Autor: Producer Gang

Kieran Foster, the developer known as illformed, dblue, and MaDHaTTeR, has passed away. He was 47. I never knew Kieran personally, but his work was a significant part of my music production journey. When I first started making music on a computer, around 2008, the original dblue Glitch was one of the first plugins I used. I was working in MuLab back then, still figuring everything out, and Glitch was one of the free plugins that made computer music feel so exciting. It was chaotic and fun, and it opened doors I did not even know existed yet. I used…

Every Sound Has a Shape  “Music is the arithmetic of sounds as optics is the geometry of light.” — Claude Debussy Every sound contains frequencies. Low frequencies give music weight. Mid frequencies give it identity. High frequencies give it detail. An equalizer lets you reshape that balance. You can remove rumble. Add warmth. Reduce muddiness. Bring a vocal forward. Soften harshness. Add air. But EQ becomes much easier when you stop seeing the frequency spectrum as thousands of unrelated numbers. Instead… Think of it as seven musical regions: Sub Low Low Mid Mid High Mid High Air Each region…

SOUNDRAW has launched SOUNDRAW Grid, a sample creation and music production tool for iOS and macOS. BPB readers can use the coupon code BPBLOG to get a discount on SOUNDRAW Grid. The code gives 15% off the Pro Annual plan in the iOS App Store, bringing it from $99.99 to $84.99. The bigger discount is available through the Mac/desktop checkout, where BPBLOG works on all plans and gives around 43% off. So, if you want the lowest price, use the desktop option. SOUNDRAW Grid lets you build samples and loop ideas. Instead of scrolling through a fixed sample library and…

Ample Sound has released Ample Guitar M Lite 4, a free acoustic guitar virtual instrument for macOS and Windows. Free acoustic guitar plugins are hard to find, and Ample Sound’s free Martin D-41 instrument has been one of the best options out there since the early 2010s. We covered Ample Guitar M Lite II back in 2015, and now version 4 brings the freebie onto the new Ample Guitar 4 architecture. If you are looking for free acoustic guitar sounds for your DAW, this is, in my opinion, the best place to start. The redesigned 5K interface is fantastic, the…

When it comes to free orchestral libraries, we are spoiled for choice. The latest on offer is the free Pocket Strings by The Crow Hill Company. If, like me, you remember when collections like HALion String Edition Volume 1, which weighed in at a whopping 5GB (roughly), represented a significant step up from any native DAW instruments, you know to appreciate what we have for free now. Available in AU, VST, VST3, and AAX formats for macOS (11-15) and Windows (10-11). Pocket Strings is the result of recording some exceptional classical musicians at Clockwork Studios in Glasgow. Pocket Strings previously…

FRCTL Audio has released AURA Lite, a free ducking reverb plugin for Windows, macOS, and Linux. FRCTL has been on a nice run of free tools lately. We recently covered DLAY Lite, and before that, SWRL Lite and GRN Lite. I like FRCTL Audio’s free plugins so far, and AURA Lite is another useful one. AURA Lite is the free version of the new paid AURA reverb. It has four controls: Size, Decay, Clarity, and Mix. The important one is Clarity, which ducks the reverb tail while the dry source is playing and lets it come back in the gaps.…

Plugin Boutique is offering Excite Audio’s Bloom Synth Analogue Lite for $3 with the coupon code l9ueiios. The plugin normally costs $29 and is currently on sale for $19 until August 31, but the code brings it down to $3 at checkout. I don’t know how long the coupon will work, so hurry if you want to grab this one. Bloom Synth Analogue Lite is a sample-based instrument built from chords, leads, basses, arps, and phrases sampled from vintage synthesizers. The main goal here is to give you warm analog-style synth sounds that sync to your DAW tempo and stay…

I’ve been reviewing audio plugins on Bedroom Producers Blog for more than 15 years. I don’t have an exact number, but I’ve probably tested more than 2,000 plugins in that time. Maybe close to 2,500, depending on how strictly we count the ones I installed, disliked, and uninstalled right away. During all that plugin testing, a thought kept building in the back of my mind. I figured I understood plugins really well by now, and that if I ever made one, I would surely know what to do. Then I spent almost two years making VATRA, my first plugin for…

The latest release from the Crow Hill Company is the Harmonic Piano, a free experimental piano instrument that is a part of their Vaults series. The Crow Hill Company isn’t opposed to the unconventional when it comes to capturing sound or rethinking how that sound is typically used. In making Harmonic Piano, The Crow Hill Company returned to the familiar location of Castlesound Studios, just outside Edinburgh, Scotland. Although the use of such harmonics isn’t as accessible for pianists as it is for guitarists and other stringed instruments, it’s not entirely uncommon. But it is, as I mentioned, unconventional to…

Drift Ritual is a new synth plugin from Manu Riga, and you can download it for free now. The plugin is available in AU and VST formats for macOS and Windows. The developer calls this plugin an organic drift synthesizer, and that about sums up the core character of Drift Ritual. It’s about sounds that feel rich and alive, like you’d expect from a vintage analog synth, and that starts with two PolyBLEP oscillators and a multi-wave sub oscillator. The PolyBLEP oscillators aim to recreate the fatness of synths that defined the sound of cinema for a while, like the…