synth

KVR Challenge 2021 – Download Free Plugins From This Year

KVR Challenge 2021 What is the KVR Challenge?    KVR Audio is an online, global community dedicated solely to music and audio applications. They are perhaps best known for hosting the KVR Developer challenge, where developers submit their plugins and the best ones are upvoted by the community. The best part? All plugins are free to download.   In a world with a rising number of bedroom producers, there is a real need to create new sounds and stand out from the pack. New plugins can help a producer do just that. Furthermore, some of the plugins from this year have simple & stripped back user interfaces. Some existing plugins, while powerful and effective, can be quite intimidating to use –  especially for producers who are just starting out.     Five cash prizes are awarded to the top entries and a wildcard pick. Prize money is sponsored by the community-funded …

Read More

Support Local – 9 Music Tech Retailers to Support this Winter

Support Local – 9 Music Tech Retailers to Support this Winter   Some things are worth keeping around.  Los Angeles has entered another week of restrictions and lockdown and businesses are feeling it.   The pandemic has been especially hard on small and independent retailers. To keep alive the communities these retailers foster and the legacy gear they preserve, we have put together a list of 9 Music Tech Retailers here in Los Angeles worth your support this winter.  su_divider top=”no” size=”1″ 1. Perfect Circuit     Located in Burbank, Perfect Circuit is an independent music retailer that carries a wide variety of music tech from modular synths to Drum machines and sequencers, to streaming and DJ equipment. Before the pandemic, PC hosted multiple community events a month including manufacturer demos, community discussions, and in-depth clinics but has since moved these events to live stream on their Youtube Channel. You can still …

Read More

Should I Buy It? – DS Thorn Synthesizer Review

Should I Buy It? – DS Thorn Synthesizer Review DS Thorn is a Spectral synthesizer plugin designed by Dmitry Sches (hence the DS before Thorn). Yeuda goes over the synthesizer and boy it seems amazing, we think you’ll be excited too. Watch the video review below, and read the walkthrough below that.   su_youtube_advanced url=”https://youtu.be/-TfpD6BZD4M” width=”400″ height=”200″ rel=”no” modestbranding=”yes”   su_box title=”Rating: 8.5/10″ style=”glass” box_color=”#333333″ su_row su_column size=”1/2″ Pros: – Enable preset switching with the keyboard is amazing!!! – Spectral Synthesis Oscillator and Harmonic filters are a great way to build complex tones with ease – Although modulation is not visualized the ability to map every single parameter (even voicing and poly mode!) to a modulator makes it extremely flexible. – The easily accessible limiter can make things very loud! – Glitch Sequencer is awesome and fun to use. The Seq presets and the Glitch Sequencer presets really shows it’s …

Read More

Should I Buy It? – Kilohearts Phase Plant Review

Should I Buy It? – Kilohearts Phase Plant Review In this edition of ‘Should I Buy It?’ Yeuda takes on the behemoth plugin Phase Plant made by Kilohearts. Phase Plant is a modular synth that includes a huge variety of sound generators, effects, and modulation flexibility. It’s almost too much to describe with words, which is why we made a video covering it. Watch below, and read the breakdown below that.   su_youtube_advanced url=”https://youtu.be/xJeJ2-3KqbQ” width=”400″ height=”200″ rel=”no” modestbranding=”yes”   su_box title=”Rating: 9.5/10″ style=”glass” box_color=”#333333″ su_row su_column size=”1/2″ Pros: – limitless sound generation* – limitless effects processing* *limitations based on your CPU strength – extremely lean and efficient CPU load – all the presets are incredible – subscription available to receive constant flow of updates and additional modules, plus you recieve annual $100 returns   /su_column su_column size=”1/2″ Cons: – the clear button has no warning box when clicked* *there are …

Read More

Top 12 Free Synths Every Producer Should Know

Top 12 Free Synths Every Producer Should Know With the endless new software and hardware synths out it’s hard to keep some money in our pocket. So we figured we’ll make a list of all the free synths every producer should check out. You can make entire albums with great-sounding synths just with this list alone. There are many more free synths out there that are exclusive to windows or Mac machines but we only included the multi-platform (Windows, Mac and some supporting Linux for all you nerds out there) beasts so everyone can download today and start making some awesome sounds for free! If you find yourself using these synths a lot please consider donating to the developer who put hours on top of hours of writing code, designing and developing. su_youtube_advanced url=”https://youtu.be/ff4JDGjxAmI” width=”400″ height=”200″ rel=”no” modestbranding=”yes” divider style=”clear” Surge   Surge is an open-source synth developed by Kurasu …

Read More

LABS – Instrument Update

The last time we wrote about Spitfire Audio’s Let’s All Be Something (LABS) free instrument series we covered their Electric Piano. Well, it’s been a few months and they’ve been churning out instruments since then. In this article, we’ll cover the latest in a series of instruments from the plugin maker. Charango The first instrument to come after the LABS Electric Piano was Charango. The Charango is a stringed instrument similar to a guitar, but native to the Andean culture. It is in the lute family of stringed instruments. It has ten strings that come arranged in five groups of two. This charango — an Andean guitar-like instrument — was recorded back in 2006 by Christian Henson on a KM184 mic in his Soho flat, played by his brother Joe. This was the instrument that inspired Christian and Paul to create Spitfire Audio. It plays quite smoothly for a stringed instrument which can always be tricky …

Read More
top

© 2023 Beat Lab Academy