Mornats

Quick question about Vocaloids. Do you need to buy the editor as well as the voice pack (Avianna for example) or can you just buy the voice pack and use that? The Vocaloid and Zero-G websites are a little vague about it. Not that I should be spending any more money on virtual instruments though! Failing that, any recommendations on vocoders that I can use in Reaper? The cheaper/free-er the better!

Just grabbed that. Love the sound of it. It's quite unique isn't it? It'll stand out nicely in a mix. I also went for Scary Strings, Hensons Frozen Strings and ThunderVox from the Spitfire Audio lab range. They give the money to charity so worth a punt without hearing them first.

This stood out for me with the £2 patches from Spitfire: http://www.spitfireaudio.com/editorial/features/labs-2015/ - really nice touch.

Since getting my NI Komplete Kontrol I've been having major GAS for VSTs. In my hunt I've found a couple of sites that pretty good for these. http://vstbuzz.com/ - they have a weekly offer on one or two VSTs which is pretty good. Typically 50-90% off. They also have a bunch of cheap VSTs (I'm looking at Votox XS for €9.99) - http://vstbuzz.com/store/ and some really nice freebies here: http://vstbuzz.com/freebies/. Feroyn's Flute is what I used at the end of last month's comp challenge entry: https://soundcloud.com/mornats/drops http://www.sampleism.com/ - they have some nice looking deals too but I've yet to check out the quality of what they offer on there. Worth a look though. As stated in the title, most if not all of these will require the full version of Kontakt and won't work in the free Kontakt player. They have to pay a licence fee to use the free player so most of the cheap ones don't do that.

Anyone wanna swap a Yammy TRBX for a wi... er, let's not go there!

Sorry to hear that Douglas.

I've got a track almost finished but... I started it in Jan so it doesn't qualify. Also it in no way whatsoever matches the image. Back to the midi keyboard then!

I'm wondering how far away Komplete 11 is. There's a chance they'll do half price upgrades to 10 before it hits. Worth thinking about if you fancied getting the keyboard and doing the crossgrade later. £289 for the crossgrade now so if they do it half price that's £144. Could be worth checking what they did with the crossgrade to 9 when 10 was released.

