K331 AUDIO SYNTHMASTER ONE SYNAPSE CIRCUIT REVIEW

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K331 AUDIO SYNTHMASTER ONE $63.00 - SPRING SALE REVIEW!

#VST #VirtualStudioTechnology #Virtual #Studio #Technology #Steinberg #DAW #Instruments #Effects #Electronic #Music #ElectronicMusic #ComputerMusic #MusicTechnology #FutureMusic #K331 #Audio #K331Audio #SynthMaster #One #SynthmasterOne

Synapse Circuit has great pleasure in bringing you yet another great synth, and it's FREE! 

THE MASTER...

SynthMaster One is an easy to use wavetable synthesizer with an intuitive workflow. Although it shares the same engine with its bigger brother SynthMaster, it comes with new features like wavetable synthesis. With its simple layout, rich wavetable/waveform content and inspiring factory presets library, designing new sounds with SynthMaster One is a real joy. Read on!

Sometimes great VST synthesizers can be offputting for novices, and even some semi-professionals. A lot of Electronic Computer Technology Musicians just want to install an awesome VSTi (and effects) and start composing straightaway! Well, you can do this with K331 Audio’s Synthmaster One.

Synthmaster One comes with many waveforms and wavetables, as a result you can create amazing patches! You can also add your own! Synthmaster One comes with the most amazing presets you will ever hear on a VSTi! Beautiful analogue sounding patches for all types of Electronic genres.

GUI
Me? Again, I am not what you would call an out and out expert in VST. However, I do like to get stuck in and alter the preset sounds to create my own unique take on them (the presets). I don’t understand people who would just use the presets as they are. Oh, well… Anyway, the Synthmaster One user interface is not only aesthetically pleasing but I find that it lends itself to tweaking the parameters. The interface is very inviting to those who, like me, just want to experiment and intuitively tweak the settings to create the desired sound. I am sort of old school in that when I used to have hardware synths I had to learn to program them pretty quickly to get the most out of them. I only had a few Kawai synths, and boy, did I program the heck out of them! I was so good at get the most out of these Kawai synths (K1 & K4) that people thought I was using more expensive synths! Synthmaster One takes me back to the days when I intuitively understood what I was doing when creating new synth patches!

FX Above: K331 Audio Synthmaster One working inside the MAGIX Music Maker 2017 Premium DAW flawlessly! It has some wonderful onboard effects, distortion, EQ, compression, chorus, delay, and reverb. These effects really go that extra mile in giving a patch a certain sweetness that just delights your ears!

I have to hand it to K331 Audio for creating this cost effective - more so because it is currently discounted in a Spring Sale!

DESIGNER
As simple as the interface is, the seasoned professional sound designer would get mileage out of Synthmaster One and then some! I don’t meet Synth Master’s very often, but when I do it never ceases to amaze me what they can do in the name of synthesizing sounds! In fact, it was such a Synth Master who got me into Electronic music in the first place! All this Synth Master needed was a white lab coat!

I think he would have created divine sounding patches if he were around today!

CONCLUSION
Synthmaster One is a phenomenal VSTi for the money - the current sale makes it even more so! There is no excuse for boring formulaic Electronic music! Seriously, have you ever gone to a Trance, EDM, or Industrial event? As a former music journalist, I can tell you that attending these events were seldom fully enjoyable. There may have been one or two bands/artists on the billing worth listening to, the rest were terrible clones. I think some of these lacklustre artists/bands could up their game with Synthmaster One! I really mean that! I would love to hear what an Electronic band like Front 242 would do with Synthmaster One! Front 242, these guys are like what the Rolling Stones is to Rock music; they can give these young pretenders a run for the money any day of the week!

Anyway, enough bitching! I love Synthmaster One! It is a fantastic synth and it, along with some of the recent synths that I have reviewed of late, makes me want to start composing again!

If you are serious about producing music and/or sound design then you NEED Synthmaster One yesterday! Get it now while it is on sale!

SCORE
This one is a no-brainer! The interface is on point! The range of sounds is plentiful! If you have a sound in your head Synthmaster One will synthesize it for you in all its glory!

Synthmaster One scores an astounding... Synapse Circuit Platinum!

