KVR Audio

sidfrancis · Post by **sidfrancis** » Wed Oct 12, 2011 6:57 pm

Hi there...
I just got Komplete Ultimate for a ridiculously low price since I work in a great music store. I wanted it mainly for the new fx and vintage compressors. But now I sit here with FM8, Absynth, Reactor and thousands of presets...BUT... everything sounds like coming from the other side of the lunatic aylums wall or like electronic bleeps and blurps, or very very traditional.
I know that I have an old fashioned music taste, since I am a bit older (quite a bit) german composer making new age/relaxation music. Does anyone of you know about some good 3rd party sounds of the "sweeter" kind. My main synths are Omnisphere and a bunch of Orchestral/Ethnic libraries and I thought I could stack up my sound arsenal a bit but the factory sounds from what I got (though it is a whoooole bunch) are all too odd or too aggressive. Any clues?
Thanks in advance for your tips.

P.S. Yes I know that amongst those 8567 presets will be some jewels..but I thought I could speed up a bit..

jackmazzotti · Post by **jackmazzotti** » Wed Oct 12, 2011 7:09 pm

you are going to have to program them yourself
i use absynth and reaktor primarily
ni rarely has anything i like out of the box

Yuroun · Post by **Yuroun** » Wed Oct 12, 2011 7:31 pm

I'm also a New Age producer and a sound designer. A while back I made some presets for Kontakt 4

Here you can listen to some of the sounds:
http://soundcloud.com/yuroun/sets/konta ... -soundset/

The presets are available here:
http://www.sampleism.com/yuroun/atmospheric

Yuroun · Post by **Yuroun** » Wed Oct 12, 2011 7:32 pm

Oh, you have it allready.

glokraw · Post by **glokraw** » Wed Oct 12, 2011 7:39 pm

Absynth has a 'favorites' system, so byte the bullet, go through all its presets,
there will be about 87 you will like. The other synths may also implement favorites.FM8 should have 32 sounds you will like, but the jewels are in the free reaktorensembles, do a google search for "best reaktor ensembles".

Also, some of the detuned sounding Absynth sounds that were programmed by tone-deaf chimpanzees, can be retuned, and thus become musical.

Massive is just Synth1, with lots of gain, and needless complexity.
You lost money on that one

If it turns out you are Urs incognito, there will be hell to pay

Sampleconstruct · Post by **Sampleconstruct** » Wed Oct 12, 2011 7:44 pm

patchpool has a lot of atmospherical and smooth sounds for all kinds of VIs
absynthsounds.com - smooth and edgy stuff for Absynth here...

All my Absynth demos on Soundcloud

jackmazzotti · Post by **jackmazzotti** » Wed Oct 12, 2011 8:08 pm

glokraw wrote:Absynth has a 'favorites' system, so byte the bullet, go through all its presets,
there will be about 87 you will like. The other synths may also implement favorites.FM8 should have 32 sounds you will like, but the jewels are in the free reaktorensembles, do a google search for "best reaktor ensembles".

Also, some of the detuned sounding Absynth sounds that were programmed by tone-deaf chimpanzees, can be retuned, and thus become musical.

Massive is just Synth1, with lots of gain, and needless complexity.
You lost money on that one

If it turns out you are Urs incognito, there will be hell to pay

i am with you on absynth
it seems that they picked some people who really know how to make a patch sound bad with everything
it takes some talent to make such nerve grinding atonal anti-music
you will find yourself in vain trying to tune most of them to fit within any key
that being said it is one of the most brilliant synths ever made and very easy to program
the sounds of heaven and anti-human, brain and soul damaging hell are both achievable with absynth
it is that massively wide open of a synth

one thing to remember is that few people even like music nowadays so few synths out of the box are programed to make music with

roll your own because it takes far less time to do that than it does sifting through mounds of garbage for a couple of nickels plus the rewards for doing so will last a lifetime

jackmazzotti · Post by **jackmazzotti** » Wed Oct 12, 2011 8:15 pm

omnisphere on the other hand is a massive gold mine of lushness
but i still usually just program my own with it as well

glokraw · Post by **glokraw** » Wed Oct 12, 2011 10:00 pm

jackmazzotti wrote:omnisphere on the other hand is a massive gold mine of lushness
but i still usually just program my own with it as well

I clicked on your soundcloud, put on my headphones,
and heard one of my custom drumbeats

For a spit second, I thought, how could some guy I never met

then realized I had my drum machine playing from some hours ago

You are innocent. I am...well, lets not say.

