VST MEGATHREAD: It's just so much easier to reach for a sawtooth

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > No More Drake > Musician's Lounge > VST MEGATHREAD: It's just so much easier to reach for a sawtooth

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Flipperwaldt: Nov 11, 2011; Won't somebody think of the starving hamsters in China?

Trig Discipline posted:

Does it have VSTi support and MIDI again? Because I honestly cannot fathom using (or even releasing) a DAW in tyool 2015 that does not have MIDI. I don't know what the gently caress they're thinking.

It doesn't. And the answer is that it isn't intended as a DAW as you know it. You make a radio program, what good is midi going to do you? You're mastering a compilation album for a band, what good is midi going to do you? You're fixing up crumbling master tapes from the fifties, who needs the interface to be full of poo poo you're not using? Etc and so on. Even in TV and film, midi is only of use to a composer, not to foley, overdubbing and all that poo poo.

It fills a professional niche. There's a lot of technical work with audio that has nothing to benefit from tools aimed at musicians. The way audio editing is implemented in most DAWs is pretty poor. Comparatively, anyway. Usually sufficient, but not if you want to go to a forensic level the way Audition can. DAWs and specialized audio editors complement each other pretty well and that's why it's not entirely crazy.

I don't know if Adobe's got all that planned like that, but it works out that way, same as it did in 2003 when they bought Cool Edit because it already was an industry standard in several niches. For a lot of their long time users this going back to the roots is a breath of fresh air.

# ¿ Jan 15, 2015 02:16

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# ¿ May 21, 2024 17:44

Flipperwaldt: Nov 11, 2011; Won't somebody think of the starving hamsters in China?

Trig Discipline posted:

Eh I guess so, but it almost seems wrong to call it by the same term (DAW) as Logic, Reaper, and the like if it's not intended to do the same stuff.

Adobe doesn't call it that afaik. It's "audio editing software".

# ¿ Jan 15, 2015 04:04

Flipperwaldt: Nov 11, 2011; Won't somebody think of the starving hamsters in China?

poo poo, for a guy not having a clue how harmony works, that XFer Cthulhu vst is just a bundle of fun, isn't it.

Load up a midi file with the right mood, record chords, clean up, rock out, have something sounding coherent that isn't even necessarily derivative (because you're not cloning order or rhythm or use all of the chords per se).

Millions of midi files out there for free, some even of recent stuff if you were thinking of doing a remix of some hit from scratch.

$40, what's not to like? This goes in the toolbox, drat.

# ¿ Feb 28, 2015 10:55

Flipperwaldt: Nov 11, 2011; Won't somebody think of the starving hamsters in China?

Actually, just watch this video to see if it could improve your workflow:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3t2yD1kX2_w

I haven't even touched the arpeggiator part yet, but it looks neat.

# ¿ Mar 2, 2015 10:39

Flipperwaldt: Nov 11, 2011; Won't somebody think of the starving hamsters in China?

Your Computer posted:

I've looked at Cthulu before, but I'm wondering; are people just using the Bach chorales that come with it or are there like libraries and stuff for it that you use?

The presets are the quickest way to get something going, because they are already cleaned up (single notes removed and poo poo like that). And it's Bach, so you know it's going to make a modicum of sense. I wouldn't think it beneath me to go that way.

But on the other hand I have a couple of thousand amateur midi files that came on cd roms with mod files I bought in the nineties. Most of them are poo poo for use as-is (mechanical playing, overcrowded arrangement, stuff like that) and I always wanted some convenient way of recycling whatever useful there was in there. Like, say I wanted to do something with a latin vibe, I'll just pull up some lovely bossa nova thing and go from there. I wouldn't know how to get near that otherwise, since I completely lack the knowledge. Once I've got a core down, I can move on to what to me is the fun stuff.

# ¿ Mar 2, 2015 23:02

Flipperwaldt: Nov 11, 2011; Won't somebody think of the starving hamsters in China?

minidracula posted:

I think it was Flipperwaldt (or possibly Your Computer... but I think Flipperwaldt) who uses/was using Seq24 for something or as part of their workflow.