You can purchase it here: K331 Audio Synthmaster One

Enjoy!

Thank you for reading! Synapse Circuit / Blue Gene

REALLUSION CHARACTER CREATOR 2.0 GAME DEVELOPERS - UNREAL UNITY MIXAMO SYNAPSE CIRCUIT NEWS

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CHARACTER CREATOR 2.0 ANSWERS THE CALL FOR GAME DEVELOPERS - UNREAL, UNITY, MIXAMO

NEWS!
#Reallusion #CharacterCreator2 #Character #Creator #2 #CrazyTalkAnimator3 #2DAnimation #Cartoons

Do these Reallusion guys ever stop? There are at it again... Reallusion is up to its usual amazing tricks in the name of 3D Animation and Character Creations! Read on!

San Jose, CA 19th April 2017 - Reallusion launches Unreal (UE4) Character Creator 2.0 update, a solution for thousands of UE4 game developers to create, animate and export 3D characters fully-rigged and ready for games. Unreal character design for developers utilizing Adobe Fuse & Mixamo now have a new solution for game character creation and animation with Reallusion Character Creator’ full compatibility. Design a visually stunning character with easy morph sliders and clothing options, animate it with hundreds of iClone animations, custom mocap or lip-sync and export the finished characters to Unreal with a workflow that integrates into any indie or studio pipeline for game development.

VIDEO: Character Creator 2.0 Export for Unreal & Unity Physically Based Render Shaders

Optimized for Unreal UE4 Unreal users highly requested a new character design tool that is dedicated to working and scaling with Unreal development. In response, Reallusion has adapted Character Creator 2.0 to auto convert character bone structures for UE4 rigs, allowing CC characters to be fully compatible with the Unreal UE4 Third Person Controller.

Unity Mecanim Compatible
With the latest CC 2.0 update, Character Creator assets can now enjoy a direct FBX export for Mecanim-compatible characters into Unity 3D, for instant 3rd person gameplay. Users will also be able to save and display the same realistic PBR looks in Character Creator to their Unity game by manually setting up their texture maps. Mixamo Motions Export By combining with the iClone/3DXchange pipeline, users can auto convert Mixamo motions through Character Creator 2.0 for use in the Unreal engine. Reallusion now offers a quick workaround to quickly apply any Mixamo motions to character rigs in Unreal by taking it through 3DXchange. This will save time by avoiding the requirement to map and rename bones and re-align axis.
Benjamin Bishop of Caprica Productions details how Reallusion answered their call for help and saved their game company “thousands of dollars and hundreds of development hours”. “We were using Mixamo, Adobe Fuse for a lot of our character creation needs. When the Unreal Engine 4 rig was removed from their service it completely broke our pipeline and caused us to lose countless hours of work. We turned to Reallusion for a possible solution and have found a company which was quick to respond, help and integrate everything we needed into their software. We found them vastly superior in every way and couldn't have imagined a better interaction. Shortly after, Character Creator 2.0 was released including the feature we requested plus many others that make it an excellent addition to any developers’ tool bag. Reallusion have saved us thousands of dollars and hundreds of development hours. It’s great to find a company that really listens to their customers and does everything they can to help!” - Benjamin Bishop / Capricia Productions
Download Character Creator Lite - https://www.reallusion.com/character-creator/download.html

Character Creator website: https://www.reallusion.com/character-creator

Character Creator PBR: https://www.reallusion.com/character-creator/PhysicalBaseRendering.html

Character Creator Export: https://www.reallusion.com/character-creator/exportTo3DRealTimeEngine.htm

TUTORIALS

Optimized for Unreal UE4 -  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FDv_8m_JHDE

Unity Mecanim Compatible - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zf4ezEsgeBI

Mixamo Motions Export - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bNP60wD_jhE

About Reallusion: ​Reallusion Inc. is a 2D and 3D animation software and content developer. Headquartered in Silicon Valley, with R&D centers in Taiwan, and offices and training centers in Germany and Japan. Reallusion specializes in the development of real­time 2D and 3D cinematic animation tools for consumers, students and professionals. The company provides users with easy to use avatar animation, facial morphing and voice lip­sync solutions for real-­time 3D filmmaking, and previsualization for professional post ­production. Reallusion's core technologies are widely used by trainers, educators, gamers and filmmakers providing them with stand­alone movie studio packages. http://www.reallusion.com

Thank you for reading! Synapse Circuit / Blue Gene

NOIZEFIELD KICK-MACHINE SYNAPSE CIRCUIT REVIEW

SYNAPSE CIRCUIT 

NOIZEFIELD KICK-MACHINE

$FREE REVIEW!

