals are generated by setting this control to the highest value. Danger of clipping!
7. a ping-pong button which sets the pingpong mode on and off.
8. a control to set the sampling quality of the effect. If your computer is not too antique, you should set this to "HI", because the Kjaerhus Classic Delay is really programmed to be not too CPU load intensive.
9. a low cut knob that allows you block out low portions of the sound from the effect.
10. a high cut knob that allows you block out high portions of the sound from the effect.
11. a controller that determines how the relationship between the effect signal and the original signal on the output is. Turning the knob to the left, you get the pure original signal, turning it fully clockwise, you get only the output of the effect.
12. a controller for the volume of the output signal. TIP: The Classic Delay makes the sound a little more quiet. Therefore, if one wants to rehash the original volume of the signal, turn the knob a little higher.

Ok, that became somewhat  extensive ;) So we get straight to the quality: The sound is even superb if you set the "Quality" knob to the lowest setting. As with all products made by Kjaerhus, much attention has been paid to resource-friendlyness. The VST has been working, even with multiple instances simultaneously, already on my Pentium II 233 Mhz with 16 MB of RAM back then in 2004. So you really don't have to worry that your computer might be too old. Crashes, freezing the DAW and other problems? NEVER happened since 2004!

Conclusion: One of the truly essential and most used VST effects in my arsenal. Especially for dub reggae this VST is absolutely wonderful. A must have!

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE Kjaerhus Classic Delay!

Crystal - Creativity is the limit!

Today I want, once again, to feature a VST Sythesizer, which crossed my path just recently. I am talking about Green Oak's Crystal. First: This Synthsizer is nothing for beginners, at least if you don't want to use the quite extensive presetbank only. For all to knobfiddlers, soundmanglers and mad axe murderers of audio synthesis, that masterpiece of a Synth is just right. To list all features of Crystal would really be too much. Some of you allready told me, that I am writing too long features. But here are the most important facts. For the sake of my own lazyness, I simply quote from the Green Oak Website and hope they do not sue my ass over it ;)

Crystal features both subtractive synthesis and frequency modulation (FM) synthesis. It offers abundant modulation control with over 90 parameters which may be modulated, multi-stage envelopes with graphical editors, extensive tempo sync of envelopes/lfo rates/delay times, built-in effects for chorus/flanging/comb filtering/echoes, and a band splitter for effects processing by frequency band. Not only that, Crystal has wave sequencing and granular synthesis. (Source: http://www.greenoak.com/crystal/Crystal/Crystal.html)

Ok, so far for what Green Oak themself say about the Crystal VST Synthesizer. I really want to point at some features I find really interesting and important at that Synth. The builtin comb filter comes in handy for each and every sound massacre. The so called mixer section does not only at the start look complicated and promises much fun. Here it is, where outerdimensional sounds get their final dose of madness.

And now to the... errrm... THING I love most about the Crystal VST: The Breed-Function! Did you ever breed sounds? So theres Mama Sound and Papa Sound and when they make love, then there is Baby Sound... OR MONSTERSOUND! Hmm, how can a MONSTERSOUND happen, if Mama Sound doesn't smoke, drink and eat funny pills during pregnancy? Well, unfortunately, there's that nuclear plant right next to Mama and Papa sounds house... What? Has Sonny finally gone mad? What is he talking about? Yes, dear friends, all I just wrote makes indeed sense. With Crystal, you can breed sounds. And indeed you select a mothersound and fathersound (both existing presets) and from those a new sound is generated. The new sound is not just a mix of the parents, but is deformed more or less by the influence of a mutation parameter. And here we are at the nuclear plant topic, which kicks in, if you increase the value of the "mutation" control. Because not just the mixing of the parentsounds, but also the mutation value influence all of the countless parameters of the VST, there are also unviable and totally crippled results of breeding sounds. Well it's not allways a good idea to build nuclear plants next to a obstetrical clinic ;) But is is indeed possible to create nice (or not so nice) sounds using that Synthesizer and it's Breed Function. You just have to click a few more times, compared to Oatmeal with it's outstanding randomize functionality, to get usefull results. But it is by far easier than with the randomize functionalities of most VST Synthesizers. And unless you do increase the mutation value too musch, the monstrosities will be not too many.

