Here we are, back with round II of our free AU plugins review. This time we will concentrate on two bundles and a few other creative-oriented effects.

Ping pong diplomacy

No worries, we are not going to write an essay on Sino-American relationship in the 70′s here

TAL-Dub is described as a vintage style delay effect, meaning that its purpose is to emulate the behaviour of tape delay units such as Binson Echorec, Roland Space Echo and the like. If you are looking for a hi-fi sounding, “ neutral “ delay effect, look elsewhere: TAL-Dub is great for adding character to your tracks, by adding some grit with resonating and never ending delays.

The Melda Production bundle

Melda Production is presenting us with an amazing value for ( no ) money.

MfreeEffectsBundle can be downloaded from here and contains the following:

MAnalyzer – an advanced spectral analyzer with sonogram capabilities

MAutopan – auto panner with adjustable shape oscillator design which can be synchronised to host

MAutoPitch – a pitch correction plugin, to be used on monophonic sources and vocals. It adds formant shifting and stereo expansion

MComb – multi-comb filter plugin with two modulators, which turn it into a signal processor that can react to LFO’s, MIDI data or audio input level

MEqualizer – a 6-band equalizer. With 7 filter types for each band, tube saturation, and harmonics

MFlanger – flanger with variable oscillator shape and integrated tube saturation

MLimiter – a limiter which emulates the behaviour of tube saturation

MLoudnessAnalyzer is an EBU R128 and ITU-R BS 1770-1 compliant loudness meter. It also has a peak meter, momentary, short-term and integrated loudness. It can be extremely helpful, for example, in post production and in all those situation where a precise measurement is need before submitting audio files for broadcast

MNotepad – a simple text editor, which won’t perform any audio processing. You can use it to store comments, lyrics or just any text

MRecorder is a utility tool which records the plugin’s input into a WAV file

MRingModulator – a ring-modulation plugin with two oscillators and advanced control over phase difference and shape

MUtility – a set of utilities within just one plugin window, and a very impressive tool: volume, pan, phase inversion, stereo swapping, delay, RMS and envelope, mathematical functions, mono-stereo encoder-decoder and more

The whole bundle includes far too many modules in order to be described in detail in just one artcle, so here are the remaining plugins, which you might want to check out for yourself: MTuner, MstereoExpander, MstereoScope, Mvibrato, MwaveShaper, MbandPass, Mcompressor, Mtremolo, MfreqShifter, MNoiseGenerator, Mphaser, Mratio, MOscillator.

IVGI

Like Saturation Knob, which we have already reviewed in one of our previous post, IVGI is a saturation and distortion plugin. Its settings give a more advanced control when compared to its Soft Tube equivalent, such as the ASYM MIX knob, which modifies the symmetry of the incoming signal, according to the producer’s words “ without affecting the harmonic content much “. It must be said though, that despite a larger choice of options, our test showed a less gradual responsiveness when compared to the Saturation Knob. Having them both will certainly give you a wider palette to choose from.

EQ1A

EQ1A is designed to emulate analogue-style eq and sports, among the usual parametric features, a high pass filter with variable Q. It’s said to be very CPU-efficient and our test proved it. Not a surgical eq: the EQ1A is more suited for broad strokes.

Stereo Tool v3

Stereo Tool v3 is yet another free plugin by Flux, as is BitterSweet (more info), which we reviewed in our previous post, here. It’s a very advanced and professional tools which can be used, for example, to solve phase issues or improving mono compatibility, extremely important when creating music for clubs or to be played on mono devices such as tablets or smart phones.

Acon Digital Multiply

Multiply is chorus effect which adds a phase randomizing filter to avoid comb filtering. to widen the spatial image or to create special effects for sound design. Multiply can simulate up to 6 additional voices and both the pitch and the loudness of the voices can be modulated. It has an equalizer with low cut, low shelf, high shelf and high cut filters and a predelay effect.

Glitchmachines Hysteresis

Hysteresis is an effect processor aimed at the creation of glitchy sounds, especially suited for electronic and experimental music. Glitchmachines themselves describe it as a “ ping pong delay with a corrupted feedback path “. Describing the results which you can achieve with it would be impossible and you’ll have to check it out for yourself. Probably one of the most “ creative “ plugins of the whole lot, Hysteresis comes with a load of presets and a very neat, flat-looking gui. A great explanation of its possible uses and functionalities can be found here.

