• ProToolerBlog has a large list of 27+ resources for free Kontakt sounds
• Rekkerd has over 35 sources for free Kontakt sounds

If you’ve got other suggestions, leave a comment below!

This set of videos, via SynthManiaDotCom, offers a video review and tutorial for the classic Casio CZ-101.

While the CZ-101 is a minisynth, it can create some massive sounds, as these videos demonstrate.

via isopod: Brent talks about the mystery of self-programming synths – the fact that old batteries sometimes lead to synth patches that are actually pretty cool.

A lot of people take an Eno-esque view – that the quirky results can lead to something more interesting than you might program yourself, or at least provide an interesting starting point.

Many TB-303 owners find that they get interesting random sequences, too, when their batteries get old.

Have you ever had this happen with one of your synths? And do you think synths should come with a “Randomize Patch” button?

This three-part Propellerhead Reason 4 tutorial looks at using Thor as a switchable filter.

via SirSedricMusic:

This is a quick look at using the Thor Polysonic Synthesizer as a Switchable Filter in Reason 4, using Combinator assignments.

To save time, I’m assuming you already know a thing or two about Reason;

1) You know how to create Combinators and assign Reason controls to hardware controls.

2) You know how to route devices within a Combinator.

3) You have a general understanding of the principles which drive Reason.

If you don’t know any of these things, do some searching. There are many great tutorials out there, and with a little patience you’re sure to find some to get you started. Try the PropellerheadsSW channel, they have some decent stuff to get you started.

In this particular tutorial I’m using a ReDrum as the audio source for simplicities sake. I’m just trying to give everyone a good idea of the concept behind this so we can cover some more interesting and fun stuff in parts 2 and 3.

My apologies in advance for the noisy audio, I had to record this using my built-in mic. Future tutorials will have better audio, I promise.

LInks;
-008’s Vinyl Crates Refill (where I got the drum sounds in this video) -

http://008blog.blogspot.com/2009/06/0…

Synthesizer Programming – Episode 5 – Bell sound

via Thalassa77:

How to create a bell sound using FM modulation. The parameters values are approx. Values are expressed in %. The synthesizer is synth1 a free vst synthesizer but you can get similar sounds using similar parameters with other synts ( hardware or software )

If you like this video remember to subscribe to be updated of my new uploads

The Waldorf microQ synthesizer was derived from the Waldorf Q Synthesizer and packed into a 2u rack housing.

These audio demos feature Waldorf MicroQ synth sounds created and programmed by morpheus2027 that showcase the MicroQ’s versatility, with an emphasis on modern dance sounds.

Click here to view the embedded video.

This is a great demo of the classic Yamaha DX7 – this shows that there’s a lot more to the DX7 than fake Fender Rhodes sounds and 80’s synth strings.

via Jexus

The Greeg Minimogue VA Soundset contains 27 presets – suited for Electro, House, Electronica genres but you can also find some organs and harmonica sounds.

Details and audio demos are available at the VST Cafe site.

If you’ve used the Greeg Minimogue VA Soundset, leave a comment with your thoughts!

Preve has created hundreds of presets since 2004, and has a new single out that makes use of some of those sonic possibilities, combining Operator with juicy spectral and granular effects in Live 7.

“The essence of the original 808 Cowbell consisted of four simultaneous sawtooth waves at the following frequencies: 1.94 kHz, 1.37 kHz, 835 Hz, 555 Hz. By using the all-carrier Operator algorithm, fixed tuning, and a lot of tinkering with the envelopes, I was able to pretty much nail the original sound. From there, it was just a matter of creating a a bunch of Macros to manipulate as the groove developed.”

You need Live 7 & a copy of Operator to check this out.

Download here.

Grzegorz has released a free soundset for the Novation V-Station:

Here it is, my first public released soundbank. It contains 16 Electronica / House / Electro Sounds for Novation V-Station softsynth.

If you like try out the patches, please leave him some feedback at his site!

Download: Greeg Novation V-Station Soundset (.zip)

This video explores creating a Jarre-style “laser harp” sound using a Korg MicroKorg.

via cmatsuoka:

This is my first attempt at creating a program for the microkorg, so I picked up a sound that is easily recognizable. This is certainly not the best Synthex “laser harp” sound recreation around, but it should provide a good start for tweaks and improvements.

The idea should work with any two-oscillator analog or analog-modeled synthesizer with oscillator sync, filtering and some kind of pitch envelope for the sync sweep.

Actual values used in each parameter are shown in parentheses.

This is a preview video for the newly remastered Vako Orchestron Disc – Saxophone.

Description:

Now available for PRE-ORDER! The first of our newly remastered Orchestron discs, SAXOPHONE. As soon as we have 15 pre-orders, we’ll go to press and start shipping. It’s unlikely that there will be sufficient demand to do a second run of 25 of these discs, so your best bet is to buy as many of these as you need while you can! Any future additional copies will most likely be done as one-offs, which are twice as expensive to produce, and thus will cost twice as much.

PLEASE NOTE: This disc WILL NOT play properly in an Optigan! They WILL play, but the sounds will NOT be mapped correctly to the keyboard- they will be mapped mostly haphazardly across the chord buttons. Please don’t order this disc expecting to easily use it in an Optigan. In the future we will be porting the Orchestron sounds to the Optigan- please be patient!

This is not a simple photocopy of an original vintage Orchestron disc, it’s completely re-mastered and re-created from scratch, using the original sounds from the Orchestron master tapes. In other words, this disc won’t sound 100% exactly like the original discs in every tiny detail.

Specifically:

• Since there’s usually no way to precisely identify the exact 2-second excerpt that was originally used from each sustained note on the master tapes (some of which can be 8-10 seconds long), we’ve simply chosen 2-second excerpts that sounded good in our editing situation.
• Our Saxophone disc has a little less low-end and a bit more high-end than the original. These can both be easily adjusted with EQ if you’re trying to precisely duplicate the overall tonality of the original discs.
• The loop joints on our disc are very smooth and for the most part don’t pop/thud the way the originals do.
• We’ve staggered the loop joints evenly across the disc (instead of placing them all at 12 o’clock), so that no two notes hit their loop joint at the same time.
• Some of our discs may have very slight periodic crosstalk on some notes (mostly noticeable on higher notes), owing to miniscule variations in the center hole punching tolerance. Said crosstalk should be well within the acceptable limits that Orchestron users are accustomed to.

 
So, will our disc satisfy the absolute purist? Probably not, and we won’t attempt to argue otherwise. But despite the differences, to the more casual player our disc sounds very much like the original. We’re confident that you’ll love the sound and quality of this disc, but if you’re not totally satisfied, we’re happy to offer a 100% money-back guarantee. This is a labor of love for us, and we want to make sure you feel the love too!

Since the original discs came in plain white jackets, so will ours. We will be replicating the original printed paper sleeves- spelling/grammar errors and all.

Soon we will have all eight of the original Orchestron discs remastered, as well as a few brand new titles. Stay tuned!

The Remastered Vako Orchestron Disc – Saxophone is $99.99 at Shoptigan.

This video is an overview of a new Optigan disk, Mod Rock.

Description:

It’s a mod, mod world and you know you’re a mod rocker. Now you can prove it to your friends and family when you play the Optigan Music Maker with the new Mod Rock program disc.

Press the buttons with a left finger. What is that you hear? Drums, organ, guitar, bass! Who would have believed it? And it’s you playing it! Wow! And wait till you see what you can do with your right hand!

You’ll enjoy the Mod Rock program disc even more when you use it to play the contemporary songs that you’ll find in the Optigan Music books. Pick some up today!

MOD ROCK is the first in our series of Optigan discs newly mastered from the original source tapes. There are many sessions on the tapes that were never made into Optigan discs back in the 1970s. MOD ROCK was actually made into a prototype disc, but for some unknown reason it was never released. Two copies of the original prototype are known to exist.

This disc is not a simple “photocopy” of a prototype disc- it’s been completely remastered and recreated from scratch. The disc comes in a full-color jacket featuring artwork created by Mark Crafford especially for this disc.

The initial edition is limited to 25 copies. 

Mod Rock is $92.99 via the Shoptigan store.

This video demonstrates how to patch Benny Benassi’s signature synth sound from Bring The Noise, using the Thor Synthesizer in Propellerhead Reason 4.

Description:

Instructions for this video

• Take the “Yeah Yeah” synth and on the second oscillator change the semi from 4 to 7.
• Next add a RV-7 Digital Reverb and choose the large hall setting set the dry/wet to 12
• Create a Mclass Compressor and set the threshold all the way to the left, the ratio all the way to the right, the attack all the way to the left, and the release all the way to the right. select the “soft knee” button
• Instructions for “Yeah Yeah” Synth:
• First create a Thor synthesizer
• Set the polyphony to 4
• And the release polyphony to 1
• Now select mono retrig under keyboard modes
• Select on for the portamento
• Now click show programmer so we can actually get this synth rolling
• In the first oscillator leave it as an analog and move the octave to 3
• Now turn the little knob below tune and make sure its a t OSC 1 PW 64
• On Oscillator 2 add another Analog Oscillator, the octave should be set at 4 and the semi should be set at 4
• Set the tune knob to 11
• Once again turn the knob under tune and set it to OSC 2 PW 64
• Now add a third Analog oscillator.
• The octave will be 2
• This time switch the type of synth from the downhill line to the squiggly one
• And turn the knob under tune to OSC 3 PW 64On your low pass Ladder Filter make sure 123 are selectedNow lets move over to the filter envelope
• Set a to 1.9 d to 349 s to -48.2 and R to 705
• On the amp envelope set a to 1.2 d to 349 s to 0 and r to 1.09
• Now we are going to make the sound change for your modulation wheel, for source go to performance and click mod wheel, set the amount to 64, and for destination go to filter 1 filter frequency
• Now add a BV512 Vocader switch the fft knob to 4 band and switch the knob from vocader to equalizer
• Switch the decay to 127Move the shift to -30move the hf emph to o and the dry wet to 127
• Now create a RV7000 Advanced Reverb and select all warm plate
• Now enable the eq
• Set the decay to 0 the HF damp to 25 the hi eq to -4 and the dry wet to 18
• Now create an mclass equalizer and selct the 30 hz lo cut buttonOn the lo shelf set the frequency to 106.2 and the gain to 1.7
• Now select the button on param 1 and set the frequency to 114.9
• The gain to 4.6 and the q to 4.9Next create a mclass maximizer and set the input gain to 6
• Select the 4ms look ahead buttonSet the second fast button to auto
• And switch the peak button to vu

via luckydatevideos

At the BigCityMusic booth, Jürgen Michaelis  -  the man behind analogue synth & drum machine manufacturer Jomox - demos the Resonator Neuronium.

Jürgen originally created the Resonator Neuronium as an art project, but ended up building several dozen more for others.

This video is a quick patch tutorial by Elan Hickler. 

Not mentioned in the video:

• The envelope controlling the lowpass filter is set with high attack, decay, sustain, and release.
• The pitch VC to the lowpass filter is inverted but heavily attenuated.
• No resonance and the notch filter was turned all the way down.

This is a demo of a few patches on a one-panel Serge modular synth with 2 M-odules: “Seq-A” and the “Creature”.

via Felix Inferious

One of the defining sounds of 60’s electronic music created with the Buchla instruments, the electronic bongo is re-created using modern euro-rack format synthesizer modules such as the Quad Multi-Mode Gate.

via Make Noise

Roland V-Synth Capabilities

Description:

This Is the Demo of the Roland V-Synth, demonstrating that the V-Synth is capable of producing both wild new sounds and classic synth sounds.

Kit Watkins Minimoog Patch

Click here to view the embedded video.

Keith Emerson Moon Chord Patch

Click here to view the embedded video.

Keith Emerson Tarkus Patch

Click here to view the embedded video.

Trilogy Minimoog Patch

Click here to view the embedded video.