The return of Plex
Those of you who love classic synths as much as I do probably know the name of Wolfgang Palm, the genius behind the revolutionary PPG synths, and later Waldorf. However very few people seem to know of the unique software instrument he designed a few years ago called Plex. It’s been one of my favourite virtual instruments for years, allowing the creation of wonderfully organic yet unique sounds via a drag & drop palette.
Unfortunately the commercial version was discontinued some time ago, but I just found out that he’s now brought it back as a free download! Unfortunately for MacOS users it’s Windows only, but if you are a Windows user it’s definitely worth getting. Grab it at http://plex.hermannseib.com/
Andy Gill
Y’know, even after 25 years in the professional music business, and many tours and records with great musicians etc. I still got a huge thrill when Andy Gill called me on the phone this morning.
Andy Gill…! Andy Gill!
Probably my favourite guitarist of all time. Funny thing was, I even playing Gang of Four’s I Party All the Time when he called.
Made with Studio One
How did I miss the Made with Studio One group on Soundcloud until now? Standout tracks so far are Drachmae’s Handiworks and Luis Toniolo’s Second Thoughts. Nice work guys.
I’m currently listening through an Audiobox 44 VSL and a pair of Event Opal monitors that I’ve borrowed courtesy of the lovely people at Hyperactive in Germany. I am very hard to please when it comes to monitors, but I have to say, I really, really love these speakers. I don’t think I’ve ever heard monitors that are so clear and so powerful right across the frequency range. Quite remarkable. They aren’t cheap, and I already have some very nice monitors, but…
Guitar cab IRs!
Yes, it’s Impulse Response day here at Orpheus HQ, and now some for you guitarists out there. One of the very cool things about the new Ampire XT plugin (which has rapidly become my favourite guitar sound plugin bar none) is that not only do you get a choice of several very nice cabinet models with Studio One, you can even load your own custom cabinets! And you can have up to three different IRs with varying mic positions on every preset.
So here are some nice cabinet IRs you can download for free – to use them open Ampire XT in Studio One 2.0 and in the cab drop down menu on the top right select User Cabinet. Then just drag and drop the Impulse Responses on to one of the three IR slots. Most of the IRs listed here have been recorded with several different mic positions, so I recommend loading three different IRs of the cabinet you want, then you can use the Edit Mic function in Ampire to mix and match between them to get the exact sound you need.
I haven’t tested all of these yet, but the ones I’ve tried so far have been great:
- Guitar Hacks (Powertube/Fredman)
- God’s Cab (Mesa – lots of different mics used, be sure to read the great manual that comes with it)
- Redwirez (Marshall 1960A • Celestion G12M25s)
- Recabinet Demo (1960/Blackface/Tangerine/Top Boost)
More reverb impulses…
And if the list on Echochamber still isn’t enough, here are some of my other favourite free reverb IRs. Just drag and drop on to OpenAir to use them:
- http://www.voxengo.com/impulses
(made in the great Voxengo IR creator program) - http://www.acoustics.hut.fi/projects/poririrs/
(very nice classical music hall) - http://fokkie.home.xs4all.nl/IR.htm
(some weird and wonderful IRs by Fokke van Saane, have to be heard to be believed) - http://irlibrary.org/index.php
(big collection of freeware IRs, with a nice preview function)
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