Sinevib Atom

Last but not least, Sinevib Atom. One of the best user interfaces of the lot and one of the most creative plugins as well: it is basically a filter with tempo-synced modulation. Each one of its five resonant filters, with 12/24/48 dB/octave slope settings. Its two modulators allow users to choose from multiple waveforms at rates from 1/128 note to 16 bars.

Everyone loves to have an edge these days in the production community. These tools will give you the look and feel you need to stay ahead of the curve! For all of the lovers of Logic Pro out there go grab these up quickly to get your arsenal equipped!

1. Free Logic Pro X GUI Themes

If you are looking to spice up the look and feel of Logic then try changing your SKIN. The “skin” is what makes up the look of your DAW. Changing your skin is a great way to ease eye fatigue or just give your DAW a new and fresh appeal.

When Logic Pro X 10.1 was released, the update seemed to break most of the GUI skin hacks that the modding community had in place. The new version of Logic has this all fixed up and ready to go, but I always recommend creating a backup if you are new to installing GUI Skins. Here is how to create a backup of Logic. First things first. The safest way to do this, is to control-click the Logic Pro X icon in your Applications folder, and choose “Compress Logic Pro X”. Then carefully read these installation instructions.

Here are a few links to some really cool GUI’s. Some are free and others require a donation.

2. Free SSL Compressor Emulation Presets

The SSL Compressor is meant to usually be used as a buss or master mix compressor. It is often used during mixing to create a subtle compression over the stereo mix.
It is not a true mastering compressor but will help smooth out transients in the mix when used correctly.

More info

3. Free Impulse Response Presets for Space Designer

IR Presets are like the holy grail of Reverbs. Here are a couple resources to get your ambience taken to the next level. One is for the Bricasti M7 Reverb unit and the other is the world famous Lexicon 480L. Check out the web links here to get the full details and download info.

4. Free EXS24 Instruments

Who doesn’t love free instruments? Well the fine folks over at Logic Cafe have a plethora of hard hitting synth and drum instruments to get that inspiration going! Follow the links and get those Hard drives ready to download some serious new toys! More info.

5. Free apps for Logic Pro

Logic Remote is an official app by Apple that lets you take control of Logic by using the full touch screen capabilities of an iPad. This is a really cool feature and lots of fun to take advantage of!

V-Control Free provides a multi-touch control surface for Pro Tools, Logic 9, Cubase/Nuendo, and many more DAWs. V-Control Free uses WiFi to control transport and mixing functions.

6. Free Logic Pro Template

Nothing saves time and gets your workflow moving like having a great template to start from. We’ve released free Logic Pro template “Sound Tropez” that you can use as a mighty starting point for your pop productions and learn a few pro tricks in the process!

We hope this article was helpful. The most important things you can have in the studio is great workflow and proper templates to maximize studio time. Save your presets and do anything you can to not do repetitive tasks. Remember to always save backups!

Logic Pro X has a huge range of keyboard shortcuts for speeding up your workflow…and to be honest, there are too many shortcuts to remember. So we’ve collected our essential list of shortcuts that we suggest you to bookmark or print if you can’t memorize them all. Enjoy!

When it comes to audio, plugins are to present-day production what outboard gear used to be until a few years ago. In many cases, high-end plugins can be almost as expensive as their hardware counterparts, but fortunately there is no lacking of free, and often high quality, alternatives.

Although Logic Pro already comes with its own, high quality and comprehensive set of plugins, suitable for most audio purposes, there are times when the user needs a specific function or simply wants to add new flavors to the audio palette: this is when third-party plugins come handy.
What follows is part one of a two-parts review, entirely dedicated to the best free AU plugins currently available on the market.

Nicola Loverre

Red, Hot and Blue

Red EQ is a three, fixed-bands, equalizer, basically a graphic EQ. It provides 16dB cut or bust on 80 Hz, 1.8 kHz and 8kHz. Certainly not aimed at “surgical“ operation, the Red EQ is suitable for broad band strokes or coloration of the incoming signal. The bands chosen are actually extremely effective, especially on drums or on the mix bus. Input and output gains are independently adjustable, with a useful level meter at the end of the signal chain. The only small drawback, at least in its au incarnation, is the “EQ in“ button, which does not provide a visual feedback when active or inactive.