Flipperwaldt (or Your Computer, or whoever it was): how are you using that, or how did you use it, in the regular case? I feel like it could be useful for me, at least in spots, but I haven't figured out how I'm going to work it in. That causes me to ask the obvious question "well, is it worth figuring out?".

Yeah that was me.

Basic idea was using a midi loopback driver to send midi from SEQ24 to VSTHost or directly to a hardware multitimbral synth. If you already have Ableton Live or BitWig or money to spend on those, there's zero point, because the whole concept for me was access to realtime phrase sequencing (aka triggering individual instrument loops vs real pattern based or pure linear sequencing), which is both those DAWs' core concept already.

SEQ24 is very charming in a ultra-minimalist, bare-to-the-bones way. On some Linux platforms it makes sense, because midi routing can be native there. On Windows, a loopback driver is a hack and potentially gives you incurable shoddy midi timing. You've got to be the type to feel exhileration entering nameless cc number events manually for automation and think the restriction to not be able to enter non-quantized notes without playing them live is cool and is going to harden your character.

It can be fun if you're a purist and say your workflow is going to be to first do everything musically and technically you can using midi notes and parameters with dummy instruments and only then to (export the midi and) move on to a real DAW to figure out the matching sounds. It'd be a prime candidate if you were to turn a low power device like a Raspberry Pi into a pseudo hardware sequencer for live midi loop triggering of various hardware synths. It would be great as that. But niche stuff, really.

Personally I've moved on, back to Cubase, with a computer more powerful than a netbook that has no problems running all the vsts I want and working around the lack of RPS with a variety of step sequencer and arpeggiator plugins. I still adore SEQS24, but the mod cons of today's DAWs are great. If SEQ24 came as a midi or VST plugin or even had ReWire support, I'd probably be using it a whole drat lot, but at this point the hassle to link it to another program is too great.

You've made me all nostalgic now. You know how there are these zero-distraction text editors for writers? It's a bit like that for midi.

Maybe if you elaborate a bit more on what you thought you'd get out of it, we can figure out if it's worth pursuing at all, or if there are more suitable alternatives?

# ¿ Mar 26, 2015 13:43

Flipperwaldt: Nov 11, 2011; Won't somebody think of the starving hamsters in China?

I can impulse-buy stuff and neglect it and not feel bad about it. I cannot do that with a subscription. If it doesn't see any use, it's going to get cancelled and I'll be looking for alternatives to lie dormant in my toolbox.

Maybe it makes sense in TV and film work? Anywhere time limited where there is going to be some return on investment?

E: Pretty much in the situations when you would otherwise rent an orchestra? Similar to that?

# ¿ Apr 16, 2015 19:02

Flipperwaldt: Nov 11, 2011; Won't somebody think of the starving hamsters in China?

LOVE LOVE SKELETON posted:

Also picked up Redux: http://renoise.com/redux

I've always liked Renoise for loving with samples and this makes it a lot easier to do that without having to do everything in a tracker. It's worth checking out if you want something to intricately/individually mess with samples. Having an easy way to pan individual notes is already a big plus for me.

Umm wow. Like wow. I think I need this badly. I've been waiting over ten years for a tracker/tracker's sampler to finally integrate properly with a DAW and this ticks the boxes apparently.

Is it properly out yet? There's so much on that page saying 'coming soon'.

# ¿ Jun 8, 2015 11:01

Flipperwaldt: Nov 11, 2011; Won't somebody think of the starving hamsters in China?

field balm posted:

Is shortcircuit 2 still the recommended free sampler? Something about the ui makes me never want to open it, even though i love the step lfo thing. If cockos would just add a filter and filter adsr to reasampler i would just use that all the time.

I've got the same thing with SC2's interface, even though I love the way their Surge synthesizer is laid out. It's a good sampler though and pretty feature complete, but drat do I have to relearn how to use it every time I open it.

Tx16wx is worth a look, even though you'll bump into "oops, paid version only" from time to time. Layout is a lot more logically ordered visually, in my opinion.

As for a sampler I'd use for everything: FL Studio's basic sample channel as a vst would be amazing. Can't even be that hard, but for some reason no one has bothered so far.

# ¿ Jun 12, 2015 01:36

Flipperwaldt: Nov 11, 2011; Won't somebody think of the starving hamsters in China?

