Soundsnap: new business model

One year ago we wrote about Soundsnap's opening, and we're glad of the success this sound sharing service has had during its first year. Unfortunately this comes at a cost, and Soundsnap has just announced a new business model.
There's still a free account, which gets 5 downloads per month. And then there are the Soundsnap PRO accounts, which you can see here in the table...

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The reasons for this choice? Basically the success of the site, with up to 450.000 visits per months, and the fact that the site "licensed thousands of high quality FX from famous contributors".
It seems the ads revenues were not enough to cover all these costs, and if it's true this means bad news for the "free contents" business approach.
For professional sound-designers, I'm sure the cost of the pro accounts is affordable, while it could be a bit on the expensive side for common users (who need more than 5 sounds per month).
Let's see what happens in the next weeks/months.

Hollywood Impulse Responses: convolution at its best

(photo: Vlastula on Flickr)

There's a huge number of Impulse Responses on the web, both free and commercial ones.
Yes, you can get some good free IRs here and there, but if I'd need to pick a name in this field, I'd say Ernest Cholakis (and his Numerical Sound brand) without any doubt.
He's really a sort of mad scientist for these things, and he knows his stuff probably better than anyone else.
So, when I heard there was a new Numerical Sound's release, called Hollywood Impulse Responses (or HIR), I knew I wanted to put my hands on it.

This is the official description: "The Hollywood Impulse Responses (HIR) were inspired by the ambience of 20 major Hollywood blockbuster films released between 1977-2006. This selection of films were recorded in several famous recording studio’s sound stages and symphony halls."

HIR is a 1.1 gigabytes library (several formats, WAV, AIFF, SD, 24 and 32bit), Mac and Pc compatible.
Of course you can use the IRs in your favourite convolution program (Space Designer, Pristine Space or others). I've loaded them in Altiverb.

HIR offers some unique features: it's been thought as a perfect partner for individual musical instruments, thanks to its six sets of IRs that are high pass filtered at points of the frequency spectrum that match the range of acoustic instruments (C2, G2, C3, G3, C4, and G4). So, for example, if you have a cello track you can get better results using one of the C2 IRs, and so on.
Another interesting feature is timbre-related: for each IR there are five variations, Dark, Warm, Flat, Clear and Bright, which can be used to change the perceived timbre of an instrument or an ensemble.
Ernest claims this variation cannot be matched by any kind of EQ, and well, who am I to disagree?


The interesting thing about HIR is that it's quite different from other products on the market, because it does not try to reproduce one or multiple actual acoustic spaces. Since, as said, it's inspired by the ambiences of several Hollywood films, it follows the same "larger than life" paradigm.
I'll go back to Ernest's own words: "The source material in these film recordings often contained more bass and lower midrange power than comparable “normal” acoustic spaces, so the perceived size of the reverberant space is often much larger than these studios' physical dimensions would ever be able to create."

Some more numbers: the lenght of the reverbs go from 4.112 to 11.013 seconds. There are 4 Hall types: Small Sound Stage, Medium Sound Stage, Large Symphony Hall, Huge Sound Stage.
So it's 600 IRs in total, divided in 6 notes groups, as said.
Anyway HIR is not about quantity. What you get here is quality and some unique features.
I've tried HIR on acoustic tracks and virtual instrument ones, and I can safely say it works great on both things. Especially virtual instrument tracks (sample libraries, percussions, etc.) benefit from HIR's treatment!

Of course, HIR is not a product for everyone, but if you're into sound-design and you'd like to have that "larger than life" sound on your tracks, I would get it as quickly as possible. The investment ($129.95) will pay off soon.


An interview with Ernest Cholakis about his partnership with Dan Dean, ProAudioVault.

