[audioauxiliary]

#demos//more.Helix.teasers

I’ve finished more presets for my ‘Dance Motion’ bank for Helix, and I’ve put together a small set of ten (10) sound examples. These example sounds don’t have any external FX, so the sound you hear is entirely Helix. The sound you can get from this thing is just ridiculous. Not ridiculous bad, but ridiculous good. I should say it’s ridiculously dope. Is that hip enough for you?

#demos//NUSofting.collaboration

Time for another round of demo sounds. This time it’s for a new project I’ve been working on with NUSofting, makers of a wide variety of very high quality VST/VSTi plug-ins. It’s a brand new concept, stemmed from the fact that Ableton’s Live Pack format is closed to Ableton ‘partners’ only. The project ended up much more than a live pack though. Here’s an excerpt from the quickstart guide:

NUSofting Live Packs are collections of external sounds and presets for the native Ableton devices that are intended to provide key elements of sound, structure and function. These elements can be combined, deconstructed or edited in unlimited ways allowing for instant inspiration and creativity. Taking advantage of the many Live features, various techniques are used in the creation of these sets so that users may become familiar with them. Whether they be common knowledge tricks or little known secrets, these techniques can be essential to an efficient Ableton workflow.

The main idea behind ‘compositional workspaces’ is simple: give users an easy way to break free from a creative dry spell and improve their Ableton workflow at the same time. Just drop the included project folder into your current Ableton projects and open the workspaces whenever you need a quick idea. The included content (clips, chains, etc) can be easily saved to the Ableton Library by drag and drop for use in other projects.

I’ll leave you with a demo track I put together (out of 4) using only the included workspaces and the clips provided. The project should be released shortly, and I’ll have more info when the time comes.

#news//IK.against.freeware

Here we go with another episode of audio developer drama theatre, this time starring IK Multimedia. IK have issued a rebuttal to a MusicRadar article on the benefits of freeware, which I found through an article on CDM. The original article was a great list of reasons that you should use freeware, but good ol’ IK decided to reply to the article as if they were telling people to STOP BUYING IK’s PLUG-INS. Listen IK - can I call you IK? Good. Listen, I’m not a customer of yours, but it would seem to me that by rebutting a perfectly general list of reasons to use freeware, it just makes you look really bad. Here’s my list to you about why you should have probably just kept the trap shut -

TOP FIVE REASONS WHY IK SHOULD HAVE THOUGHT BEFORE SPEAKING

1. IK Multimedia are regarded as a large, high quality plug-in development company. They’ve now made themselves look ridiculous by telling people “Hey, freeware isn’t the way to go - buy our stuff” which also happens to be priced on the fairly high side. This was a not-so-smart move. Maybe if they had waited to post something seperate [and written much differently] further down the line, it wouldn’t look so much like a ‘bash the freeware scene’ rebuttal. Too late. Also, they claim that not all plug-in developers are huge corporations, but small groups of people. So what? What’s your point IK?

2. IK make a point in the rebuttal that commercial developers have the overhead and responsibility to pay wages, marketing and such but that freeware developers typically have day jobs and/or live with parents. Are you serious? This is a reason to use payware and not freeware? Ludicrious. Why would you even make that statement? This reason alone is a great reason for IK just to have thought a little bit before speaking.

More »

#off.topic//new.spam.style

Has anyone seen this style of spam before? I hadn’t until today. I typically wouldn’t even look at spam, but it was the first e-mail in my box and I couldn’t really avoid seeing it. Take a look at how they’ve hidden the message. It looks like just text written up and down, right? At first glance, sure it does. At second glance, and a bit of highlight work, you can see that they’ve hidden words that are attached to each colored letter:

Sneaky spammers, always trying to ruin everyones web experience. Well, just thought to give a heads up to anyone who happens to read this.

#news//renoise.V2.beta

Renoise 2.0 Beta 1 music sequencing software now available.

I was going to just drop in the PR but it’s really long and since they already have it all right on their page, you can just go to the renoise website and check it out for yourself. I’ve always been intrigued by Renoise, but I’ve just always been a bit too busy to try it. Also, I typically don’t make a whole lot of my own music. But now that I’m actually thinking of starting a new personal music project, I may just have to test it out. I mean come on, look at all the cool stuff they jammed into V2 (along with the stuff it already had). It looks like it would be the perfect companion to Ableton, which I just won’t ever give up.