Wheel Method – A Different Way to Visualize Rhythm from John Varney
Wheel Method – A Different Way to Visualize Rhythm from John Varney How many of you have ever practiced your rhythm before? Drummers may be nodding but if you aren’t a drummer then you most likely haven’t practiced rhythm or looked at a rhythm sheet with the notation on bar lines. Typical rhythm notation doesn’t stray far from the classical method of notes on staff lines, there are pros and cons to this method. Pros include generalization from sight reading musical notation and familiarity but the format doesn’t often account for polyrhythms in a meaningful or clear way. This can be frustrating. The ‘Wheel Method’ described by John Varney in a recent TEDEd video attempts to mediate that issue with a layered visual approach to rhythm notation. The Wheel Method involves using concentric circles to represent multiple instruments and their respective timing. Like a clock, imagine a hand or needle spinning …
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Momentum – FREE Sample Pack from Audiomodern
Momentum – FREE Sample Pack from Audiomodern We’re continuing from our last post the trend of free stuff so today we’re letting you about ‘Momentum’ a free sample pack from Audiomodern. Momentum contains free downloadable audio files in WAV format ranging from ambient sounds to drone textures to pads; 30 royalty-free sounds are available in high-quality 24-bit WAV format. The majority of the samples run about a minute in length giving you a lot to chop up or simply use unchanged as background textures. Subtle automation has been included in each sample to keep the timbre changing over the runtime of each thus keeping the sounds fresh. With some fine-tuning and shaping, you could map the samples to a sampler and use them melodically to attain some pretty lush sounds. The pack isn’t designed as a preset pack so you’ll have to make your own instruments from the sounds but …
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MSpectralDelay FREE Until June 3rd
MSpectralDelay FREE Until June 3rd MeldaProduction is currently offering FREE download of their new plugin MSpectralDelay which is a unique creative delay plugin. It “works in the spectral domain and lets you perform various transformations on the delayed signal – from changing pitch to arbitrarily transforming individual frequencies. It’s complex, but it is still easy-to-use for the beginners.” MeldaProduction is known for their unique bundles of plugins that are highly complex but easy to use! Here’s the description from the Melda website: MSpectralDelay is extremely powerful, therefore also complex. So we have exploited its features and created 20 active presets on the easy screen, each as versatile as a dedicated plugin. These make using the plugin easy even for complete beginners. Traditional delay plugins feature a simple feedback delay, which produces identical copies of the original signal, sometimes with a possibility of filtering, distortion or other basic effects. MSpectralDelay lets you transform individual frequencies. …
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DRC Synth – Plugin Review and Interview with Imaginado
DRC Synth – Plugin Review and Interview with Imaginado Today we are sharing with you a short review of the softsynth DRC by company Imaginado (whom we recently posted about their free DLYM plugin). This synth just passed its second anniversary of being released so we thought it to be a fine time to do a review and talk to some of the developers of the plugin. DRC is a lovely synthesizer all around and it is one of the more heavily equipped plugins we have seen in terms of modulation capability. In the upper left, you’ll find two oscillators, a suboscillator, a modulation matrix for them and a performance matrix. The first oscillator has an octave transposition knob, pulse width control, and a dedicated pulse-width modulation LFO. The second oscillator doesn’t have the pulse-width control but it makes up for with a semitone transposition option. In …
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Beat Lab Artist Series Recap: Katherine Redlus
Beat Lab Artist Series Recap: Katherine Redlus This past weekend we had an another Artist Series workshop brought to you by Beat Lab Academy, featuring professional Harpist Katherine Redlus. Katherine went through the presentation by giving a bit of history leading up to today. She fell into Harp like many young musicians do with their respective instruments, an authority figure or guardian urges you into the practice. In Katherine’s case, it was her grandmother who wished to have a Harp player in the family so Katherine was granted that fate. Fast forward to high school, Katherine had persisted with the instrument and was quickly outpacing her peers. By the time Katherine headed off to undergrad university she had performed and mastered nearly every classical piece of music written for a Harp; that’s why she sought new frontiers to explore in college. Ableton Live gave her the new sense of direction …
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ElliptiQ – Elliptic Equalizer by HoRNet
ElliptiQ – Elliptic Equalizer by HoRNet This week we have a very special type of equalizer, an elliptic equalizer. This type of processing tool has its roots based in the history of vinyl cutting. Cutting vinyl made for stereo recordings will inherently produce a sound meant for two channels, left and right. If lower frequencies like bass or kick happen to be out of phase then this can cause cancellation problems and decrease the quality of the recording. An elliptic equalizer works on the stereo field of low frequencies to avoid phase issues. Allow the developer to elaborate, “A tool like this is needed because if the bass frequencies goes in anti-phase or the difference between left and right channel are too wide the needle may jump outside the groove in the final vinyl master, so an elliptic eq works on the difference of the two channels removing part of …
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