Spitfire Audio has created another solid contender in their character-laden Artisanal Series, this time with Artisan Cello for Kontakt 5. The Artisan libraries are recorded in Spitfire Audio’s purpose built dry studios. With almost 14GB (uncompressed) of samples, they’ve gone to great lengths to provide a remarkable level of detail…
Author: Jesse Gay
software reviews
Emotional Cello Review – Inspiring Realism
It can be challenging to make a multidimensional sampled orchestral string instrument. There are a number of titles that can do bombastic or single-dimension strings reasonably well, but there are far fewer players when it comes to expressive, nuanced strings that can be played easily. Enter Emotional Cello, the new…
iOS
Zed Synth Review: Not Your Usual iOS Synth
Zed Synth from Jazzman Ltd. is a unique blend of parametric wavetable oscillators, physical modeling, and modular architecture. This complexity is tempered by a well-written help tag system, helpful navigation tools, and oscilloscopes at many stages of the synth that enable you to see the effect that the components have…
software reviews
Primal Audio FM4 Review – FM Synthesis Made Easy
With FM4 Primal Audio accomplished 2 seemingly mutually exclusive tasks. They’ve created an credible instrument based on the original Yamaha DX series (complete with all its idiosyncrasies), yet designed an intuitive and powerful control interface for it that fits on a single page of an iPad. In addition to the…
software reviews
Audiowarp BOCS 1 & 2 – Kontakt meets Boards of Canada
Audiowarp’s Boards of Canada Synthesis packs (BOCS1 and BOCS2) offer some hazy warm pads and drones inspired by the Scottish masters of downtempo. The samples were meticulously created by using techniques similar to those used by the band, including creative analog and lo-fi processing. Most importantly, nothing virtual was used,…
software reviews
Wave Alchemy Revolution-606 review: a fresh take on a classic
Wave Alchemy established a strong precedent with their Transistor Revolution MkII Kontakt instrument. It’s my go-to sample-based instrument for 808 and 909 sounds that approach (and in some cases exceed) the warmth of the real deal. They’ve completed the trilogy with their recent release of Revolution 606, a similarly styled…