The installation process is a bit less straight-forward than usual: in order to download and install Red EQ, you first have to add it to your shopping cart from here and then proceed to checkout. A free Acustica Audio account must be created, after which the download link will show up in your browser.

Saturation Knob

Saturation Knob is a freeware Softube product. Basically, it is exactly what the name implies: a one-knob, three-positions switchable saturation plugin. It adds harmonic distortion to the incoming signal, in continuously variable amount; its front panel switch features three positions: Keep High, Neutral and Keep Low; these apply three types of distortion, each one aimed at preserving a specific range of frequencies, and the results range from subtle to dramatic, depending on th amount of distortion the user dials in. Possible uses include, for example, adding more grit to a kick drum, using the Keep Low function, helping it cut through the mix or completely distorting a drum loop. It can be downloaded absolutely free from here.

The installation process includes the use of Softube’s proprietary installer, which then launches a dialogue window, listing all of Softube’s plugins the user wants to activate a license for. In this case, of course, the license is free, but the same procedure must be followed.

Blue Cat’s Freeware Plug-ins

BlueCat audio have made a name for themselves after releasing not just one, but an entire bundle of freeware AU plugins. Their free bundle includes: chorus, flanger, spectrum analyzer, gain utility, phaser and an EQ. We will go deeper into the functionalities of each module of the bundle in our next article, focusing for now on the EQ alone.

Triple EQ is a 3 bands, semi-parametric equalizer, with a very slick and attractive user interface. The Q is not adjustable, therefore not making it fully parametric. It comes in both stereo and dual channel configuration, which can be linked together or left completely independent. Interestingly, all of the products in bundle have in common adjustable transparency for the gui, very useful when you want to keep the plugin’s main window active while keeping an eye on what happens in the background. Personally, I have found myself many times using their EQ as a favorite tool for high-passing tracks, although its use is far from being limited to this task. Installation on AU platforms is pretty straight-forward and consists in just downloading the .dmg file from here, mounting the virtual image and the copying the AU components to your Library/Audio/Plugins/Components folder.

Rough Rider

Audio Damage Rough Rider is a bit of an unusual, creative-oriented compressor which comes with a bunch of presets and still remains 100% manually tweakable. Its settings lean a bit towards the extreme, with ratios reaching up to 1000:1 ( ! ) and +30dB of makeup gain. The traditional “ threshold “ knob has been renamed “ sensitivity “ with the higher values corresponding to the lowest threshold settings, in dBs. Its uses can range from the more traditional ones of a compressor to completely squashing and distortion of the incoming signal. Particularly suited for parallel compression. If you are looking for a “ gentle “ compressor, this might not be right choice; if, however, extreme compression is what we are looking for, this is definitely a go-to plugin.
Rough Rider can be downloaded from here.

Kotelnikov by Tokyo Dawn

On the opposite side of the spectrum we find Kotelnikov by Tokyo Dawn: a dynamics processor with an incredibly vast palette of options. The list of features includes: individual release control for peak and RMS, Delta preview to audition the difference between compressed and uncompressed signal, sidechain highpass filter, and many others. This particular compressor plugin is aimed at precise, transparent dynamics processing: even mastering engineers can benefit from its many options and “ controlled “ sonic behavior. Absolutely a must-have. Here is the download link.

Faraday Limiter

Faraday Limiter is….well, a limiter. In this case though, coders have come up with something totally different from Kotelnikov: their intention was to recreate an analogue-modelled transformer sound. In other words, not a transparent peak limiter, but a colorful one. The result is a pleasant sounding, un-harsh plugin with a distinct tonal character. You can check few examples of its sound below and download the plugin from here (64 bits only).

Goodhertz presents us with a very straight-forward and elegant installer, as shown on the picture below: just drag the AU component to the folder and done, the plugin is ready.

Bittersweet

Flux has come up with an extremely useful processor called Bittersweet, which is essentially a transient designer. Its main control is a big central knob which can be used to continuously dial in values ranging from “ sweet “ to “ bitter “, the former decreasing and the latter increasing the transients’ amplitude.
A “ mode “ control affects the stereo signal: Main affects the entire signal, while choosing the Center position, only the mono, central portion of the signal is processed. If stereo is selected, only the side signal is processed.