I'll give you a run down of my thoughts on each of the instruments: [b]Massive[/b] I originally wanted Komplete 10 for Absynth as I love the dreamy atmospheric textures it produces. However Massive has very quickly become my favourite synth. It's massively versatile and can do thumping evolving beats, low down pads rhythms, deep bass, leads, sound effects etc. etc. and so much more. I even bought some cinematic presets for it from ADSR Sounds. I'm going to go through some tutorials on how to make your own sounds as I can see it in a lot of music I do. Komplete Select is worth it just for this (even though it comes free with the keyboard). If I hadn't have gone for the crossgrade this would have made me very happy with just going for the keyboard only. [b]Reaktor Prism[/b] Tinkly bell noises are what I tend to grab from this. It can a lot of those nice atmospheric soundscapes that I liked from Absynth. High-range chimey sounds come naturally from it. Between this and Massive you can get a helluva lot of synth sounds covering most ranges other than retro and "normal" synths. Which brings me on to... [b]Monark[/b] This is a really sounding "typical" synth. The type your hear pounding in your ears at 3am when you just had to go into that club to continue drinking. [b]Retro Machines MK2[/b] 70s and 80s sampled synths. I've not ventured into these parts yet but they sound authentic. [b]The Gentleman[/b] A lovely grand piano. The piano on "Drops" was it's brother - The Maverick. Being from the same family, anything you liked about The Maverick is in The Gentleman but more refined I'd say, like a true gentleman. [b]Drumlab[/b] Fairly typical electronic drum machine. If I wasn't so hooked on EZDrummer I'd be using it from electronic beats but EZDrummer is just so EZ for me that I tend not to stray from it. [b]Vintage Organs[/b] Get your funk on. I used this on this track: https://soundcloud.com/mornats/adventure (kicks in around half way through). [b]West Africa[/b] Really nice west African percussion. You can play a range of instruments as single shots or it comes with a range of grooves too. Any African-sounding percussion you hear on my recent tracks comes from here. [b]Scarbee Mark 1[/b] Electric piano. I've not used this much but it does sound as authentic as an electric piano can sound. [b]Solid Bus Comp[/b] Shove it on your mix bus, select the "mix bus" preset and everything just sounds right together. It's so damn nice. I find that I'm only using this or Supercharger on my tracks now. If I didn't get the crossgrade to Komplete 10 I'd miss the following the most: [b]Rounds[/b] This is the synth that comes in on "Drops" at around 52 seconds in. I love the whole concept of this synth and I can see myself using it a lot. [b]Kontakt[/b] The included sounds are amazing. The orchestral section sounds better than Miroslav Philharmonik in my opinion. You have a range of expressions that you can play the instruments in. Parts of the keyboard light up showing you which keys select which playing style and another set of keys will swap it over mid note. Also the range of third-party instruments it opens up is immense. [b]Session Strings and Session Horns[/b] I owned Session Strings already. You can hear Session Horns on "Adventure!" - that's using the included loops which come in a range of styles and articulations. The animator on Session Strings is just awesome. I've got an up-coming track that features them a lot. [b]The Giant[/b] This comes in two modes. The "normal" (not that this can be called a normal piano) mode and a cinematic mode. I used the cinematic mode in that up-coming track I just mentioned. Very versatile as a sound FX machine. [b]Supercharger[/b] I owned this already but this is my go-to saturation compressor. Beautiful on vocals. If NI would have let me use a voucher on an upgrade I'd have upgraded to the GT version by now. Might still do it at £44. [b]Guitar Rig 5 Pro and Rammfire[/b] I owned these two already. My go-to amp sim, mostly for guitar as the bass amps and cabs strike me as a "we need a guitarist who can play bass" effort. Ampeg SVX is better sounding for bass. The Rammfire plugin is my default set of presets. About halfway through this one: https://soundcloud.com/mornats/burst (in the quiet bit) the guitars start creeping in. Actually, that's Session Strings and its animator on those strings in that one. You can see with the amount of NI instruments that I owned already that it made sense for me to jump to Komplete 10 before I ended up spending the same amount of money anyway. I don't think I paid full price for any of the instruments I already owned though. Guitar Rig 5 Pro was a half-price upgrade from Guitar Rig Session that I got with an audio interface, Session Strings was half price, as was Rammfire and Supercharger was free one Christmas. I've not mentioned a lot of the other instruments from Komplete 10 but that's not to say they're not good. [list] [*]Kontour is really nice so far but I haven't explored it fully as I get a lot out of the other synths. [*]Reaktor 5 is a favourite of many but man, it's hugely complicated (and therefore versatile) and I find it a little bewildering sometimes. [*]Polyplex has a lot of potential as a great drum sampler and I'm going to plug in my Korg Nano 2 soon and have a literal bash with it. [*]Same with Battery. That's some serious drum-sound-making going on in that bad boy. [*]FM8 - dude, the 80s are over. [*]Reaktor Spark - similar to Reaktor Prism I think? I get them mixed up quite a bit. Still sounds great. [*]Absynth. Lovely soundscape textures. If I can peel myself away from Massive I'll get deep into this someday. [*]The Gentleman and The Grandeur are both as lovely as The Maverick. A really nice trio of pianos. Trianos if you will. [*]Studio Drummer/Abbey Road Drummer. These actually sound great. If only I could drop in the midi from EZDrummer I'd find a lot of use for these. [*]Scarbee MM-bass. This is the wrong forum for recommending a VI bass [*]The other 2 Scarbee pianos/clavinet things. Not finding a lot of use for these yet. [*]Driver - had this as a freebee already but it's really good. I reckon it can distort my voice enough for me to record it and stand hearing myself sing/talk. [*]Solid Dynamics and Solid EQ - I tend to use other dynamics and EQ plugins so not had to chance to fit these in yet. However if they're as good as Solid Bus Comp they're worth it. [*]Transient Master - not used it yet but sounds useful. [*]Reflektor - I loved Little Reflektor in Guitar Rig and this is the real deal. Bounce that sound off any virtual wall you like. [*]Tractor's 12 - interesting bunch of effects. Haven't had a chance to have some fun with these yet. [*]The Finger. Looks good in theory. Buggered if I can work out how to get it to do anything yet. I need to YouTube some tutorials. [/list] I didn't intend to write such an essay! Hope you find it helpful. Also, since I got this I also bought Heavyocity's Vocalise (that up-coming track I keep mentioning makes heavy use of that) and I did quite naughtily splash out on Evolve Mutations 2 as well. Which I like and plan to get the first one too. I know they're cheaper in the bundle but these are the only two things (that I fancy) that I can spend my two £22 vouchers on so it's worth getting them individually as I technically won't lose out on the bundle discount I reckon. I should stop spending money on virtual instruments too, I seem to have enough now