Quality: On my setup/machine/DAW Crystal did freeze the DAW a few times. This means it crashed fataly. It doesn't happen very often, but still it is a good idea to often save your work. The CPU load was a tiny bit high here. No wonder if you imgine what goes on in that Synth. The memory usage is quite moderate. If your PC is not too ancient, Crystal should run well on your machine. I think a Pentium II or better should do the job. The graphical user interface of Crystal is quite complicated and especially newcomers will have a hard time to understand it. Many users will give up when they see the chaotic/cryptic mixer section, and that's a pitty.

Conclusion: The level of creativity (and patience) is really the only limit, if you use the Crystal VST Synthesizer and it's vast possibilities of sound manipulation. With it's Breed Function, this Synthesizer brings a completely new way to create new astounding sounds with just a few mouseclicks and it promises many hours of fun. This Synthesizers should not be missing in the arsenals,especially of soundfiddlers. Because of the many presets and the many free downloadable presetbanks, Crystal is also suitable for presetusers.

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD CRYSTAL!

Changes

Yes, this Blog is quite young and it may seem weird to apply changes to the basic concept that early. On the other hand it is never to early to take corrective action, if long term problems with a concept appear. Let's get to the point: Because of current personal problems I recognized, that I cannot keep up with the original concept of posting one post per day. Yesterday, for example, I wrot no posting, and that was because... well I simple have problems currently. Therefore I want to change the concept in the following way: I wll TRY to post one posting per day. But this can also mean, that there will be no new stuff for several days. If I would follow the original concept, I would chain myself to the computer and I would promise to post in whatever (personal) situation I am. That's impossible.

But there are also positive ideas, I want to tell you about. Some of you asked me via mail, if I could release some special, selfmade presetbanks for free VSTs. I will spend some time at one of the upcomming weekends, and see what I can do. Please understand that I will not publish the presetbanks I use myself, because I don't want to hear my distinctive sounds in songs of other artists.

Others asked me, if I want to publish FL Studio Tutorials on Youtube, in which I show how to build a song with free VSTs only or a tutorial on how to do a Reggae song in FL Studio. Friends: That's a lot of work, but I'll see what I can do.

Please keep sending those suggestions and ideas. It all ends up on the big list... and will be forgotten ;) Just kidding! I will check the feasibility of each suggestion and will do the feasable stuff as soon as possible. End of transmission. Let's get back to the free audio software.

Taurus - A legendary Basssound!

Being a fan of the rockband Rush, I came across the sound of the legendary Basssynthesizer Moog Taurus quite early. My first album by Rush was the album "Moving Pictures" from 1981. And that album was strongly influenced by the sound of the Moog Taurus. That sound fascinated me since I heared it for the first time because of it's powerfull characteristics. When a friend of mine told me a time ago, that there is a VST developer at Smartelectronix, who developed a free VST replica of the Moog Taurus, I was kind of sceptic first. Would that VST be able to really reproduce the sound of the original. The first preset gave a definitive answer, and that answer was YES! If one plays that preset, one hears exactly the same sound which one knows from the intro of "Tom Sawyer", the first track on the album "Moving Pictures". The setting possibilities are exactly the same as on the original Synthsizer. The operating is not unneccessary complicated. Despite the simple user interface, the Taurus is able to produce a big variety of sounds.

Quality: Little RAM usage, small CPU load, no problems with multiple instances. The Taurus didn't crash or cause any other problems ever.

Conclusion: This is a Plugin which should be in every collection of Vintage Synthesizer VST Replicas. The sound is deliberate synthetic and is immitating the original directly. Who is looking for sounds of real String Basses, will not be happy with the Taurus. But if you are looking for the 70s and 80s Synthbass, you will love the Taurus.