#VST #VirtualStudioTechnology #Virtual #Studio #Technology #Steinberg #DAW #Instruments #Effects #Electronic #Music #ElectronicMusic #ComputerMusic #MusicTechnology #FutureMusic #Noizefield #Kick #Machine #KickMachine

Synapse Circuit brings you a dedicated kick drum synthesizer from the house of Noizefield! 

KICKING OUT THE BEATS

You and I both know that there's no such thing as having enough drums! Whether it's your ever expanding collection of loops or one-doors, or soft machines… There's always room for more! Getting the right sounding kick to cut through the mix can prove to be troublesome. It helps if you've got the right sounding kick for a particular genre. The advantages that software has over a sample is that you can shape the sound more readily by tweaking the synth parameters. Read on!

KICKING OFF Above: Kick-Machine in action! The DAW is MAGIX Music Maker 2017 Premium.

The presets are nice and varied to span most, if not all, genres of Electronic music. Do you love Gabba? I do. Well, not all of it… … Anyways, there a few kicks that lend themselves to that genre; you know that hallmark distorted sound that makes you feel that you're losing brain matter throttle your nose. C'mon, we've all been there… … We've been at those hardcore clubs…

A THRILL

Yes, indeed! It's easy to tweak the parameters to create the ultimate kick. There are quite a few kick synths out there and Kick-Machine is quite outstanding.

CONCLUSION

It's free! What more can you ask for? That's a trick question! We want it all! We'll get the next one; we'll get the next sample, and the ones after that…

The only thing you have to do is create an account with Noizefield in order to download. You can do it here: Noizefield

SCORE
The Kick-Machine is a must have synth as you'll keep coming back to it; it's solid! .

Kick-Machine scores a decent Synapse Circuit Gold!

You can download it here: Kick-Machine
Enjoy!

Thank you for reading! Synapse Circuit / Blue Gene

COCKOS REAPER SYNAPSE CIRCUIT REVIEW

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COCKOS REAPER 5.40

$60 DISCOUNTED LICENSE $225 STANDARD LICENCE REVIEW!

#VST #VirtualStudioTechnology #Virtual #Studio #Technology #Steinberg #DAW #Instruments #Effects #Electronic #Music #ElectronicMusic #ComputerMusic #MusicTechnology #FutureMusic #LeslieSanford #Leslie #Sanford #Cobalt

Synapse Circuit brings you what looks like an unbeatable DAW in Reaper!

NEXT TO FREE DIGITAL AUDIO WORKSTATION!

I don't know if you've​ noticed but there's a great deal of digital audio workstations on the market. Some are available free on the Interweb and then there are commercially available ones from the likes of MAGIX, Steinberg, Cakewalk, and many others! Cockos Reaper comes out like a hand from the heavens reaching musicians all-over the world. Reaper was born on the Interweb but, unlike other Web based software projects, it has taken off… BIG TIME! Let's take a look…Read on!

EFFECTIVE

As well as being cost effective at a discounted $60 licence, it's next to free as you will get a prompt to purchase a license when it's launched. It is fully functional. Even at $225, Reaper appears to be a steal.

What I like about Reaper is that it is less than 15MB to download and takes up about 50MB after the installation. It's ready to go! It can even be run from a flash drive! Cool! Reaper is configured in accordance to your PC soundcard. No need to make any adjustments. I find that quite impressive as MAGIX Music Maker Premium was quite fiddly to configure on an AMD based rig. Above: The sparse but highly functional Reaper interface.

INTERFACE

As interfaces go, Reaper looks pretty good. The layout is very self-explanatory, and, for the most part, quite intuitive. Me? I don't like reading manuals unless I have to. Adding a VST Instrument on a track and adding notes via the MIDI interface was easy!

