Vernon Barnes

How did I miss this new forum until now? It looks like a place I will visit often.

Here is some good insight into how Richard develops his sound with Porcupine Tree. New album is out now and there are also gear talk videos from Steven Wilson (guitar) and Gavin Harrison (drums) on this channel.

Not a high price for being able to use it without a full Kontakt licence. Almost all other free libraries may install with a drag and drop but won't work in the player. This foundation series of free instruments is well above par for free libraries.

Most of the pre-sets packs I did not already have were EDM related, not my genre at all, but I picked my three and will have fun seeing what can be used out of context. I always find their way of downloading the pre-sets to the synths to be a bit awkward, it would be nice if there was a more prominent and obvious button / menu for this.

Me too.

It looks underwhelming compared to Cherry and Softube. The Objeq filter looks a nice touch, I always think its a shame there is not a common standard for these modules so you could use an AAS module in Voltage modular or Softube modular and vice versa. The weakness of the AAS modular seems to be the lack of expandability. There are an amazing amount of modules, both by Cherry and third parties for Voltage modular, that is the big strength of that system (but it can be a money pit even though modules are relativly inexpensive). That said I think its a good deal at this price.

Installed! First impressions are good, just remember these are new Mellotron sounds, not a new modern string and choir library. The spiccato and pizzicato offer something a little different for a mellotron. Flipping through the presets some of the new layered "Artist Patches" sound very good indeed. The new sounds are violin and soprano, so its all high register stuff, most of its pretty bright and I think one may often end up rolling off the treble slightly in a mix. Of course Claire Lindley happens to be violinist with one of my favourite bands, Big Big Train, was also with another favourite of mine Stackridge so I was hooked in straight away.

I have it in Composer Cloud. I like it and will use it occasionally but would not spend $250 on it.

I had always thought the Lowery was played through a synth gate and did not realise it was a function of the organ itself. Interesting that while the Lowrey gated the notes it still had to be played in in time for it to sound correctly, it was no arpeggiator in the sense we would understand today. I have been playing around with this module and its a lot of fun. His scenarios with the "poly octave oscillator" are quite simple as it responds to MIDI signals. I have set up a more complex patch using the "MIDI to Poly CV" module so I can control other poly oscillators and trigger envelopes controlling filter and amps which greatly expands the pallet, it does remain something of a one trick pony though. I will try running two in parallel, driving two sound sources which could introduce some interesting possibilities. Certainly worth the asking price.

New life in an old dog. I have had the Kontakt version for eons and like it a lot. It looks like they have added a few features but the price seems high given what the Kontakt version has sold for in the past.

Intro price $4.20. It would be rude not to at this price if you have Voltage Modular. https://cherryaudio.com/videos/baba-olowrey-module-for-voltage-modular

I had a SH101 back in the day, along with the MC202 synth/sequencer which was basically two SH101s and a two track sequencer. And a TR303 bassline and a 606 drum machine. I sold it all to get midi and polyphony before the 303 prices took off! The 101 is a pretty basic synth and I don't think nostalgia is enough to get me to buy but the ability use its parts in Modular could be interesting. A three oscillator 101 anyone?

Wot! No 5/4?

I took out a month's SonicPass sub a few days ago to explore what's on offer so I installed this earlier. First impressions are this new library is very nice indeed.

I agree, but you can add your own patterns to EZ keys. There are (were?) even third party patterns on sale but they did not seem to catch on. I think IK have a way to go with patterns if they decide to develop it further the market is probably there. Toontrack and Amplesound each take different approaches. TT scores with its AI and Amplesound's Riffer offers complex and powerful pattern editing

Anybody else get the issue where Licence Manager continuously tries to download everything again? Mine has been like it since InMusic took over. Other than that PITA the update went OK and everything appears to be working.

Hopefully this will make it reliable for me. I will give it a try tomorrow.

EW Composer Cloud is working out well for me. There are a lot of instruments I would not have bought that I have found very useful and some I would have purchased I have not used much. I assume this will work out the same so I am tempted. Disc space, though, disc space.

My goto convolution.

Installed. Does what it says on the tin. Some earth shattering bass, a growl that should be easy to conjure up on most analogue synths but can prove illusive.

That was a good one, always good to get a few opinions though.

I don't think this has been posted before. Mike gets quite enthusiastic about the MS20 and Augmented series.

This one is very quirky. Probably my least favourite in the V collection but that said its capable of some very unique sounds. The groove 3 instructional video was useful in understanding the "unconventional" terminology and architecture.

I have been playing around with this a bit more and have gone from "wow, this sound good" to "not so sure" to "I really like it". It does seem to be mostly geared to si-fi and horror soundtrack scoring, but there is plenty in here beyond that. I particularly like the "orchestral hybrid" pads and the "world hybrid" leads. Using the mod wheel to morph between the layers can add a lot of expression and movement in these patches. The morph control also seems to be effective morphing between two arpeggiated layers with different settings. The edit controls are pretty straight forward, envelopes, filter cut off, resonance, modulation etc, and of course an arpeggiator for each layer. Less conventional is a ring mod for each layer, depending on the patch this can be anything form very effective to an awful din and is well worth experimenting with. I don't think is possible to change one or both of the sources in a patch but the pairings chosen seem to go together very well and are ideal for morphing. Its one of those composer cloud items (there are a few of them) I would have probably never bought outright but will end up using more than some libraries I may have bought.

My composer cloud licence is updated periodicaly. I am not sure how often as I am permanently on line. I don't know what the situation is with a permanent licence.