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Playing with this now...

bitflipper

By bitflipper
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bitflipper

bitflipper

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Been getting some good tips from the What I'm Listening to Now thread, so I thought I'd invite folks to talk about what new gear/instruments/effects they're just getting their feet wet with.

As you may know, I review music software as a hobby. It's a lot of work for zero compensation, the only perk being that I get to keep the software I've reviewed. And I sometimes get to talk to interesting people.

Often, products just get dropped into my lap. That sounds great, no? Free stuff! Well, sometimes it gets awkward because said products aren't always good. Then I feel bad. But I refuse to write negative reviews, so if it's not something I'd actually use myself or recommend to a friend, then it doesn't get considered.

This thread isn't about that. This is about things that fell out of the sky and were great.

Here's what I'm playing with now. Stuff I'm not an expert on yet, but that I am digging so far...

First there's Indiginus' electric lap steel guitar, which is a blast. Not a big surprise, because Tracy's stuff is always good. But I didn't know it was even in development until an email appeared saying "come get it". Granted, guitar players are not likely to swoon over this, but if your fingers are trained for keyboards but you like to throw guitars into a project, then it's pretty awesome.  Slides that sound natural because they are sampled, not scripted.

I've become immersed in a surprisingly deep Kontakt library from SampleLogic called Cinematic Guitars Motion. I had mixed feelings at first, because while I love Cinematic Guitars (and everything else from SampleLogic), I'm an old-school type who's not big on loops and sequencers. But underneath the fancy modulation and sequencing there are some really great sounds - all made by guitars, but often unrecognizable as such. I've just begun my deep dive into this one, but already it's way more fun than I thought it would be.

But the biggest surprise this year was a product from IKM. Some of you might recall that I've had sour words for IKM over the years. As soon as a vendor starts putting "i" in front of their products' names, I'm outa there. No, I will never record music on my phone, sorry. I don't care how cute your rig-in-a-pocket is.

Then this thing comes along. I approached it with skepticism, ready to hate it. Long story short: it's frickin' amazing. IKM, all is forgiven.

I'm talking about B3-X, their Hammond emulator. Not kidding, it's the best I've heard yet - and I've got a diskfull of 'em to compare. Not only have they nailed the tonewheel sound and all its subtleties, they've put in features I didn't even know I wanted. Like the ability to replace the Leslie amp with a Marshall head, a la Jon Lord. (I believe it uses the same Leslie that you can buy as a separate plugin for Amplitube or T-Racks.)

So what new stuff have you recently added to your toolbox? Stuff that you maybe haven't fully figured out yet, but are optimistic about.

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Mesh

Mesh

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I'm by no means a keyboardist, but do love the sound of IK's B3 and working on a track that uses a B3 (NI's). When it goes on sale, I can (possibly) justify buying it as I like to have good quality instruments (even If I can't play them well lol). Are there any other decent B3's you can recommend? I also have the one that came with AIR Music bundle, but haven't really put it through the paces (yet).

 

Currently, I'm slowly working on getting good tones out of BIAS Amp2/FX2 which has so many excellent options to tweak....it can also be a bit overwhelming. Always trying to educate myself in finding info on getting the best out of amp sims using hardware/software.  The struggle is real....  ;)

 

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bitflipper

bitflipper

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My favorite Hammond emu has long been the original VB3 - not the more recent VB3-II, which is one of those products I alluded to that I elected not to write about. Sadly, the old VB3 is no longer available through legal channels. Its author needed to completely rewrite VB3 so it could be embedded into hardware units such as the Crumar Mojo (which I have). Along the way he left out something. Perhaps a call to the MakeHammondMagic() function.

Arturia's B3-V is OK, adds some interesting modulation features and fx, but isn't particularly authentic with its baked-in distortion. Its Leslie emulation sounds good on slow rotation but its fast mode doesn't sound quite right. I got decent results by using other peoples' Leslie sims such as L'otary and MVintageRotary from Melda.

GG Audio's Blue3 is a good value for, IIRC, a hundred bucks. The Leslie is just OK, but has the advantage of being a separate plugin, so you can throw it on a guitar or vocal if you like. The new UI is a big improvement over their previous synth-style interface. They seem determined to keep enhancing it until it's best-in-class. Even if not quite there yet, it's definitely in the same league with IKM's.

IKM's B3-X is the first one I've used that gets both the organ and the Leslie right in the same package, sounds good clean or dirty, and gets the Leslie fast tremolo effect right.

 

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Mesh

Mesh

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54 minutes ago, InstrEd said:

So do you like it Dave

I'll take a wild guess and say yes. Well, there's also this that Dave said:

"I'm talking about B3-X, their Hammond emulator. Not kidding, it's the best I've heard yet - and I've got a diskfull of 'em to compare."

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Vernon Barnes

Vernon Barnes

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I have finally been using Relivox - The Ladies for Kontakt https://realitone.com/products/realivoxladies

I bought it in a fire sale a while back thinking it may be useful for vocal atmospheres on instrumental tracks or simple backing vocals. I have yet to use it for either but It could fill those functions. You get six different singers and it possible to chain syllables together and attach the chain to a key switch.  Don't think this will give you intelligible words but la la's and doo bee doo's sound quite effective.

I am writing a song that will require a female lead vocal.  I have not yet found a vocalist so I have been using The Ladies to mock up a guide melody. I found it very useful, I initially tried a piano and synth voice but using The Ladies has been quite revealing, it has enabled me to refine the melody and working on the backing instrumentation against something with the correct tone.

Now all I have to do is find a real lady singer. I may well end up using an on-line session singer which will probably cost more than the software.

Edited by Vernon Barnes
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bitflipper

bitflipper

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RE: The Ladies

Love that product. Someday you won't need to deal with egocentric vocalists at all. Someday. Not just yet, though.

However, where sampled voices can shine is when augmenting live vocals, mixing them underneath "real" voices. When used subtly, even non-articulated voices such as those in Omnisphere or various orchestral libraries can fatten real vocals. I think of them as programmable reverb.

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