Last week I reported on Universal Audio's Sound City Studio plugin. It's great and it was on sale for not much money.
I did not stop there. Nosiree. Maybe I should have. But I was Tempted By Things. Too many things. Air Studios Reverb, by Spitfire Audio. Neold Oldtimer Delay, by Plugin Alliance. Repro-5 Structure sound set by The Unfinished.
The delay and sound sets were very inexpensive and couldn't be passed up. Air Studios Reverb was relatively expensive, but still priced $100 off, and one thing I need to do is make the live and synth tracks I'm working sound like the sampled tracks they'll be mixed with.
Let's get to the report on these, shall we?
The Unfinished creates synth patches for famous, blockbuster film composers. He's very good. I was never crazy about Repro 5's factory patches (Repro 5 is U-he's excellent Prophet 5 type plugin). His patches work extremely well in the context of music for film, etc. These are excellent. If you have the plugin and aren't simply doing the typical electronic music stuff with the synth, they're worth checking out.
Neold Oldtimer is a very straightforward delay plugin with an easy to use, and attractive interface that does vintage sounding and modern sounding delays. These are very tweakable. The vintage bucket brigade delays that really sound good aren't easy to find, and these sound good, but so does everything else Neold makes. I have their dynamics plugins as well. I like this plugin.
Finally, there's Spitfire's Air Studios reverb. This one's kind of special, and I can see why it's relatively expensive. Many of the Spitfire orchestral instrument libraries I use were recorded in Sir George Martin's Air Lyndhurst Studio, with its live room built in a purpose-renovated and beautiful old church building. This studio is used on nearly all of Hans Zimmer's soundtracks, but has also been used on ten zillion other films to record orchestras. The recording engineer used has won Academy Awards for his work.
The studio is at least two stories tall, maybe more, and has a gallery walkway at the second level that can be damped; an overhead canopy that can be lowered, raised, and has two different materials to reflect sound; etc., and of course as stated below, the mics can be placed pretty much anywhere you like.
The plugin allows the user to decide on these options and more. The sound can be adjusted to radiate the direction of the reflections on personal whim, decide on instrument placement and the direction the player faces in the room, adjust mic signals (there are eight sets of mics all with levels adjustable in a mixer, and these can be placed as desired in the room), the reflections can be EQ'd in a sophisticated way, there's signal control with Direct, Early Reflections & Tail level adjustments, and many other features.
In terms of sound quality, it's the result of a pretty incredible 67,000 impulse responses, taken in different locations, etc.
So...how's it sound? Pretty much as you'd expect from something from Spitfire Audio: It sounds f#cking great.
I tested it with strings, piano, brass and synths just to get a feel for it. I was able to make tracks sound like they were recorded in the hall to match the Spitfire libraries and all their built in mic signals that were recorded there, but was also able to create some very interesting, yet unique spaces with the plugin.
Sounded fantastic on what I tried with it. And by fantastic, I mean, kind of astounding, if you're into good reverbs.
It's different from Inspirata, a reverb I also love. That one puts the players in several different halls, and EQ's the track itself to make it sound like it was recorded with the resonances and reflections in that very hall or room. But it's less adjustable, and it doesn't include Air Lyndhurst, nor does it have more than a fraction of options as to changing location inside the hall, beyond moving around on stage. There aren't mic options beyond distance from the stage.
So, horses for courses. You might like this one.
I did not stop there. Nosiree. Maybe I should have. But I was Tempted By Things. Too many things. Air Studios Reverb, by Spitfire Audio. Neold Oldtimer Delay, by Plugin Alliance. Repro-5 Structure sound set by The Unfinished.
The delay and sound sets were very inexpensive and couldn't be passed up. Air Studios Reverb was relatively expensive, but still priced $100 off, and one thing I need to do is make the live and synth tracks I'm working sound like the sampled tracks they'll be mixed with.
Let's get to the report on these, shall we?
The Unfinished creates synth patches for famous, blockbuster film composers. He's very good. I was never crazy about Repro 5's factory patches (Repro 5 is U-he's excellent Prophet 5 type plugin). His patches work extremely well in the context of music for film, etc. These are excellent. If you have the plugin and aren't simply doing the typical electronic music stuff with the synth, they're worth checking out.
Neold Oldtimer is a very straightforward delay plugin with an easy to use, and attractive interface that does vintage sounding and modern sounding delays. These are very tweakable. The vintage bucket brigade delays that really sound good aren't easy to find, and these sound good, but so does everything else Neold makes. I have their dynamics plugins as well. I like this plugin.
Finally, there's Spitfire's Air Studios reverb. This one's kind of special, and I can see why it's relatively expensive. Many of the Spitfire orchestral instrument libraries I use were recorded in Sir George Martin's Air Lyndhurst Studio, with its live room built in a purpose-renovated and beautiful old church building. This studio is used on nearly all of Hans Zimmer's soundtracks, but has also been used on ten zillion other films to record orchestras. The recording engineer used has won Academy Awards for his work.
The studio is at least two stories tall, maybe more, and has a gallery walkway at the second level that can be damped; an overhead canopy that can be lowered, raised, and has two different materials to reflect sound; etc., and of course as stated below, the mics can be placed pretty much anywhere you like.
The plugin allows the user to decide on these options and more. The sound can be adjusted to radiate the direction of the reflections on personal whim, decide on instrument placement and the direction the player faces in the room, adjust mic signals (there are eight sets of mics all with levels adjustable in a mixer, and these can be placed as desired in the room), the reflections can be EQ'd in a sophisticated way, there's signal control with Direct, Early Reflections & Tail level adjustments, and many other features.
In terms of sound quality, it's the result of a pretty incredible 67,000 impulse responses, taken in different locations, etc.
So...how's it sound? Pretty much as you'd expect from something from Spitfire Audio: It sounds f#cking great.
I tested it with strings, piano, brass and synths just to get a feel for it. I was able to make tracks sound like they were recorded in the hall to match the Spitfire libraries and all their built in mic signals that were recorded there, but was also able to create some very interesting, yet unique spaces with the plugin.
Sounded fantastic on what I tried with it. And by fantastic, I mean, kind of astounding, if you're into good reverbs.
It's different from Inspirata, a reverb I also love. That one puts the players in several different halls, and EQ's the track itself to make it sound like it was recorded with the resonances and reflections in that very hall or room. But it's less adjustable, and it doesn't include Air Lyndhurst, nor does it have more than a fraction of options as to changing location inside the hall, beyond moving around on stage. There aren't mic options beyond distance from the stage.
So, horses for courses. You might like this one.