Prosoniq: Morph (and related stories)

Plug-in nostalgia? There can be such a thing? Well, yes, after all...
Some time has passed since we've started experimenting with software fx and instruments. And probably, if we think back to the early days of plug-ins, the name Prosoniq comes to our mind bringing back some nice memories. SonicWORX (which was the first Mac software with a plug in architecture in the 1990s), PiWarp, Orange Vocoder, Morph, but also the TimeFactory standalone app (I remember the first time I tried it at a friend's studio, it was one of those "wow" moments!)...
Well, to make a long story short, we were glad to read some months ago that the german software house was going to update its product line making it (at last) compatible with the newer OS X operating systems and plug-in format.
Morph has been the first of the series (now they're going to release the Orange Vocoder in the next days) to receive the "AU make-up".
For those who do not know it yet, the plug-in offers a unique way of morphing two audio signals in real time. How does it work? Well, this is how Morph's creator, Stephan Bernsee, explained the concept behind the plug-in in an old interview: "My definition of morphing comes from the video world, where morphing was first invented and employed by ILM (Industrial Light and Magic) in 'Terminator', if I’m not mistaken. Morphing, in that context means that an object in a scene slowly changes its shape to become another object. The analogous process in the audio world would therefore be an instrument that slowly changes its shape to become another instrument. All morphing processes I’ve seen - except ours - do some kind of spectral manipulation that has nothing to do with the shape of the original instrument. The concept of 'shape' requires understanding the nature of the sound that is being processed - I therefore tend to think of them as some elaborate mathematical tools with musical effects, but not really 'musical' tools. The problem with these tools is that they inevitably require the whole sound to be analyzed prior to manipulation, and that they tend to produce non-musical results in the intermediate stages of the morphing. Our morphing process is based on an inherently 'musical' approach and does therefore not have these restrictions."
It's interesting that Stephan began developing Morph on his Atari ST in the late eighties (of course it was not a real time software at the time). Well, you know, when ideas are good, they're able to stand the test of time!
So you may ask, it can really be useful for today's productions? We think Morph is still the lovely and inspirational piece of software that it was years ago (and that made it a favourite of artists like the ubiquitous BT and of big studios like the BBC ones). At AudioNewsRoom we really like software like this, that try to spice up the creative process without being too complicated or overloaded with options most users will never use. If you are a "vintage" plug-in aficionado or at your first experience with a DAW, our advice is: download Morph's demo and have fun!

Talking with Stephan, we also tried to understand which were the reasons for Prosoniq's 'standby period' and which are his plans for 2008: "I really don't want to go into too much detail but I can tell you that Prosoniq has lost a lot of money when Hartmann Music (the makers of the Neuron synthesizer) filed for insolvency over a quarrel with their former distributor. This has been a major setback which came as a real shock to Prosoniq and has subsequently caused a lot of products to remain stuck in the release pipeline for quite a while. In particular, Prosoniq has been unable to respond to the requests of the AudioUnit community even though the AudioUnit version of their products was well underway at that time. We sincerely hope to make it up to them by now releasing our AudioUnit products first. We really have great customers, they are just amazing and so unbelievably creative and we truly love them and we really care for their requests and listen to what they have to say. We're sorry it took us so long to get there, but all that is now going to change in 2008. As a side effect of all this there had been some dramatic changes in the Prosoniq management, organization and cost structure, and looking at the rapidly increasing Prosoniq sales I'd like to think that they were justified, necessary and beneficial for the company and enabled us to live through this difficult era and come out almost unscathed. In particular, the way things are organized now Prosoniq is able to come out with more and better products faster than ever before, keep track of bugs and other issues in a very transparent way and provide excellent tech support even on the weekend (which is when most people are making music).
In addition, some exclusive licensing contracts as well as some requests by the music industry that we have been honouring in the past are no longer in effect in 2008, which enables us to come out with some pretty amazing products later this year. I can't talk about them before they are officially announced but if you visit the Prosoniq web site every now and then you will notice that the Prosoniq product portfolio will change quite a bit in 2008."

Thanks Stephan! Well, good news then...
We'll keep an eye on Prosoniq, let's hope to see some new creative products soon!