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD TAURUS!

Kjaerhus Master Limiter - One knob, much fun!

Today I want to feature a VST Effects Plugin after featuring sound generators only in my recent posts. And as the first VST effects plugin, I want to feature a tool for which it would be an understatement to call it essential. It is the Master Limiter of the free Classic Series by the company Kjaerhus. It seems like Kjaerhus is no longer existant, which is a pitty, because all products by Kjaerhus were allways top notch. So let's have a minute of silence for a company which passed away long before it was time.

What does the Master Limiter? It limits, easy as that! ;) This means, it prevents the output signal from getting too loud and thus prevents clipping and distortion. It simply eliminates those ugly red peaks in the levelmeter. The Kjaerhus Master Limiter does a very great job here, because it doesn't cut everything above a certain level away in rude way, but in a quite soft way, so that most of the times you dont even recognize it. With other limiters I experienced most of the time, that it felt like the sound was bashed against a concrete ceiling. This may be intended by some folks some times, but most of the times it is not wanted.

But that's not all: Der Kjaerhus Master Limiter also has a builtin Compressor, which will pump up sounds, which would otherwise drown in the mix, to a good level. One can pump up the whole mix using the Master Limiter, so it gets more punch. The plugin is, as the name says, mainly intended for usage in the master channel of the DAWs mixer, but it also does a good job in single instruments channels. An unleashed monsterbass, for example, can be tamed by the Master Limiters, so it does not peak. And you can controll the overall level of that monsterbass, so other mixer channels get a chance to be heared. If you do a filter-o-rama with loads of cutoff/resonance craziness, it takes care of that the sound doesn't clip at extreme parts and that the ears and speakers of the audience stay intact. That's one side: The avoidance of too loud signals. But it also works in the opposite way: It happens, that this particular synthesizer sound, which has most of the time just the real punch, certainly drowns in the mix. If the dynamics of that synthesizer sound are not too essential, one simply puts a Kjaerhus Master Limiter on the mixer channel of the synthesizer, and voila: A good level all the time.

Great! A panacea for all sound problems, which turns everybody into an audio mastering genius, right? No, that's NOT true! The disadvantage of using an All-In-One compressor/limiter combination is, that the dynamics of the mix are going more or less down the drain. What is great for Techno, Dub, Dubstep and other rather loud music styles, is not that good for classical music, orchestral music and rather celestial music and flushes the dynamics completely down the toilet. It is therefore advisable to think twice, before one puts a Master Limiter with treshold turned up to the max on each and every mixer channel. That makes only sense if you want to blast your audience away. The compressor takes care of the punch and the limiter prevents the levelmeter from sticking in a always red state.

The operating of the Kjaerhus Master Limiter is grandiosely simple. There is JUST ONE KNOB, which defines the limiting treshold, at which limiting should kick in. Then there is a VU Meter which shows quite precisely how much work the limiter has to do eg. how much loudness was cut off. If this VU Meter is allways half or even fully lit, then one has done something awfully and fundamentally wrong with the mix. One should carefully check all mixer channels then, because something is MUCH TOO LOUD!!! From this point of view, the Kjaerhus Master Limiter is not just a tool to improve the final mix, but also teaches one to avoid limiting by clever mixing. Because limiting is in most cases the result of a bad mix.

Quality: Like with the previosly featured plugins, I can say only one thing for the stability and ressource hungryness: Everything fine here! No problems of any kind. I never experienced problems when using large numbers of instances of that plugin.

Conclusion: Absolutely indispensable! Most of the times it is enough to use the default preset of the Kjaerhus Master Limiter. That one knob has to be tweaked just occasionally. So to work with the Master Limiter, one has just to put it into the mixer channel, and that's it. The software is rocksolid and ressource friendly. If the Kjaerhus Master Limiter did not exist, it had to be invented.

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE KJAERHUS MASTER LIMITER!