Unlike the aforementioned MAGIX Music Maker Premium, and other DAWs, Reaper isn't preloaded with a bunch of instrumentation. There are about 27 VST and JS effects. It kind of makes sense to not include Instruments as Cockos, the creators of Reaper, expects users to be in possession of a myriad of Instruments​ (and effects). This DAW is aimed at the serious music producer, yet it is within reach of the bedroom producer. This is what sets Reaper apart from the more established DAWs on the market.

Reaper's nearest competition that springs to mind is, yes, MAGIX Samplitude Pro X3 (I hope to bring you a review soon), which costs £300 for the standard version or £750 for the suite that's currently on sale for £450! So, it looks like Reaper is a very attractive prospect for producers of all abilities. With the money saved, depending on what option you go for, there should be enough money left over to get a decent synth or two, plus effects for mastering, etc. I must look into cost effective mastering effects soon. There again, the standard of freely available VST instruments and effects is astounding! Not only that, there are many developers out there who are creating great mastering effects for a very reasonable price.

AESTHETICS

Reaper looks good and has skins to change the overall colour scheme. It's not like, say, MAGIX Music Maker Premium for example, in that it's colourful with a modernized aesthetic. In comparison, Reaper looks rather dull. However, Reaper is highly functional in ways that MAGIX Music Maker Premium is not. For example, it's possible to modify various aspects of the graphical user interface by using a script. I won't go into detail as you can learn how to modify the GUI via the Reaper website: www.reaper.fm

And let's not forget that Reaper is aimed at the serious music producer and there are other functions that are not available in MAGIX Music Maker Premium such as VCA track grouping. What? Basically, you can group a number of tracks and control these tracks with a single VCA master. As a result, you can create sub mixes. It's very flexible and powerful.

Above: Automation in Reaper and options.

When it comes to automation, Reaper is very, very straightforward in that you load a synth or effect and by going to the automation settings you can then select “Touch” or “Latch” - in addition to others - and proceed to move a knob or slider on the Instrument/effect and record those moments in real-time. Once the knob/slider movements have been recorded they can be played back as part of the composition. Whereas with Music Maker Premium, there are no options for “Touch” or “Latch” automation; these parameters can only be drawn in the MIDI editor interface. Don't misunderstand me, it doesn't mean that Music Maker is less capable, it's just that you have to work in a slightly less efficient manner.

NO FUSS VST

Unlike Music Maker Premium, Reaper isn't fussy about accepting VST instruments and effects - at least during my test time! I didn't encounter an instrument not functioning as it should. Not only that, Reaper locates all the VST instruments and effects from the start; there's no need to keep updating the VST location each and every time a new VST is added. That's a remarkable bit of programming that saves a lot of time.

CONCLUSION

Reaper is on its own when it comes to value for money and professional features. Again, other DAWs that cost around £20 less than the discounted license is guaranteed to have a limited feature set that will appeal to a particular user base. Whereas, Reaper can cover a wide range of users from the bedroom producer right up to seasoned professionals working in a studio environment. Yet, at the same time, Reaper's interface may not appeal to producers who rely upon sample loops for composition.

The sample loop driven DAW is not aimed at musicians and is lacking features. No. I'm not dismissing such DAWs as toys - such applications have a place. That said, MAGIX Music Maker - especially the Petition version - straddles both sample loops and musicians remarkably well.

In contrast, Reaper is perfect for traditional and computer musicians.

SCORE Given that you have the option to a discounted license at $60 while you're working on making your music pay, Reaper is unbeatable!

It's constantly being updated; it seems that Reaper gets updated at least every two weeks. I downloaded a version a couple of weeks ago and then when I launched it today, 17th April 2017, there was an update! The updates aren't solely for the purpose of increased stability, uh-uh! The updates add new attributes that increases the usefulness of Reaper even more!

Reaper scores a super Synapse Circuit Platinum!

You can download it here: Reaper
Enjoy!

Thank you for reading! Synapse Circuit / Blue Gene

LESLIE SANFORD COBALT SYNAPSE CIRCUIT REVIEW

 SYNAPSE CIRCUIT 

LESLIE SANFORD

COBALT $FREE REVIEW!