VemberAudio Surge has like the best midi compliance I've seen to date. It's also relatively light on cpu to begin with. As powerful as Massive, but cheaper. Really has become my go-to synth for practically everything.

But apparently Live can freeze tracks? Also, plugins that aren't in use shouldn't be using a lot of cpu, so I doubt switching presets on the fly in one synth is going to help much. It's mostly about how much is going on simultaneously.

# ¿ Jun 27, 2015 12:23

Flipperwaldt: Nov 11, 2011; Won't somebody think of the starving hamsters in China?

philkop posted:

Consider that fact that fewer and fewer laptops are coming with cd/dvd drive and it could hundreds of dollars suck in the future.

An external usb dvd drive is $25 and could serve you over the lifetime of a couple of laptops.

e: Also rip to isos now, do not worry about discs degrading later.

# ¿ Jun 27, 2015 23:16

Flipperwaldt: Nov 11, 2011; Won't somebody think of the starving hamsters in China?

I'm vaguely aware what steam is, but I've never seen it in person.

e: I do play games casually, but they're generally 25-30 years old.

e2: That all probably makes me sound like some sort of dick with a point to make. The idea is that I can get by with a laptop easily because of that, end of story.

Flipperwaldt fucked around with this message at 00:33 on Jun 28, 2015

# ¿ Jun 27, 2015 23:54

Flipperwaldt: Nov 11, 2011; Won't somebody think of the starving hamsters in China?

I was looking into some of Applied Acoustics Systems' plugins, and apparently there's a up to 50% off action that ends July 31, 2015.

Acoustic modeling sounds loving great. Still not sure what to get. I was looking into Chromaphone, but maybe String Studio is more what I need.

Anyone use any of their products? Apart from their ancient freebies, that is.

# ¿ Jul 18, 2015 18:05

Flipperwaldt: Nov 11, 2011; Won't somebody think of the starving hamsters in China?

Trig Discipline posted:

Chromaphone is a particular favorite - I just don't have anything else in my toolbox that does quite what it does.

Right. I like the idea of the expressive percussive sounds but I'm also interested in the plucked string emulation in it. For the latter, I just read it doesn't receive pitch bend, which seems a shame.

Agh. I don't know.

# ¿ Jul 18, 2015 18:37

Flipperwaldt: Nov 11, 2011; Won't somebody think of the starving hamsters in China?

Maybe I'm reading that wrong, but Lounge Lizard Session is not made by Korg, so it's not going to be in the Korg Legacy Collection.

Maybe you're looking for either. LLS is now on sale; it was made by AAS, which we were just talking about. Link is a couple of posts up.

On the other hand, there's a free legacy package of 32bit win vsts from Soundfonts.it that has some good physical modeling electric pianos in it. Here. I think it might even be a direct predecessor, but I'm not sure. Might be enough for your needs, so you can focus on getting KLC anyway, 'cause it's neat.

# ¿ Jul 20, 2015 21:56

Flipperwaldt: Nov 11, 2011; Won't somebody think of the starving hamsters in China?

philkop posted:

E: looks like it was thrown in with a few bundles.

I wasn't aware of the bundling. I see where you were going with that now.

# ¿ Jul 20, 2015 22:19

Flipperwaldt: Nov 11, 2011; Won't somebody think of the starving hamsters in China?

I basically have projects in active progress and projects that are finished. Legacy projects don't mean nothing to me. I'm also all 32 bit still because I haven't found a pressing reason to switch yet. If I ever need to switch over, it'll be a new page in the book. Anything old worth keeping will be available for reference as wav or mid. Apart from a small handful, plugins are interchangeable; there's not much I'm irrevocably invested in.

I travel light, so to speak. minidracula's setup sounds insane to me. I mean: do whatever, but I couldn't handle it. I'm not in the business of wrangling software.

# ¿ Sep 23, 2015 23:36

Flipperwaldt: Nov 11, 2011; Won't somebody think of the starving hamsters in China?

Gonna recommend Drumatic 4. Just because when coming from Drumatic 3 I thought "this isn't as electronics focussed anymore as I expected". But still great and flexible drum synthesis. Thing is in 4 you can layer the low boom of a drum synthesizer kick with the noise profile of an acoustic kick and things like that.