The most obvious use of Bittersweet is of course on drums and especially snares, to help transients cut through or, conversely, to tame them without using a compressor, for example. But its use is not limited to drums, and has proven to be very effective on synth leads or guitars, when capturing more energy from the strumming etc. Flux Bittersweet can be downloaded from here.

Continue to Part II

Uplifter (riser) effects are very important in today’s electronic music, you can hear them in every EDM track. Today we are sharing 35 free uplifter effect samples that we usually use in our Logic Pro templates.

You will find different types of uplifter and riser effects – from simple white noise to distorted and aggressive synthetic effects. You can freely download these samples and use them in your own tracks!

The DAW, otherwise known as Digital Audio Workstation, might seem commonplace in today’s technologically advanced world, but this technology has had a long evolution from the primordial days of analog reel to reel. The DAW’s existence and evolution has allowed musicians to not only create music more efficiently, but has also helped to spark a creative revolution bringing about a movement that has helped foster a generation of new music genre’s that once did not exist.

Before the DAW

One of the DAW’s main purposes, aside from composing and being used in the creative writing process, is the recording process. Before the days of the DAW, musicians, studios and engineers were limited to their available technology, which was recording audio on a reel to reel tape machine. Up until 1970 this was the standard.

Although some argue that music sounded better due to the inherent sound of recording to tape, the process wasn’t without its noticeable characteristics which some might argue were less than desirable. Noise and distortion were two common artifacts that were almost always present and to some considered a nuisance. Some on the other hand revered this aspect and found ways to work with this trait to make it part of the creative process.

Another note when discussing tape recordings and the lack of computer recorded audio was the absence of automation, the process of computer guided perimeter adjustments. Automation in the DAW replaced an “All hands on deck” approach to the mixing board. Before the days of automation, studios would essentially have to call in help from other people (aside from on site engineers) to manually operate a mixing board and adjust faders, knobs, or any other settings that needed to be adjusted in real time while a mix was taking place. This process was commonly referred to as “riding the faders”.

Enter the DAW

The creation of the DAW brought about a new way of dealing with multi track audio. It allowed the user to create, record, mix, and even master professional high quality audio right in the computer instead of on costly tape based machines. This could be achieved all while retaining a high fidelity output.

A DAW is a computer based mixing board console like you would see in a big studio, however instead of having a large and costly mixing board made by a big name manufacture, all the components are made to operate inside a computer and be displayed through your monitor. This system does not rely on tape and instead is based on microprocessors.

The earliest stage of the DAW was known as an integrated DAW. This DAW consisted of a mixing console, control surface, audio convertor and data storage all on one device. The other current existing type of DAW is the software DAW. A Software DAW has four basic components- a computer, a sound converter, a digital audio editor and at least 1 input device. The computer is the host for the soundcard and the software that process the audio information. This allows you to record in a multi track format using mono or stereo, edit all the take downs, mix them and master them to create a professional high quality musical composition, all in your computer.

First DAWs

The first attempts to make a DAW were done in the late 1970’s. Because computer hardware was very limited, these attempts were cumbersome and did not yield long lasting results. Not only was the price of storage high, the disk speeds and processing power were extremely slow. Soundstream is the first company to have attempted the first DAW and was called the “Digital Editing System”.

In 1979, a company called Fairlight came about and developed the “Computer Musical Instrument”. This sampler and digital synthesizer would go on to develop a hard-disk recording system and MFX series digital audio workstation. Although the CMI was not a computer based DAW, it did have a CRT monitor and ran an operating system called QDOS. One of the notable features that many companies model to this day was the CMI’s “Page R” software that was a real time graphical pattern sequencer. Some say this gave way to today’s current MIDI sequencing.

Moving into the early 80’s, companies started really pushing the idea of the software DAW, especially now that computers such as the Apple II, Atari ST and the Commodore Amiga had better processing power and could handle the task of digital audio editing. Many of today’s top name software platforms had humble roots during this early time. AVID’s now industry standard Protools started off as an audio editor called “Sound Designer” by Digidesign. This software was primarily used to edit samples for sampling keyboards like the E-mu Emulater II and the Akai S900. Sound Designer was eventually bundled with Mac-compatible hardware to form Sound Tools.