#VST #VirtualStudioTechnology #Virtual #Studio #Technology #Steinberg #DAW #Instruments #Effects #Electronic #Music #ElectronicMusic #ComputerMusic #MusicTechnology #FutureMusic #LeslieSanford #Leslie #Sanford #Cobalt

Synapse Circuit brings you another great VST synthesizer in the form of...

COBALT OUT OF THE BLUE

You may be well aware of the plethora of free VST instruments and effects on the Web; you may also be aware that many of these freebies can be badly programmed. Great ideas and wonderful looking synths/effects poorly realized can have an adverse effect on your productivity. Nothing worse than a beautiful sounding synth that keeps causing your DAW to crash. Read on!

Behold… Leslie Sanford delivers a Cobalt out of the blue…

Do not worry if, as a novice, that the above means little or nothing to you. It is more important to get in there have mess around. That’s how you learn! I created a patch by fooling around, saved it and recalled it.

Above: Little Cobalt, big Cobalt.

IN AWE

Whenever I install what promises to be a decent free VST instrument or effect, I cross my fingers in the hope that it doesn't crash my DAW. It's worth noting that I'm using MAGIX Music Maker Premium in my ongoing tests. I recommend that you test these VST plugins with different DAWs; what crashes one DAW works perfectly well in others!

Well, that's the nature of these things. In the not too distant future, I'll be reviewing other DAWs! Stay tuned…

I'm happy to say that Cobalt is wonderfully realized. It was created to emulate classic synths of the 80s. Gosh! Cobalt sounds phenomenal!

SWEETNESS

The presets sound fantastic! Sweet! The bass instruments are varied, leads cuts the air like shrapnel flying through the air, and the pads are lush!

Those sounds can be used in any music genre. It's easy to program too! Cobalt is a must have!

SCORE
The graphical user interface (GUI) could have been better but the sounds are delicious! .

Cobalt scores a well-deserved Synapse Circuit Gold!

You can download it here: Cobalt
Enjoy!

Thank you for reading! Synapse Circuit / Blue Gene

NOIZEFIELD BOUNCE SYNAPSE CIRCUIT REVIEW

 SYNAPSE CIRCUIT 

NOIZEFIELD BOUNCE $FREE REVIEW!

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

Synapse Circuit has great pleasure in bringing you yet another great synth, and it's FREE! 

MORE BOUNCE TO THE OUNCE

Bounce is a 6 oscillators subtractive synthesizer… OK, whatever that means… Ha ha! But seriously… It is designed for EDM, House, Future House, Dance, Melbourne Bounce, Trance and Dubstep other styles of Electronic music. In other words, the preset sounds are geared towards the genres mentioned above. The truth is that you can tweak the oscillators and other parameters to create your own unique patches. Read on!

For the technically minded, look below. If you are not technically minded then look below!

6 oscillators (Four oscillators with 32 waveforms each and two oscillators are wavedraw

oscillators), inclusive Phase, FM and RM and XMod.

Sync option for the osc 1-4.

Multimode - Filter (LP,HP,BP).

Noise generator (White Noise).

4 Envelopes (One amp and three modulation envelopes (Pitch/Filter/FM).

2 tempo-synced LFOs.

Effects: Chorus, Equalizer, Decimator, Reverb, Fatner.

Portamento for gliding sounds.

Do not worry if, as a novice, that the above means little or nothing to you. It is more important to get in there have mess around. That’s how you learn! I created a patch by fooling around, saved it and recalled it.

Above: The saving and retrieval of a patch. Oh, when you save a patch (a synth sound) based on one of the presets, you can’t revert back to the original sound. In order to revert to the original sound you have to reload the Bounce. This is a minor irritation that doesn’t spoil the whole deal. Also, whatever you have named the new sound that you have created does not show up on the interface. Odd! So, that’s two minor irritants. SCORE
If not for the two minor irritations I would have liked to have given Bounce a possible Platinum. The interface looks good, the parameters can be easily modified to create new and compelling sounds, and it presented no problems in that it did not cause the MAGIX Music Maker DAW (digital audio workstation), used for the test, to crash. It is well programmed.

Bounce scores a super Synapse Circuit Gold!

You can download it here: Noizefield Bounce

Enjoy!

Thank you for reading! Synapse Circuit / Blue Gene