Record your own music free - great website

Now you can record your own music free with an interesting website – looplabs.com. On that website you can record your own vocals and instruments, use loops and other stuff. All that is online and for free.

You can find on website three different programs – The Music Studio, Dubstep Studio and Electro-House Blender. Each of that program designed for different purposes. The Music Studio is for general purpose and two others for Dubstep and Electro-House. Of course that online free editor is not a competition for modern DAW’s but as an online and free tool it is very great and useful. Record your own music free and share it.

Garageband VST and AU compatibility problems

Garageband uses only Audio Units. That’s a problem when you have a great VST’s that doesn’t have a versions of AU. But FXpansion solved that problem and now we have possibility to use in Garageband VST. Of course that program working only with VST’s for MAC OS X. That program is called VST-AU Adapter.

Features:
- Supported VST instruments and effects
- Using less than 0.05 % of processor per plugin
- Activation through serial key

VST to AU Adapter also was updated to version 2.0 with some improvements like stability and performance. Now its supports over 1,000 VST plugins.

Vocal scales warm up

I already wrote about performance and its place in music, so its time for some technique tips in performing. Let’s talk about vocal scales warm up. It’s really important thing for singers, because our vocal muscles working like other muscles on body. So we need to relax those muscles and prepare them for performing.

Here’s my favorite exercises:

- Humming. Close mouth and make sound “M” on the scale. You can start on the middle “C” an go up or down of scale. Here’s the video example:



- Lip rolls. With closed mouth you need to move your lips, so they create a interesting sound, something like motor on a boat. Example shown by Rock The Stage NYC:


- Vocal vowels. There can be so many variations of vowels, so I recommend to start with “A”, “O” or “Ma”, “Ga”. Just move up or down a scale with that vowels but only in comfort areas for you. Don’t go too high or too low, because you can damage your vocal cords. Here’s example for a different kinds of vowels, Hayley from Paramore with vocal teacher Brett Manning:

Free virtual synth KORE 2 PLAYER

Looking for a great free virtual synth? Then you should pay attention to a free plugin KORE 2 PLAYER from Native Instruments. In search of a free virtual synth I have found link where is offered to download this plugin for free.

Features:
- Around 400 mb sound library, with 150 free instruments
- VST/RTAS and stand-alone application
- Kore-sound browser
- Tweak panel
- Christmas holiday expansion with 45 instruments

For free download, go to the:
http://www.native-instruments.com/#/en/products/producer/kore-player/

VST PoiZone – Poisoning Sound

Just installed VST PoiZone and I have been surprised to its quality of a sound. Only nearby 10 Mb, this subtractive synthesizer gives excellent quality, thus possessing weight of options. VST PoiZone from ImageLine really poisoning with its sound.

Features:
- Ring and sync modulation
- Two oscillators with variety of shapes
- Filter modes
- Arpeggiator
- Time-based effects
- LFO and Mod wheels

For more information look at: http://www.image-line.com/documents/poizone.html

Toontrack Monster MIDI Pack – Easy Drum Patterns

For acceleration in creating drums track it is possible to apply already ready sets of drum patterns. For solving this problem you can use Toontrack Monster – MIDI Pack with numerous variants of loops.

In complete set Toontrack Monster have various sizes like 4/4, 6/8, 3/4, 5/6 and others. There is a variety of patterns on song structure – intro, fill, hats&symbals beats. MIDI Patterns can be applied to a standard set of drums - EZ Drummer, Superior Drummer and GM.

They already have 4 MIDI Packs. More info on: http://www.toontrack.com/products.asp?item=47

Free guitar VST’s from Nick Crow and LePou

 In some of the previous posts I told about using VST effects and recording electric guitar. In this post I will tell you how to apply free guitar VST’s from Nick Crow and LePou in Cubase.

On-default a folder for storage VST plugins is: Program Files/Steinberg/VST Plugins/. You can always change this directory.

Now about plugins. For guitar amplifiers it is possible to use such free guitar vst’s:
1) Nick Crow - 8505, 7170, Wagner Mk2 Sharp
2) LePou – Le456, LeGion, LeXTAC

Plugins of guitar cabinets:
- Voxengo Boogex
- Poulin LeCab

How to use effects I described in the post – How to use VST effects in Cubase. Put one of amplifiers and then one guitar cabinet – and you’ll receive a good guitar sound.
For free plugins look here:
http://lepouplugins.blogspot.com/
http://sites.google.com/site/nickcrowlab/

Pianoteq 3 – Review

Recently has tried Pianoteq 3 from Modartt and has been pleasantly surprised by quality of a product. The acoustic model of the piano sounds very realistic and naturally. Developers closely cooperated with musicians, and they got excellent result.

Features:
- Possibility to use up to 5 microphones
- Many adjustments of a sound
- New instruments and pianos
- Adjustment of parametres

I tried Trial version Pianoteq 3 Standard which works only 20 minutes, but that was enough to understand good quality of product. Any interested person can download it from an official site – http://www.pianoteq.com. They also have version Pro where there is a possibility of changing sound parametres of each note.

SONiVOX released Reggaeton Instrumento Virtual

Reggaeton Instrumento Virtual is hip-hop instrument that features over 300 instruments and 7 GB’s of good quality samples. It has built-in effects and equalizers, MIDI-learn functions, 16 assignable PADs. Avalaible for PC and MAC, plugin costs 149,00 $. More info here:
http://www.sonivoxmi.com/ProductDetail.asp?Item=CDReggaeton&mnu=LayVirtualInstruments

Metal Amp Room from Softube – Review

This product from Softube was released long time ago, but only recently I was possible to try this plugin. According to developers, their goal was to reach an aggressive and brutal sound of guitars.

Interface

Appearance is extremely simple. A room with 2 cabinets and 2 microphones on each section. Adjustment positions of microphones, gate control and equalizers. In new version Metal Amp Room 1.1 you can turn off cabinet or amplifier, and use other plugins for creating unique sound.

Sound

The sound enough dry and gain is quite adequately regulated. Noise gate also works tolerably. Adjustment of microphones changes a sound strongly enough. And certainly on quality it is similar to natural lamp sounding.

I record a track with preset Scoop1 for rhytm-guitars, and TM_Dagoba1 for solo guitar:
 

I think that for guitarists which playing heavy styles, this VST plugin will help to receive the necessary sound without much efforts.