In 1985, the company Opcode founded by Dave Oppenheim was started. By 1986 The company had released two products: the MIDIMAC Seqencer and the MIDIMAC interface for the Macintosh Computer. The Sequencer would later become known as the Opcode Sequencer and then eventually the very popular program known as Vision. Both of these platforms were extremely revolutionary and were utilized by many well known artists at the time.

Another early developer was Mark Of The Unicorn with their software called “Professional Composer”. Following this emerged a music sequencer called “Performer”. Performer took full advantage of the new MIDI standard making it a highly sought after platform for synthesizer users. This software would eventually lead way to “Digital Performer” which is still highly used to this day.

Steinberg Research came in around 1994 when the commodore 64 was a main contender in the early computer music scene. Their first product, appropriately called “Mulitrack Recorder”, is said to have sold less than 50 copies. The concept however was soon transformed into their next platform titled “Pro-16”. Pro-16 was a basic 16 track multi sequencer with a clear single page interface and real time recording. Following the Pro-16 was the Pro-24 followed by Cubit. By 1992 Steinberg finally saw the arrival of one of the industry standards known today as Cubase.

One more notable contender in the DAW market that took early roots in the computer audio recording market was Emagic. Emagic, a software company based in Germany, was known for its early music sequencer called “Creator”. Creator was followed by Notator, which ran on the Atari ST platform. Notator Logic was launched in 1992 for both Atari, Macintosh and Windows. Emagic quickly dropped the “Notator” from the name and was redesigned with a new look and called “Emagic Logic”. In 2002, Apple bought the software and discontinued all Windows based support for the program. Today, Logic still only exists on the Apple platform and is widely regarded as one of the most popular DAWS available.

Mac vs PC: The Early Days

Up until 1993, all DAWs ran on either Atari, Commodore or Apple computers. Programs such as Performer, Creator, Pro-16, Vision, Studer Dyaxis, Sonic Solutions and Sound Designer were all Apple dependent. The first Windows based product that was introduced was Samplitude Studio. Before 1992, this software existed as an audio editor for the Commodore Amiga. Other companies also began to emerge such as IQS (Innovative Quality Software) known today as SAWStudio, Soundscape Digital Technology who was acquired by Mackie and then later by SSL, SADiE, Echo Digital Audio and Spectral Synthesis.

Popular DAWs Today

Today there is a plethora of options when talking about a DAW. One could easily say that today’s marketplace is over saturated with them. Many times we will see a new DAW announced followed by a magazine or blog headline “Do we need another DAW?” What makes one DAW different from another? Competition is the name of the game and while one DAW might be the industry leader there will always be a drive to have more features, faster audio processing, additional modulation routing, quicker sample editing, lower CPU use and so on and so on.

Needless to say, the DAW has a strong foothold in today’s computer aided recording market and although not a complete list, here are some of today’s main software platforms:

AVID – Pro Tools

Steinberg – Cubase, Nuendo

Apple – Logic, GarageBand

Ableton – Live

Bitwig Studios

Sony – ACID

MuTools – MuLab

Magix – Samplitude Pro

Renoise

Motu – Digital Performer

Sonar – Cakewalk

Propellerhead – Reason

Image-Line – FL Studio

PreSonus – Studio One

The DAW has undoubtedly changed the face of multi track recorded audio. Although some artists still use reel to reel tape for its nostalgic qualities, you will find that most professional studios have joined the digital audio revolution for good. Technology in the DAW has greatly improved efficiency, cost, creativity and time and has broken down the barrier between the artist and big name labels that once held all the power when it came to recording your music. Now the power of recording a professional quality song is in the hands of anyone who has access to a computer. Truly a revolution in sound.

Sources:

http://www.prosoundweb.com/article/inside_the_development_we_now_know_as_digital_audio_workstations/P3/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_audio_workstation

http://www.drtw.net/mus105/pdf/daw_history_outline_key.pdf

http://www.dawsons.co.uk/blog/history-of-the-computer-sequencer

https://www.dubstepforum.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=8&t=127169

Article by Mac Vaughn

We are very excited to have finally launched our new website Logitunes! Initially, we were making Ableton Live templates at abletunes.com, but after getting tons of requests from Logic Pro users who wanted to be able to use our templates, we started to develop Logitunes and convert our bestselling templates for Logic Pro. And now this is the place where you can find premium Logic Pro templates and sample packs. We will be adding new templates (converted from Abletunes and exclusive) in the coming months, so don’t forget to subscribe to our newsletter!