I know what you mean. It took me months to decide to get my S61 and Komplete bundle. It's quite an outlay!

I had a play on the Roli 25 for about 5 mins just before Christmas. So, whilst hardly qualified to say for sure I did get the impression that I'd be better off with a standard style keyboard for the versatility it would offer. However, I can totally understand lowdown when he says it would work well with strings and orchestral music. I did notice that the feel of the Roli 25 rubber was quite different to the Roli 88 (or whatever the full size one is called). Not to burn a hole in your pocket too much but did you see they're bringing out a Roli 49? RRP around a grand I think.

Damn, I'm in a dark moody cinematic type style right now and you've gone and posted a nice summer frolicky happy picture! Harumph!

Well done Douglas, congrats! Nice to see a big spread of votes amongst all of the entries. Just goes to show how good they all are.

I've had a listen to them all and have cast my votes. There's some great diversity in there. I really do enjoying listening to them all.

I'm sure people are eyeing up the VX49 as a Komplete S killer. Shame you missed out on the Komplete Kontrol price drop. No doubt they'll put the price down again sometime this year (especially after the competition announced at NAMM shows up).

[quote name='xgsjx' timestamp='1453841713' post='2963395'] Unfortunately the S49 has shot up in price too. Hoping that it comes back down. Which DAW do you use? [/quote] Yeah, looks like it was a deal across all the keyboards with the Komplete bundle. If you get the keyboard by itself you do get Komplete Select - http://www.native-instruments.com/en/products/komplete/keyboards/komplete-kontrol-s-series/software-details/. A nice range of instruments with Massive being the shining star. I'm using Reaper as my DAW.

I did however just buy this: http://www.heavyocity.com/product/vocalise/ I stumbled across it whilst researching Evolve Mutations. I always lack a vocal element in my tracks and this sounds lovely. Check out the run-through below (that's not me by the way). I'll let you know how I get on and I'm sure you'll hear something in next month's composition challenge! http://www.twitch.tv/hybridtwo/v/19598776

[quote name='xgsjx' timestamp='1453750903' post='2962473'] Cheers Unfortunately the S61 has shot up in price, so I'm considering the S49. Going back to keys & wondering if 4 octaves is enough. [/quote] I was happy with 4 octaves on my old midi keyboard but I thought that if I'm going for a premium keyboard it was worth the extra £50 for the 61 keys. If the price difference was £80-100 I wouldn't have even considered it. I'm not sure if I actually use the extra octave at the moment though. [quote name='lowdown' timestamp='1453751210' post='2962478'] Yep, tis a good plan. That's what I did a couple of years ago on the NI 50% off sale. [/quote] Which got me thinking... I've got such a huge amount of new sounds right now that I think I'll wait for a sale.

That's nice and cheap and sounds good! I may have most of those percussion elements amongst my Kontakt instruments and Miroslav Philharmonik so I think I'll go for one of the Evolve Mutations Packs. One review that I read broadly summed them up as Evolve Mutations being more diverse and Evolve Mutations 2 being darker and moodier. As I tend to favour the darker and moodier aspect of this type of sound I was going to go for EM 2. However!! Today is payday - the first from my new job and I totally forgot that they're paying me for Jan and also half of December so I may go for the bundle and grab both. If you're gonna do something, do it properly I say Do you reckon that's a good plan?

