Wednesday 12 April 2017

NOISEBUD BURT 2.0 SYNAPSE CIRCUIT REVIEW

SYNAPSE CIRCUIT 

NOISEBUD BURT 2.0 $7.99 REVIEW!

#VST #VirtualStudioTechnology #Virtual #Studio #Technology #Steinberg #DAW #Instruments #Effects #Electronic #Music #ElectronicMusic #ComputerMusic #MusicTechnology #FutureMusic #Noisebud #Burt


Synapse Circuit has kicked off with the start of a long running Computer Electronic Future Music Technology string of reviews! 

BOLDLY GOING...
“The entity Noisebud can pretty much do whatever it likes and not care about anyone or anything else…”

I like that… Bold! Noisebud are Sol and Johannes from Sweden. These men are accomplished Electronic musicians but makers of some wonderful VST instruments and effects. And here’s the Synapse Circuit review of Burt 2.0! Read on!

THERE ARE NO COINCIDENCES
How I stumbled upon Burt 2.0… I was looking for some free VST plugins to test MAGIX Music Maker 2017 Premium. Very often, some of these free VST instruments and effects would crash Music Maker. The plan is to do a small follow-up review on the stability of Music Maker with free VST! Standby for that review…

In the meantime I have downloaded quite a few freely available VSTs. For some reason Burt 2.0 was outstanding. I think it was the interface that did it. I found it on a free VST specific website and I went from there straight to the Noisebud website. I saw there are two versions, one free and the other asked for a small donation fee of $7.99 and I had to have it! The donation version allows some of the presets to be controlled by a modulation wheel. Darn it! I need a USB music keyboard with a mod wheel on it! That’s next on my list! Anway…

WOW
What I love about Burt 2.0 are the beautifully distorted and aggressive presets. Gorgeous sounds! Burt 2.0 is the kind of synthesizer that Electronic music purists will just fall in love with. At first I had an issue with getting some sound out of Burt 2.0 with Music Maker… I contacted Noisebud and they came up with this solution:

“The steps listed below is a bit different between the Windows versions, so don't panic if it looks slightly different:

- Use Windows Explorer to browse to your VST Plugins folder.
- Right-click the folder - 'Properties'
- Choose 'Security' tab.
- Click 'EDIT' (You may need to click a UAC prompt).
- Select username "Users".
- Tick options Allow 'Write' and 'Modify'.
- To finish Select 'OK' to close the two dialog boxes.

When all this is done, reinstall Burt and launch you DAW and see if it works.”

That did the trick! It may not be necessary to deinstall reinstall Burt 2.0. This is what I did:

I located the VST folder that I installed Burt 2.0 in and then edited the folder properties as detailed above. I then launched Music Maker, went to the settings, added the VST folder and I could see straightaway that Burt 2.0 had been utilized and it became available in the instrument selection. I dragged one instance of Burt 2.0 across and low and behold, sound came out! YAY!

NO PRETENSE
I can’t pretend to know everything there is to know about a synthesizer to be able to explain on a scientific level about what all the knobs do, but the knobs are labelled clearly thus give an indication as to what they do. I had great fun messing around with the knobs going through the presets. I tend to find a sound that is closest to the one that is bouncing around in my head and proceed to tweak the settings until I intuitively get that sound that I am after. I can see that I will have hours of fun coming up with some rather dirty gritty sounds!

I haven’t made any music in ages and I can tell you that Burt 2.0 has inspired me to get making some tracks again! I have to find the time in-between writing and other things!

CONCLUSION
If you want a simple and effective VST synth for all genres of Electronic music without paying a king’s ransom then Burt 2.0 will do it for you. It’s pure and raw. It is very programmable. The knobs are fully automated too! Oh, automation - if you are new to Computer Music - is when you are able to record the movement of VST instrument and effects knobs, sliders, and dials, etc. The recorded movement can then be played back as a performance. It’s like messing with the knob of the (in)famous Roland TB-303 to create that definitive Acid sound.

SCORE
Burt 2.0 scores a well deserved Synapse Circuit Gold!

You will be amazed by the sounds and the scope! Believe!
Thank you for reading! Synapse Circuit / Blue Gene

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