But I really like your music, enjoying the hummingbird at the moment!

chj · Post by **chj** » Wed Oct 12, 2011 10:37 pm

sidfrancis wrote:everything sounds like coming from the other side of the lunatic aylums wall or like electronic bleeps and blurps, or very very traditional.

Does anyone of you know about some good 3rd party sounds of the "sweeter" kind.

I thought I could stack up my sound arsenal a bit but the factory sounds from what I got (though it is a whoooole bunch) are all too odd or too aggressive.

Well based on what you're asking for (other people just seem to respond with their individual taste) I'd say concentrate on FM8.

Too many of the Absynth presets are of the bleeps/blurps/odd type you mention. As far as "sweeter" sounding presets, I'd say Absynth does have some great wooden/ethnic/percussive type presets. Another one of Absynth's "sweeter" strengths is pads/soundscapes, which may work for your style of music (I don't use them that much).

Massive certainly seems to concentrate on aggressive sounds. It can do more, but it's gained a reputation for aggressive sounds, so the presets tend to lean toward the type of sounds many bought it for.

Kontakt has tons of sounds of course, but many will be in the too "traditional" territory you mentioned.

Reaktor is definitely a lunatic asylum/world of bleeps and blurps. I find many of the ensembles useless. Avoid the noisemakers, stick with the synth ensembles. For "sweeter" sounds, Junatik comes to mind. But really if you don't want to wander around too much, maybe skip Reaktor completely for the time being.

FM8 has lots of useable, musical presets. Some may be a little to vintage or traditional, but that would be my suggestion.

jackmazzotti · Post by **jackmazzotti** » Wed Oct 12, 2011 10:37 pm

glokraw wrote:
jackmazzotti wrote:omnisphere on the other hand is a massive gold mine of lushness
but i still usually just program my own with it as well
I clicked on your soundcloud, put on my headphones,
and heard one of my custom drumbeats
For a spit second, I thought, how could some guy I never met

then realized I had my drum machine playing from some hours ago
You are innocent. I am...well, lets not say.

But I really like your music, enjoying the hummingbird at the moment!

too funny hahaha

glad you like the music

there will be lots of new stuff this summer btw

Anahat · Post by **Anahat** » Wed Oct 12, 2011 11:05 pm

Hollow Sun Nebulae - the ultimate new age/relaxation sounds for Kontakt.

jackmazzotti · Post by **jackmazzotti** » Wed Oct 12, 2011 11:21 pm

if you really, really want to roll your own get metasynth and stick those sounds into kontakt and use the time stretching

metasynth is mac only but it's the most advanced sound design platform hands down
even kyma can't do what it does

himalaya · Post by **himalaya** » Thu Oct 13, 2011 12:34 am

Another way to go about getting these lush New Age soundscapes is not through presets as such, but through a little bit of processing. Here's an example. What you hear is three chords played using a raw boring string sample from a General Midi plugin, and then the same sound played with a chain of effects, then other sounds join in for context:

www.electric-himalaya.com/stuff/New_Age_Wash.mp3

The effects are supplied by the Warmverb plugin. 2 instance used with each having four effects, and it took me two minutes to get everything set up:
Warmverb 1:
Pitch shifter with an octave transposed down
Ping Pong Delay
Large Reverb
Stereo Phaser

Warmverb 2:
Large Reverb
Stereo Phaser
BandPass filter
Large Reverb

Once set up, you can save this as your effect chain template (if your host allows that) and recall at will so that you can flip through synth/sampler presets while auditioning them through these effects.

So you can transform any sound with a suitable chain of effects. Obviously, this will not change the dissonant Absynth sounds into harmonically correct ones, but if you choose standard strings, pads, choirs or other rhythmic sound scapes which I bet Kontakt/FM8 has in abundance, and put them through an effect chain like the one above, you will get an instant 'Milky Way' sound. Even arpeggiated analog sounds can be used. An example is in that mp3 demo. Right at the end you can hear what sounds like distant bells...the original sound was nothing like that.

Hope this helps. Happy New Aging.

rtkeeling · Post by **rtkeeling** » Thu Oct 13, 2011 2:48 am

himalaya wrote:Right at the end you can hear what sounds like distant bells...the original sound was nothing like that.

Needs more cowbell

(you know that tired old joke, right?). Just kidding, I enjoy doing just what you describe. You can take a sound/sample and apply effects to it and put it in a different context musically, and it can sit there as if that was where it belonged all along. It can take a lot of experimenting, but that's where the fun is.

Roy

New Age Sounds for Komplete 8 Ultimate?