Wow, thanks for the fantastic write-up Douglas! That put a huge smile on my face I'll be going over all of the tracks tonight or tomorrow and will cast my votes then I'll come back to read your other write-ups. I want to hear the other tracks fresh before reading your thoughts on them. Based on others' comments it seems the standard has risen yet again. This is what I love about this challenge, it pushes people to do just that bit better each time. I first got into recording when a mate of mine told me that it's a great way to learn how to play and compose bass lines and that's so true. He also said if what you record is rubbish then you're the only person who has to ever hear it. That's also so true So to anyone thinking of having a crack next month, just do it. Don't think about it, just go ahead!

Thanks for the links lowdown. I'll give Evolve Mutations 2 some more consideration then. Having played around with Massive a bit more this afternoon I can see how much scope there is beyond presets. Can you do a lot of tweaking in Evolve Mutations? Stylus RMX is a tab pricey seeing as I've just splashed out on the keyboard and Komplete. I've got EZDrummer 2 so maybe, just maybe they'll bring out a cinematic percussion EZX for that.

I've copied my post from January's composition challenge page as I talked a bit about how I used the Komplete Kontrol and Komplete 10 to create the track. [color=#282828][font=helvetica, arial, sans-serif]Here's my finished track:[/font][/color] [url="https://soundcloud.com/mornats/drops"]https://soundcloud.com/mornats/drops[/url] [color=#282828][font=helvetica, arial, sans-serif]I had intended to use the Lightguide feature on the S61 to help with the piano parts but I ended up learning the arpeggios for the chords myself so never needed the help. But as I had the Lightguide as a safety net I was more willing to give it a go. I must say that the action of the keys on the keyboard helped a lot with the piano. Also, playing piano is much harder than I had imagined. I had trouble getting the timing right along with the correct pressure on the keys. I was able to adjust the sensitivity of the keys in the software which helped a lot.[/font][/color] [color=#282828][font=helvetica, arial, sans-serif]I'd originally intended for the track to morph into a bit of an industrial track (you can hear it with the synth that comes in near the end) and use my new telecaster for some guitar work but the piano bit took much longer than I expected and I would have missed the deadline. So you just have the same 4 chord sequence for now [/font][/color] [color=#282828][font=helvetica, arial, sans-serif]I was also going to introduce the industrial part with some cinematic percussion effects but as complete as Komplete is (I don't have Ultimate) it doesn't come with any - or at least any that I could find. It's such a huge collection I'm not even scratching the surface of it yet. I'm looking at Evolve Mutations though (can't justify spending too much more on virtual instruments!)[/font][/color] [color=#282828][font=helvetica, arial, sans-serif]So in terms of how the keyboard helped (as xgsjx is interested):[/font][/color][list] [*]The key action is way better than my M-audio KeyRig 49 [*]The transport controls let me stay at the S61 all the time whilst doing takes [*]The integration with Komplete is second-to-none. I could browse patches across instruments right from the S61. [*]I can tweak parameters in my virtual instruments right from the S61 too. [*]I'm no longer jumping between midi keyboard and computer keyboard/mouse. (I've already mentioned this but it made a huge difference to me.) [*]I could control the sensitivity of the velocity of the keys to help with my ham-fisted piano playing. [*]The whole thing is just so darn nice that it was a pleasure to use throughout. [/list] [color=#282828][font=helvetica, arial, sans-serif]I also have to mention just how much I love Rounds (check it out: [/font][/color][url="http://www.native-instruments.com/en/products/komplete/synths/rounds/"]http://www.native-in.../synths/rounds/[/url][color=#282828][font=helvetica, arial, sans-serif]). It's the first synth that kicks in 52 seconds into the track. At the moment I'm just selecting presets and maybe tweaking them slightly so lots to learn and play with once I figure out how synths work![/font][/color] [color=#282828][font=helvetica, arial, sans-serif]The full list of instruments, software and hardware used is in the track description. It almost didn't include a real bass line but I thought back to Bohemian Rhapsody and how John Deacon's brilliantly fitting bass gave Freddie's piano a real lift. (I shouldn't really mention that song or those two musicians in the same post as my track as they are absolutely worlds apart.)[/font][/color] [color=#282828][font=helvetica, arial, sans-serif]Much fun was had [/font][/color] [color=#282828][font=helvetica, arial, sans-serif]I mentioned above that I was interested in grabbing some cinematic sounds. I was almost ready to pull the trigger on Evolve Mutations 2 (£89 but I have a £22.50 voucher from buying Komplete 10) but in the end I decided against it. I've got Miroslav Philharmonik which can provide a lot of cinematic/orchestral percussion and I've found that Massive is amazingly versatile. I followed a tutorial on how to create a dark cinematic soundscape ([/font][/color]http://www.adsrsounds.com/ni-massive-tutorials/making-dark-cinematic-soundscape/) and discovered that with a few tweaks I could really make it my own. I then grabbed a free sample of Massive patches from ADSR - this one in particular http://www.adsrsounds.com/product/freebies/thou-serpent-continuum-free-massive-presets/ and found that it can do a huge range of sounds that are suitable, including some rhythmic percussion. So I bought that instead (£20.90 including the 20% discount I got for grabbing the freebies and signing up to their newsletter). I'm going to follow some tutorials too as I reckon I can make the sounds I want and really learn the synth. The Giant piano has a fantastic cinematic series of patches that sound nothing like a piano but are an amazing range of very usable sounds. Also, having ran through some great run-throughs of the sounds in Evolve Mutations (from here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LmWhDPmyMso) I felt that they sounded very samey. You here these all the time in movies and TV shows and they lack originality when used straight out of the box.

