A few things that I have run across or picked up lately that I think are well worth checking out.
Braunschweig Upright Piano from imperfectsamples.com – Ohmigod I love this piano. It is not without its “flaws”, but these flaws introduce character and help to make the instrument inspirational for me. (I’ll provide more detail in a follow up.)
apulSoft apEQ
apulSoft’s apEQ – This has been around for a while, but it is very versatile and allows extreme almost surgical sound shaping via EQ. A great interface. Demos available at the website.
NI Acoustic Refractions
NI Kore2 Acoustic Refractions – If you are into Absynth, this gives you some very cool sounds. The strength of the programming really comes through when morphing between the sound variations.
SampleLogic’s WaterHarp – This is one helluva deal at $49.95. 300 instruments, 1.8GB of samples for some “film ready” waterharp sounds, ambiences, stings, transitions. If anything, it’s a bit TOO film ready IMHO. Seems like an entire episode of CSI in a box. Still, there’s a lot here that can be worked with. And did I mention it’s only 50 bucks?
Tonehammer’s WaterPhone – Not as many instruments as SampleLogic’s and more expensive at $99. I have a vague impression that it may be more flexible however, and less aimed at the “soundtrack in 2 minutes crowd” that SampleLogic seems to have in mind. Really nice ambiences in the demos. The two soundsets compliment rather than replace each other is my guess.
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Big Fish Audio’s HipHop Exotica – I’m probably late to the party on this one, but these loops sound pretty good…These are some really nice world flavor hiphop loops that are well produced. You get many many construction kits in multiple keys.
Daevlmakr Plugins – $36USD and definitely unique. A good value for the experimentalist.
Bram’s stuff at the SmartElectronix Collective – SmartElectronix produces a lot of interesting freeware / shareware / donationware plug in’s. One of its contributors in particular has a couple of very cool donationware plugins available at the site. Given the situation with GleetchPlug, I made sure to go back and contribute something because It Is The Right Thing To Do.
Novation Automap 3.0 Pro – An hour spent with it this morning. It’s a big improvement over previous versions as the ease of use has definitely gone up. However, the lack of documentation (come on Novation it’s not that damn easy) means I spent a lot more time on the Novation site tracking down answers than I wanted to…