Glitch Gumbo vol.1

Tip of the day: if you have 10.99$ (or 7 €) waiting to be spent, before doing anything else have a look at Atypical Audio's website. You'll find Glitch Gumbo vol.1, an interesting collection of 66 electronic percussion loops (Apple Loops/Acid ).
It's top quality stuff, made using Elektron Machinedrum and Monomachine, Max/Msp, Reaktor, etc.
Especially Logic and Garageband users could find Glitch Gumbo very useful, since there's not so much interesting stuff on the market for this kind of sounds, and even if you're good at programming beats, it's always useful to have some more hi-quality and ready-to-use solutions to add to your tracks, isn't it?
We asked Atypical Audio's Peter Van Hoesen (electronic musician/dj) to tell us something more about his first software release: "of course, as 'glitch' is a main feature of this library you will find this characteristic in most of the loops. The emphasis is on experimental percussion loops - sometimes radically chopped up and dsp-mangled, sometimes on the more funky side. It's a constant battle between the experimental geek and the funky dj in me, eh eh... The main reason for making this library is that I really enjoy combining sound design with rhythmic production. I'm a very rhythm-oriented producer, always have been. Combining these two aspects and making a fresh-sounding library was my main goal."
Peter is generous enough to give away 20 free loops (not included in the Glitch Gumbo vol.1) and a couple of Battery3 kits from his free sounds page, so show him some paypal love!
By the way he also told us he's working on a few new things: "The next download packs will continue along the same lines. There is Glitch Gumbo Vol 2, which will not only include percussion loops but also bass loops and 'abstract-melodic' content, so as to offer the user more options to combine sounds into something unique. I'm also working on a library exclusvely produced with sounds from the Elektron Monomachine, Elektron Machinedrum and Korg ER-1. These are my favourite three beat box synths. All patterns are programmed on the machines, then imported into the software domain for further processing. I don't want to just sample the machines, because that's not so interesting. The aim is to use these machines and their specific sound as a starting point for further sound design. Both libraries should be finished at the end of April."

Prix Ars Electronica 2008

Digital-hybrid-animation artists and sound-design mad scientists of the world unite, and submit to the 2008 Prix Ars Electronica! The deadline is March 7, 2008.
Six categories: Computer Animation / Film / VFX, Interactive Art, Digital Musics, Hybrid Art (a new one), Digital Communities, u19 - freestyle computing (this one is reserved to austrian teenagers).
The winner list for the previous years could be intimidating (Aphex Twin with Chris Cunningham, Peter Gabriel with Jean Claude Risset, Pete Docter from Pixar etc.) but, well, you never know!
Full details, regulation, prizes, etc. at PrixArs' website.
Good luck!

Find a typo, get 20% off!

Matthew from audiofile-engineering, one of the most interesting "young" software-house for the Mac platform (and, since some months, the new home for Plasq's Rax), some days ago posted this on BigBlueLounge: "Find a typo on our website and get 20% off of the app of your choice. Broken links count EXCEPT links to PDF or HTML manuals (we know those are broken) or screencast tutorials."
Considering the new website is as cool as their apps, it's not a bad offer, ah?

Generative music: from Koan to noatikl

Maybe you remember Koan, the generative music engine created by SSEYO in the nineties and used, among others, by Brian Eno in his Generative Music 1 album.
Koan is discontinued since years, but SSEYO's founders authors are back, under a new brand name, intermorphic, and with two new applications: noatikl and liptikl.
Unsuprisingly, noatikl (pronounced "noh - tickle") is a generative (MIDI) music engine. From their description: "it creates musical information in the form of MIDI notes, and can also generate and send MIDI controller information to control settings of your favourite synths, FX units and samplers".
It's good to see that, while Koan never made it to the Mac platform (Eno was forced to buy a Pc to run it!), noatikl supports both Windows and Os X platforms. And it comes as a standalone app and as a plug-in (VST, DXi and AU, no RTAS at this time).
We love generative music tools, so we've just started testing it, and we'll have a review out in the next days.
There's also a lyrics generator app, liptikl. It should help in those writer's block cases or simply to have some fun creating new word associations.
There's a full 30-days demo for both applications (and some useful video tutorials on the site, too), so there's plenty of time to test them and decide if they are worth their price.
Prices have been updated since the early announcements, and now for noatikl start from 99$ (non commercial version, standalone or plugin version, on one operating system) up to 189$ to get both versions. If you need it on OS X and Windows you'll need the dual suite: 249$.
For liptikl: 99$/149$ depending on the number of platforms.
For further details and options, check intermorphic's web store.