Create Better Music, One Plugin at a Time
Roland ZENOLOGY Pro Advanced Techniques: Take Your Sound Design to the Next Level Once you understand the basics of Roland ZENOLOGY Pro, the real fun begins. ZENOLOGY Pro is much more than a preset-based virtual instrument. Underneath its massive collection of sounds is a surprisingly deep synthesis engine that allows you to build, layer, shape, … Read more
How To Use Lunacy BEAM 2.0: A Beginner’s Guide to Creative Multi-Effects If your beats are starting to sound a little too clean, predictable, or familiar, a creative multi-effects plugin can completely change the way you approach sound design. Lunacy BEAM 2.0 is built for exactly that purpose. Rather than loading several separate effects and … Read more
Roland ZENOLOGY Pro Setup Guide for Musicians: How to Install, Configure, and Start Making Music Roland ZENOLOGY Pro gives musicians access to a huge collection of synthesizer sounds inspired by decades of Roland instruments. From warm analog-style pads and basses to digital keys, leads, plucks, bells, and modern synth textures, it can become an incredibly … Read more
Miroslav Philharmonik 2 Review: Is It Worth It for Music Producers? Building convincing orchestral arrangements inside a DAW can be challenging. You need realistic strings, expressive brass, detailed woodwinds, percussion, choirs, and enough articulations to make those instruments feel like they are actually being performed. IK Multimedia Miroslav Philharmonik 2 attempts to put all of … Read more
Roland ZENOLOGY Pro Sound Design Guide: Create Your Own Synth Sounds Roland ZENOLOGY Pro gives producers access to thousands of sounds, but browsing presets is only the beginning of what this synthesizer can do. Once you start digging beneath the presets, you’ll discover a powerful sound-design environment built around Roland’s ZEN-Core Synthesis System. And you … Read more
Roland ZENOLOGY Pro for Beginners: A Complete Getting Started Guide If you’re new to Roland ZENOLOGY Pro, opening it for the first time can be a little intimidating. There are thousands of sounds, multiple synthesis sections, effects, expansions, and enough parameters to keep a producer busy for a very long time. But here’s the good … Read more
Lunacy BEAM 2.0 Review: Is This Creative Multi-Effect Worth It? Modern music production isn’t suffering from a shortage of effects plugins. Most producers already have more reverbs, delays, filters, modulation effects, and distortion plugins than they realistically need. That makes a plugin like Lunacy BEAM 2.0 interesting. Instead of simply giving you another collection of … Read more
Mastering Hip Hop and R&B can feel like a balancing act. You want the record to sound loud, polished, wide, and competitive, but you don’t want to destroy the punch of the drums, bury the 808, flatten the vocals, or remove the dynamics that give the song its groove. The final limiter plays a major … Read more
Limiters are usually associated with mastering. You finish your mix, put a limiter at the end of the mastering chain, increase the level, and try to make the song competitively loud. But that’s only one way to use a limiter. In Hip Hop and R&B production, a good limiter can also be an extremely useful … Read more
SSL X-Limit Review: Is It Worth It for Hip Hop & R&B? Getting a mix loud is easy. Getting it loud without destroying the punch, low end, transients, and overall feel of the record is where things get difficult. That is especially true when producing Hip Hop and R&B. Between hard-hitting kicks, deep 808s, punchy … Read more