Plug-ins

Dubstep is a fairly new style of electronic music that’s dominated by sparse, reverberated beats and overpowering synthesized bass lines. In most forms of music, bass is pushed toward the back of the mix, but in Dubstep, it’s the unchallenged star of the show.

The eXplorer II bundle from Rob Papen delivers a very rounded collection of multi platform and multi format plug-ins for electronic music production. The bundle features nine components including various synthesizer types and effects. In this fifteen minute video, the presenter delivers a quick but detailed tour of each plug-in, along with some useful audio examples.

With the right software knowledge, you can do anything. So begins Tony Sweet’s two-hour seminar on digital processing using a variety of software solutions from Nik Software, Topaz Labs and more. As Sweet points out, composition is critical to start with, but after that all bets are off.

Software manufacturers are constantly looking for ways to improve their products, and with advances in audio-to-graphics technology, we’ve seen several new products recently that represent audio elements as colors in some form or another. One of these is R-MIX from Roland. 

When you’re shooting a video or recording music, it’s generally considered taboo to rely on fixing problems in post, rather than getting them right the first time. After all, if you record something properly, there will be no need to fix it later. 

iZotope has long been known for its work in audio analysis and restoration using sophisticated spectrograms, a unique and very successful visual based methodology. Using this as a starting point, the company has turned its attention to sound creation.

Though I was raised and grazed on film I have no qualms admitting I haven’t shot a roll of the stuff since August 2001 (with a Nikon N90 and Fujifilm Astia in case you’re curious). I appreciate film, respect film and certainly miss the disciplined aspects of shooting film, but at the end of the day I’m perfectly happy with digital imaging, warts and all. 

Not all that long ago, if you mentioned photographic filters to the amateur photographer it was assumed you were talking about traditional glass filters, specifically the round type that screws into the front of the lens.

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