I've got a 2015 MIM Fender Precision (lovely bass) that I'm thinking about upgrading with Fender Vintage P bass pickups. These are the ones I'm looking at: http://www.thomann.de/gb/fender_vintage_pbass_pickup.htm Has anyone done the same upgrade and can comment on how much of an improvement they are? The sound of my P bass is lacking something that I can't quite put my finger on. I use Entwistle neodymium JBXN pickups in my Squier jazz and that has some serious growl on it. I though about the PBXN pickups for the P bass but I wanted a classic vintage sound rather than a P bas on steroids sound. Any thoughts? Open to other recommendations too actually. (Is that a can of worms I hear opening? )

Here's my finished track: https://soundcloud.com/mornats/drops I had intended to use the Lightguide feature on the S61 to help with the piano parts but I ended up learning the arpeggios for the chords myself so never needed the help. But as I had the Lightguide as a safety net I was more willing to give it a go. I must say that the action of the keys on the keyboard helped a lot with the piano. Also, playing piano is much harder than I had imagined. I had trouble getting the timing right along with the correct pressure on the keys. I was able to adjust the sensitivity of the keys in the software which helped a lot. I'd originally intended for the track to morph into a bit of an industrial track (you can hear it with the synth that comes in near the end) and use my new telecaster for some guitar work but the piano bit took much longer than I expected and I would have missed the deadline. So you just have the same 4 chord sequence for now I was also going to introduce the industrial part with some cinematic percussion effects but as complete as Komplete is (I don't have Ultimate) it doesn't come with any - or at least any that I could find. It's such a huge collection I'm not even scratching the surface of it yet. I'm looking at Evolve Mutations though (can't justify spending too much more on virtual instruments!) So in terms of how the keyboard helped (as xgsjx is interested):[list] [*]The key action is way better than my M-audio KeyRig 49 [*]The transport controls let me stay at the S61 all the time whilst doing takes [*]The integration with Komplete is second-to-none. I could browse patches across instruments right from the S61. [*]I can tweak parameters in my virtual instruments right from the S61 too. [*]I'm no longer jumping between midi keyboard and computer keyboard/mouse. (I've already mentioned this but it made a huge difference to me.) [*]I could control the sensitivity of the velocity of the keys to help with my ham-fisted piano playing. [*]The whole thing is just so darn nice that it was a pleasure to use throughout. [/list] I also have to mention just how much I love Rounds (check it out: http://www.native-instruments.com/en/products/komplete/synths/rounds/). It's the first synth that kicks in 52 seconds into the track. At the moment I'm just selecting presets and maybe tweaking them slightly so lots to learn and play with once I figure out how synths work! The full list of instruments, software and hardware used is in the track description. It almost didn't include a real bass line but I thought back to Bohemian Rhapsody and how John Deacon's brilliantly fitting bass gave Freddie's piano a real lift. (I shouldn't really mention that song or those two musicians in the same post as my track as they are absolutely worlds apart.) Much fun was had