Layering, of course, is something you can just do without a plugin, or combining the ones you've got too. But Drumatic makes it easy with the built in partials.

# ¿ Oct 5, 2015 12:14

Flipperwaldt: Nov 11, 2011; Won't somebody think of the starving hamsters in China?

I suppose you're not entitled to profits of a crime, should you get convicted for it. I expect it's easier to say what would happen to the money then what happens with the status of the actual copyright.

# ¿ Oct 22, 2015 21:28

Flipperwaldt: Nov 11, 2011; Won't somebody think of the starving hamsters in China?

It depends on what authentication is used. I've got a number of plugins that required me to enter the serial numbers again. I've also had plugins that worked fine as a copy in another folder, but wouldn't actually work being moved. I don't think these things are typical; I actively avoid stuff that needs online activation because it's a pain in the rear end on my production pc. Some plugins apparently came with an installer that hardcoded paths (like to their presets in an appdata folder) in their registry entries, which I could only get to work by re-installing them to the right folder.

This was a small minority of probably relatively old and uncommon plugins though. Anything from bigger names, with a huge user base, using some sort of activation center program to keep track of licenses or iLok or whatever is probably going to be less of a problem, I suspect.

# ¿ Nov 4, 2015 12:32

Flipperwaldt: Nov 11, 2011; Won't somebody think of the starving hamsters in China?

RobattoJesus posted:

Waves Gold which is only $199.

I just gave my email address for the free TrueVerb and it sent me to a page with coupon codes for, among others, Waves Gold at $169.

E: If I install this free TrueVerb, will it require the pc to be on line (regularly?) for activation?

Flipperwaldt fucked around with this message at 22:50 on Nov 26, 2015

# ¿ Nov 26, 2015 22:45

Flipperwaldt: Nov 11, 2011; Won't somebody think of the starving hamsters in China?

A Winner is Jew posted:

Probably not.

I use (and loving love) Kramer Master Tape and Kramer HLS and it's been a one time only activation thing, with transferring the license to a new computer only requiring an email and 24 hours since I forgot to put it on a USB stick before wiping my old system.

Thanks.

I was just lamenting how the (free) reverbs I have weren't all that spectacular, so this is super.

I remember TrueVerb being pretty good from the time there wasn't a piece of software on my computer that wasn't stolen or hacked. But I just got sick of all the malware. So I'll be glad to reacquaint now.

# ¿ Nov 26, 2015 23:27

Flipperwaldt: Nov 11, 2011; Won't somebody think of the starving hamsters in China?

The Waves license center installer correctly asked for admin privileges on my pc, then gave me a shitload of error messages about poo poo it failed to write to disk and registry. And then apparently it still got installed well enough to install and activate TrueVerb.

Get your poo poo together assholes, jesus, :lol:

. Not logging in as administrator by default isn't some nutjob edge case. Or it shouldn't be, at the very least, drat.

TrueVerb sounds great, worth the minor hassle.

# ¿ Nov 27, 2015 23:17

Flipperwaldt: Nov 11, 2011; Won't somebody think of the starving hamsters in China?

This may be old hat to everyone, but I just found out that One Small Clue's Grace Sampler became free somewhere at the end of 2014. Win VST 32/64 bit.

Hadn't heard of it before, but I've been looking for a good free sampler for yeeeeaaaars. And everything just desperately wants to compete with Kontakt on features while all I ever wanted was to load one or two single samples across the keyboard and have a couple of envelopes and filters at hand. To basically simulate a sample slot in the trackers of yore or the simple sampler device in FL Studio. Some DAWs are gonna have something like it built in, but not Cubase.

Sure you can do some basic keymapping in Grace if you need it, but it isn't rammed down your throat or make the interface look like it was made by an ant with an attention disorder.

This, I like this:

No bullshit.

Had to look up that you need to hold alt to set modulation depth, the rest points itself out really.

e: mmmh okay it isn't exactly light on cpu

e2: Oh, good lord, forget about it, it doesn't do loops properly. It attempts to snap to zero crossings without a way to override. Even for samples with loops in already. And goes wrong (clicks) when using single cycle samples. Bah.

