Sometime last year I wrote about how I had once owned a Moog MG1/Realistic Concertmate. It’s not just that I had no idea what it was or barely used it while I had it, or even that I sold it to some friends for like fifty bucks - it’s that of all the crap I’ve hung onto over the years I had to get rid of that. And every once and a while something comes along to remind me how misguided I was at certain points in my life.

Today this is pointed out via Analog Industries. Alerted to a new freebie sample set from the dedicated geniuses at Goldbaby that utilizes a Moog MG1 run through a bunch of Audio Damage plugins. I’m not on a broadband connection right now so I won’t be able to audition them for a while. But I’m prepared to download and weep.

_{Photo ripped the matrixsynth flicr stream}

Here’s a sample set that’s so underground it doesn’t even have a website. I don’t know why, I’m a complete sucker for these kinds of things; I think there should be more folks out there sampling off-beat instruments, found sounds, toys, forgotten instruments.

Actually, I guess I should be doing that. Damn, I’m lazy.

Anyway, thanks to KvR user Architeuthis for not being lazy.

Sorry, this is my first sample library and so I don’t have all that professional stuff going for me like a website and a quick Pay to Download system setup. That will hopefully come in the future.

* Recorded in 24-bit / 96,000khz
* 15 tone musical box in the key of G#
* 14 alternative samples per tone, 210 samples total
* Coming soon for registered users: A version of the sample library with crank noises

- Listen Here (first two melodies dry, third melody using EQ and KarmaFX reverb)
- Download Manual here

Send $15 to my paypal account argitoth-at-gmail dot com and you will receive a username, password, and product key to your e-mail. When sending the payment, specify the following:

-First and Last name
-An e-mail you want to register the product with

It is available for Kontakt. More samplers will be supported soon. Reply to this thread if you would like support for the sampler you use.

I actually haven’t receive my link yet, so I’m posting this on good faith. The links are going out fairly quickly; by the time I got back to my computer several hours later it was waiting for in my inbox. He’s a verified paypal member and seems to have been around KvR for a while, so let’s assume this is all on the up and up. The demo does sound pretty fantastic, and I have the perfect track for this.

^{Photo by Kriss Szkurlatowski, via stock.xchng.com.
So, yeah, the photo is just something I found and does not represent the sampled box.}

Chris Randal, of Audio Damage renown, has informed his readership that he marking his 40th birthday today. Happy birthday, Chris. Welcome to the declining years.

In said post, he anticipated the occasion by noting some of the musical milestones of a particular lifetime. Since there’s nary a bandwagon I won’t jump on, here are a few of mine, though it’s not my birthday:

• #1 Song on the day I was born: “The Sounds Of Silence” Simon & Garfunkel
• First new album I purchased with my own cash: “Duty Now for the Future” Devo¹
• First stadium concert: Grateful Dead, Providence Civic Center²

As a present for Chris why don’t you head over to his label and buy one of his records. I assume he gets to keep all the profits for those (since they’re digital downloads it’s all his, right?) it’s the next best to his requested Paypal cash grab³.

^{1That sounds way more prescient that it probably was. Before and after that anomalous purchased, mostly influenced by my best friend at the time, my tastes were a lot more in keeping for a kid growing up in NH in the 70s. However, I rediscovered the album in my punk rock years and realized how fucking brilliant it is. To this day, one of my favorite albums. And I still have that copy, much worse for wear.}

^{2This was before their mid-to-late 80s resurgence; I happened to be in town the night my cousin was going, and getting a scalped ticket was incredibly easy and cheap. My cousin ended up being a life-long deadhead. I did not. Though I’ve often wanted to cover a Dead song for the academic exercise of it, and simply to be contrary.}

^{3Yes, I know he was joking}

PS: While we’re on the subject of gift giving, I do want to call attention to the two most recent posts from sensible misanthrope Violent Acres that are about the best things I’ve read on the issue: #1, #2

As I mentioned a while back, long-time plugin developer Voxengo have undertaken an overhaul of their product line. Starting with the somewhat baffling, gorgeous sounding totally free OvertoneGQE, they followed up with the VariSaturator and the Voxengo Crunchessor.

Since I was in the market for a new compressor, I took advantage of a new release special offer (now unfortunately passed) and got in on this last one. If you’re familiar with Voxengo you know that he never stops working on his product, and we’ve already been treated to a couple of bugfixes. You’ll also know, even without a discount they’re well reasonably priced.

So, I’ve had a while to use it and I’m relying more and more on it. I’m not one of these gearslutz who can discern between a Fairchild and Pultec¹ but this thing works great. It can be as transparent or characterful as you’d like. Though I don’t think anyone would have argued that Voxengo haven’t always produced top-o-the-line DSP.

What’s most impressing me about the new Voxengo plugins is how vastly better looking they are. As much as I relied on them in my productions - Voxformer and GlissEQ are particular favorites - they were functional looking at best. Well, while they were overhauling their development platform, someone over there also spent some serious time thinking about the GUI. Not only are they smartly configured to respond to your interaction, and softened with a nice “Web 2.0″ sheen, if you don’t like the color scheme you tweak it to your liking.

So, not as singularly unique and characteristic as the Audio Damage GUIs, or with the gear porn gee-whiz photo-realism of, say, the new offerings of Waves. But nevertheless, a real feather in the cap of one of the best deals in DSP.

^{1Yes, that’s a joke. Though feel free to point out how wrong I got that.}

_{Awesome yearbook photo uploaded by Kristin Smith (her mother), via stock.xchng.}

Here’s something well worth reading: What Have I Learned, in which our author and blog host, a one James Kirsch (nom de guerre: general fuzz), ruminates on what it means to be an independent musician and self-producer, making music for the shear joy and intellectual satisfaction of it, only to release it to the perceived indifference of the Web.

So, not a prescriptive cataloging of EQ and compression tips as the post title might lead you to believe; no “How to build a super saw patch” here. What we get are some thoughtful excogitation for we project studio jockeys, huddled over our screens of Project5, Logic, Live, et al, filling up our hard drives with sound collections and virtual instruments, inflicting the results on girlfriends, family, newsgroup acquaintances. I’m not full agreement with everything Mr. fuzz is offering but the spirit of it is %100 on the money.

The irony of it is with this one post the general negates a lot of what he was writing about. He has generated a whole lot of feedback, made a lot of people who weren’t previously aware of his music, and collected I’d imagine a bunch of new fans, many of whom would gladly buy his music.

I for one am chuffed to have discovered the collected works of general fuzz. Nice downtempo tunes with a breeze of jazz blowing through the spaces, full of hooks and well-considered instrumental embellishments. Perfect for an early morning work session, such as I’m enjoying as I’m writing this. I’ve paid for albums that weren’t half this good. Click on the album cover above to check out his complete discography.

General, I salute you. (Groan…)

Allow me to present for your consideration one of his fine songs, off his latest release, Cool Aberrations:
general fuzz, “reasonable ability”: