Been producing for several years now (for fun) and have decided to go 100% legit on production software, meaning not using pirated software (not trying to incriminate myself so not to say that I necessarily had been). I’ve been considering this for a while and was inspired by IMSTA to actually do it.
My setup is pretty basic and I’d like to continue to buy new stuff as I go and support the developers and the community going forward.
I recently bought Serum and own Sony Acid Pro. Have an XR-20 drum machine and some midi keyboards.
Fortunately there are a lot of decent free plugins and samples. Computer Music magazine is a great source for that.
I think it’s good to learn on all the top stuff, but ethically and in the spirit of personal / artistic integrity I’ve come to a point where I’m ready to just do my thing just and work with what my budget allows.
Free Synths I love:
Firebird2 by Tone2
TAL Noisemaker (and all their cool freewares)
Uhe TyrellN6 (and all free Uhe Stuffs)
FMetal (for Dubstep Basses, 32bit only)
Synth1 (Awesome synth even though the GUI is not great. 25000 free presets are available as well)
OBXd
Drums:
Drumatic 3
Fxpansion Geist Lite (free with beat EDM Inferno)
Sampler:
Grace by One Small Clue (Very intuitive)
Fx:
Guitar Rig Player
Amplitube Free
MFree Effects Bundle
Audio Damage Fuzzplus3, Rough Rider
TDR Nova (Parametric EQ)
And all HY Plugins (Especially HY-Reso)
There are some more but these are the ones i use the most.
seriously though its likely a good idea. a friend got offered loads of free stuff on ableton by a staff member as he works in music tech and promised to email his ableton id… kinda impossible with a piratrd version. They are more stable and regular updates etc
If it weren’t for piracy and using gear in ways we are not supposed to we wouldn’t have the music we like or the programs we have right now.
It’s almost the only guideline big software houses have.
To put it in completely black and white terms: All the newfound effects and all progress in this field happen with some sort of freeware first and then later a big software co will pick up similar effect and put it into expensive software.
Obviously it’s good that freelance programmers can get a paid job in ‘software’. But the software companies ARE VERY BAD at comming up with stuff. If it was up to them everything would just be like NI or Mac where updates are hardly updates.
Programmers on the other hand don’t like sample players and retro effects. But the industry basicly gets to hold its own by suffocating the market with crap Novelty like that.
It’s not hardware we are talking about but software here, and its necessary to make the distinction. Software was free to begin with and the best stuff is free. Like reaper.
Hardware stands almost no chance of ever becomming really cool again. If we believed that hardware was meant for electroinic music and they took us seriously and wasnt just trying to sell us old expensive retro studio equipment - then someone WOULD have made a computer just for music production. But neither Microsoft or Macintosh would stand for that - and the software and hardware co’s just continue to suck their dicks.
They are the most interested in no progress and all the control.
The fuckers’ whole scene need to die and we need to kill them.
hardware is cool—Look at the explosion of small modular companies in the last few years. If I had the option now, I’d probably got for a make noise erbe verb over fabfilter pro-r if I had the choice.
larger software companies respond to popular trends in music as much as they shape them. If you fail to recognize how the workflow inherent in a given piece of software (or hardware) shapes the countless creative decisions you make whenever you sit down to write music, or design a synth patch or whatever, then you should probably start asking yourself why you’re making those creative decisions in the first place.
The only reason you think the layout of most subtractive synths makes sense to you is because early synth manufacturers decided to put things like envelope controls after the oscillators on the interface. that’s not how envelope generators work.
I dont think that is a very healthy approach either tbh. (Although I agree with most of it.)
Point would be to use gear the way you intend and can get results from.
People making these synths are not the same as the ones would use them the best. It’s way more the opposite.
Take their gear and misuse it. Programmers or developers are not musicians but people that want you to notice how nuanced the difference is between a 6, 12, 18 and 24 filter. Whereas a musicians would just the pick the one that growled the most, if that was the intention.
oh thanks! I didn’t know about that ACID got sold. The reason I still use it is because I bought ACID a few years ago and I’m pretty good with it. Was inspired by Rusko’s video where he uses it.
I like the metering on ACID and the workflow is really fast and simple. Now, I just use it primarily for mastering though, because its a lot cleaner than FL studio.
I tried Reaper and liked it, but decided to go with FL studio because its got the mobile app that syncs with the desktop. Now that I’ve been using it, I like FL studio’s simple automation controls.
hehe…