Flipperwaldt fucked around with this message at 14:31 on Dec 4, 2015

# ¿ Dec 4, 2015 00:58

Flipperwaldt: Nov 11, 2011; Won't somebody think of the starving hamsters in China?

Trig Discipline posted:

Which hardware is their hardware? I didn't know they were making any.

The Nektar controllers were developed to integrate with bitwig tightly. Not that it's their hardware per se. I'm supposing that's what Earwicker's on about anyway.

# ¿ Dec 14, 2015 19:55

Flipperwaldt: Nov 11, 2011; Won't somebody think of the starving hamsters in China?

NonzeroCircle posted:

Voxengo Span is a great one, Computer Music gives out a free version every month.

SPAN has been free to download from Voxengo themselves since forever. No need to take the CM detour.

e:

wayfinder posted:

Voxengo SPAN is great, the only thing for which I still need Live's native analyzer is when I want to instantly see at which note (as opposed to frequency) I have my peaks. That information is not available in SPAN

This is in the $40 SPAN Plus, which also does multi track analysis (I assume through multiple instances of the plugin communicating with each other), which seems really neat.

Flipperwaldt fucked around with this message at 11:12 on Jan 8, 2016

# ¿ Jan 8, 2016 11:05

Flipperwaldt: Nov 11, 2011; Won't somebody think of the starving hamsters in China?

My only issue with Blue Cat is that they don't give out more freebies!

# ¿ Jan 8, 2016 21:18

Flipperwaldt: Nov 11, 2011; Won't somebody think of the starving hamsters in China?

I hate that Venom plugin so much. The guy could at least have made sending midi notes to it optional, but nooooo, :cry:

my authenticity :cry:

# ¿ Jan 18, 2016 00:37

Flipperwaldt: Nov 11, 2011; Won't somebody think of the starving hamsters in China?

Pollyanna posted:

Death before terrible UI.

Amen.

Gonna throw in TAL Noisemaker as another suggestion for something that will help you get a grip on the basics while looking a shitload better than Synth1.

# ¿ Feb 3, 2016 12:07

Flipperwaldt: Nov 11, 2011; Won't somebody think of the starving hamsters in China?

There's apparently a Waveshaper CM plugin by Cableguys that comes free with a copy of Computer Music magazine. Haven't used it, but I'll vouch for Cableguys as making great plugins. Buying the Magazine should also give you access to other slightly feature limited but otherwise great plugins. Have used a couple of those (Cableguys Curve CM & Synthmaster CM) in the past and generally seems worth it as a deal.

FL Studio's Waveshaper is also available as VST in their Juice Pack, but that would end up being more expensive, though some of the other plugins included might be of interest as well.

# ¿ Feb 6, 2016 08:19

Flipperwaldt: Nov 11, 2011; Won't somebody think of the starving hamsters in China?

Discombobulator posted:

Okay sorry if this is the wrong thread or if this is extremely noobish (I mean, it is):

My current recording setup is a keyboard (Yamaha P-105, standard issue digital piano with no frills) > Audiobox USB > laptop (with Cubase 5). Well, now I want to experiment with MIDI, but the P-105 doesn't have any MIDI ports. The Audiobox, however, has 1 in/1 out.

What would be the simplest and/or most cost efficient way to introduce MIDI to my setup? Ideally I'd use the keyboard I already have, but seeing as it wasn't built with MIDI, I assume there's no magic box to turn it into a controller. Would I be able to just grab a cheap controller, plug it in to the box, pick some VSTs, and go? Or is there a smarter way to go about this? I see a lot of controllers are USB anyway. Should I just bypass the Audiobox and go straight to Cubase via USB? I can do that right?

If it helps, I'm mostly interested in using virtual instruments for songwriting and arranging. Not so much full blown synthesizing. I don't think I'm ready for that rabbit hole.

The Yamaha P-105 has a usb out port that carries midi. So you can "bypass the audiobox and go straight into Cubase via usb" using that. You may or may not have to install the appropriate driver from the website and you'll probably have to look in the manual for how to turn off local control (so when you're playing your virtual instrument, the built in sounds aren't also triggered), but you should pretty much be good to go with what you have.

e: post above calling it a kludge assumes the piano doesn't have any midi out as you suggested, in which case that would be correct. But it does.

