KVR Audio

TheCatBurglar · Post by **TheCatBurglar** » Wed Apr 12, 2017 9:39 am

In the summer with my little to no ventilation - my fan!

cron · Post by **cron** » Wed Apr 12, 2017 10:06 am

CDP (Composers Desktop Project) in conjunction with the Soundshaper front-end.

Ancient, ugly, finicky, regularly infuriating, yet utterly peerless. About 90% of my more experimental/unusual sound design has come from this thing over the last decade+.

CDP.png

Cimbasso · Post by **Cimbasso** » Wed Apr 12, 2017 10:30 am

dark water · Post by **dark water** » Wed Apr 12, 2017 7:52 pm

Excellent array of useful tools there chaps.

In particular, the CV.OCD seems very promising for my hardware setup Foosnark.
And Bidule looks fascinating, but truthfully also probably a bit beyond me and my musical interests.

Any further suggestions very welcome.
Cheers.

Musicisbest · Post by **Musicisbest** » Wed Apr 12, 2017 8:35 pm

Air conditioner

harryupbabble · Post by **harryupbabble** » Wed Apr 12, 2017 8:38 pm

TheCatBurglar wrote:In the summer with my little to no ventilation - my fan!

Do you mean this guy? I'm kidding.

BertKoor · Post by **BertKoor** » Thu Apr 13, 2017 2:52 pm

Why oh why do Behringer put a LED in every friggin knob? Their stuff lights up like a christmas tree, making it terribly fugly:

Bombadil · Post by **Bombadil** » Sun Apr 16, 2017 6:15 pm

Seeing that I fit the general description, I'd have to say 'me.'

Upon further reflection, I'd go with my FMR Audio Really Nice Compressor and Really Nice Mic-Pre.

funky lime · Post by **funky lime** » Tue Apr 18, 2017 3:59 pm

JSFX in Reaper. I pretty much require stuff like midi_CC_mapper and a few other MIDI utilities.

Actually... I'll just go ahead and say, Reaper itself.

Also, I picked this thingie up for about $8 at the local musicians-go-broke swap store :

20170418_thingie.jpg

Half the knobs have a nice little center step thing, and the buttons just send various MIDI note values. The crossfader has no resistance at all, so I can do some crazy filter sweeps where the only limit is how quickly i can twitch. It's an extremely bulky unit for what it is, but I definitely couldn't argue with the price tag.

sjm · Post by **sjm** » Tue Apr 18, 2017 5:32 pm

I've got a lot of mileage out of a 25 key m-audio ozeone keyboard. Cost me ~EUR 15 off e-bay (I picked it up locally, so no postage). Has a mono and a stereo line in as well as an XLR input with phantom power. 8 knobs, pitch and mod wheel + direct monitoring function. It gives me latency of 3ms, which is really nice.

I have it attached to my computer in the living room - I have separate room for my studio stuff where I have "proper" equipment. But for messing around with a few ideas, the 25 keys are more than adequate, and I can plug in a guitar or mic and just record when I feel like without needing to wait for the studio machine to boot up. Dunno if that disqualifies it from being a "studio tool" though...

It's also great for Skype calls. I don't have a headset and obviously the onboard sound card doesn't do XLR.

Honourable mention goes to my dirt cheap (15 EUR?) LED table lamp with a gooseneck. For those of us without a lot of Behringer gear (see the image in the post above), it makes figuring out what your outboard gear is set to feasible even with mood lightling.

What are your favourite unsexy but essential studio tools (hardware or software) ?