Flipperwaldt fucked around with this message at 00:10 on Apr 3, 2016

# ¿ Apr 3, 2016 00:08

Flipperwaldt: Nov 11, 2011; Won't somebody think of the starving hamsters in China?

LOVE LOVE SKELETON posted:

yeah, i didn't look it up, just took the dude's word on it. seems like you're good to go.

Didn't mean to rub it in, I just wanted to point out that what I was talking about wasn't the kludge you were talking about :v:

# ¿ Apr 3, 2016 00:22

Flipperwaldt: Nov 11, 2011; Won't somebody think of the starving hamsters in China?

LOVE LOVE SKELETON posted:

any of you guys use drum synthesizer plugins? been thinking i want something dedicated, and hopefully not too obtuse.

Drumatic. It's very good. And cheap.

Really recommend against Waldorf Attack in favor of Drumatic.

# ¿ Jun 24, 2016 01:57

Flipperwaldt: Nov 11, 2011; Won't somebody think of the starving hamsters in China?

field balm posted:

Anyone got a recommendation for a vsti under fifty bucks? Just looking for a subtractive with a bunch of modulation options, something like charlatan but with a mod matrix would be ideal. Maybe at this price point I'm best to stick with freeware?

Have a look at Helm. Doesn't have a matrix as such, but does have lots of modulation options.

Synthmaster CM is also great, but it's a bit of a hassle to get hold of.

# ¿ Jun 27, 2016 11:54

Flipperwaldt: Nov 11, 2011; Won't somebody think of the starving hamsters in China?

Yeah fair enough.

I was just reminded that CM also comes with Cableguys Curve 2 CM, which is also a supremely done subtractive synth with a good modulation matrix. Big deal being the whole draw your own oscillators and lfos thing. Neat.

# ¿ Jun 27, 2016 22:57

Flipperwaldt: Nov 11, 2011; Won't somebody think of the starving hamsters in China?

NonzeroCircle posted:

There's quite a few freebie drum samplers like that out there.

This is seemingly so patently untrue for vst that I can't imagine the situation being any better for au.

# ¿ Jul 14, 2016 14:15

Flipperwaldt: Nov 11, 2011; Won't somebody think of the starving hamsters in China?

wizkid posted:

I'm trying to find a guitar VST that I'm sure must exist somewhere but I can't find...

What I'm after is something that lets me select a WAV (or whatever audio) file which then is combined with my guitar signal. So the louder I play the louder the WAV is blended into the guitar. Does something like this exist?

I know there are samplers but they only seem to work for discrete notes (keyboard).

Anyone know of something that will do this...?

Most envelope followers are built into plugins so they modulate a parameter of the effect in the same plugin, applied to the same track. You want to apply the envelope of one track to another. What you need is an envelope follower that outputs automation.

I see this recommended in that context: http://www.bluecataudio.com/Products/Product_DPeakMeterPro/

Haven't used it myself.

You'll have to figure out how, in your DAW, to link the output of that plugin to a gain plugin or a mixer fader or something like that.

Alternatively, you might have luck with very basic vocoder or talkbox plugins, I'm not sure. They share the common principle of modulating one thing along a property derived from the other.

Edit vvvvvvvv didn't even consider that.

Flipperwaldt fucked around with this message at 14:49 on Sep 28, 2016

# ¿ Sep 28, 2016 14:27

Flipperwaldt: Nov 11, 2011; Won't somebody think of the starving hamsters in China?

Can it still not make 64 bit plugins though?

# ¿ Dec 3, 2016 20:15

Flipperwaldt: Nov 11, 2011; Won't somebody think of the starving hamsters in China?

11ms isn't even bad to begin with. drat, son.

# ¿ Feb 14, 2017 19:51

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# ¿ May 21, 2024 17:44

Flipperwaldt: Nov 11, 2011; Won't somebody think of the starving hamsters in China?

What I'm saying is that I wouldn't have noticed. Anything <25ms is more or less fine with me. The fact that you immediately think "this is so bad something mustn't be right" means you're really sensitive to it. Might turn out to be quite the curse!

# ¿ Feb 14, 2017 21:14

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > No More Drake > Musician's Lounge > VST MEGATHREAD: It's just so much easier to reach for a sawtooth

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