CodeFN42 - Chordz making harmony easier than ever

Some time ago CodeFN42 released a midi chord effect called 'Cales' and I spoke about it here.

It was quite a good little tool, however, they have now taken it to the next level by releasing a VST plugin called 'Chordz' which is really great. It fixes all the little points which were missing before.

Chordz is a VST plugin that allows you to trigger full chords by playing single notes.

Each trigger note is associated with a separate chord. Each chord may consist of any number of notes. Play complicated chord progressions with one finger, with a MIDI keyboard or a drum-pad, or trigger chords from single notes added in your DAW's piano roll.

You can give a human feel by altering the start point and/or velocity of each note, which can also be randomized to give a very natural sound to the chords.

Chordz comes with more than 40 scale/chord templates, and a chord library with more than 50 chord types. You can add your own custom templates, and new chord types by editing the relevant text file. And you can, of course, customize the chords directly in the GUI.

It's available for Windows XP/Vista/7/8/10. VST2 compatible 32-bit or 64-bit host and can be downloaded FOR FREE at CodeFN42 here.

They explain (really useful point) how to connect in most major DAW's (Ableton is explained here). I placed an Arpeggiator in line with it for some great idea generation.

TDR Nova

I love Tokyo Dawn plugins. They give quality sounds and the introductory versions are free. The new NOVA is no exception to the rule.

Nova is a parallel dynamic equalizer. Appearing in the familiar layout of a parametric equalizer, each band also includes a full featured dynamics section allowing the processor to cover an impressively wide range of applications.

A user friendly WYSIWYG drag and drop display paired with a classic 'knob' interface gives quick and smooth access to the various parameters driving NOVA’s powerful processing capabilities. With its four dynamic EQ bands and additional high-pass and low-pass filter sections, NOVA can meet the most exotic demand. Intuitive equal loudness functions help finding the optimal setting without getting distracted by loudness differences.

In practice, the processor covers a whole bucket of tasks:

• Parametric equalization

• Dynamic equalization

• Frequency selective compression/expansion

• Multi-band compression/expansion

• Wideband compression

Of course NOVA features all helpers and workflow enhancements you've come to expect in a TDR plugin: A preset manager, undo/redo, A/B, detailed documentation, copy & paste, and much more.

You can get your hands on Nova here

Staying in Key made even easier

Following my post from yesterday, this may be an even easier way to ensure that you are always playing notes from the right key.

CodeFN42 have released a FREE VST plugin called Cales.

Cales is a VST plugin that allows you to map your keyboard’s keys to a musical scale. This will ensure that you will always stay in key, and never hit a wrong note.

When "easy mode" is enabled, you can play any scale using only the white keys with "C" always being the tonic (or "root" note).

More than 20 scales are included, and you can easily add your own custom scales.
Get Cales here.

Free pack from Ableton

Break Selection is a collection of Vintage Drum Breaks including 175 drum loops produced by Sample Magic.

It contains drum kit and hi-hat loops recorded in the very best high-end studios with rare mics, pre-amps and vintage outboard equipment.

The grooves have been meticulously laid down by some of the industry's top players for an authentic feel and vibe across the board. Modern and retro combinations of equipment, mic placements and mixing techniques have been utilized to re-create the very best drum sounds from the decades. This pack is free; you must own Live 9 to use it.

Native Instruments makes a Santa special delivery

Native Instruments is giving away a bunch of cool FREE stuff - including a really useful delay - until Dec 31.

REPLIKA packs two professional quality delays and a powerful diffusion algorithm into a sleek, streamlined interface. Simple to use with a resonant filter and classic phaser built in.
REPLIKA is a versatile delay for anything from subtle slapback to warped sheets of noise. Available for PC or Mac.

Slate Digital - Virtual Mix Rack

Slate Digital have come out with a Virtual Mix Rack which operates as a virtual 500 series rack with hot-swappable modules. It includes four mix modules, including two classic eq's and two mix compressors. More modules will follow.

As a nice temptation SD are offering a FREE module called Revival. Revival borrows aspects of tubes, tape, transformers, and world class analog filters to create two processes.

There is a nice VU-Meter (lit when unit is active) that displays the output signal level. Unfortunately there is no input signal level setting.

The Shimmer control plays with the high-end of the signal and can be used to add air, brightness and clarity. The Thickness control works on the low-end to fatten just about anything up.

See a demo of Revival here.

You will need an iLok key to store the licence data for Revival (and Revival's license will never expire), but if you choose to buy the whole Virtual Mix Rack for $149, you get an iLok key included in the price.

I have used Revival on individual tracks and it is quite magical on drums, but it can also be used on your mastering to bring out some details.

Tone2 updates FireBird to V2.1 and sets it free

FireBird 2 is now being offered for free by Tone2 the German company based in Munich.

FireBird is not just a subtractive synthesizer but also uses Harmonic Content Morphing synthesis (HCM) which lets you load waveforms from a library and transpose it to bring out different harmonics. The release also contains 70 additional sounds.

Features

• Very easy to program and easy to use 

• A unique sounding synthesis: Harmonic content morphing (HCM) 

• High sound quality: Warm, transparent 

• 437 hand picked presets included, over 1000 sounds available 

• 84 oscillator types containing 18,000 morphable waveforms 

• 38 different filter types 

• True stereo mode, 4x unison mode, and up to 8 oscillators per voice 

• Can sound like other synthesis methods - additive, subtractive, AM, FM, phase distortion, supersaw, vocoder, sync 

• Can sound like natural instruments like piano, brass, organs... 

• 23 spectral manipulations or “modifiers” can be applied to the oscillators 

• 21 arpeggiator types 

• 13 effect typesSkinable user interface 

You can download from Tone2 here:
https://tone2.com/html/firebird%20vsti%20vst%20synthesizer%20plugin.html

Slick EQ

Here is another wonderful free (hard to believe because this one is so smooth) filtering/saturation plugin. It comes from Tokyo Dawn Records.

Three (and a half) filter-bands arranged in a classic Low/Mid/High semi-parametric layout offer fast and intuitive access to four distinct EQ modes, each representing a set of distinct EQ curves and behaviours. An elaborate auto gain option automatically compensates for changes of perceived loudness during EQ operation. Optionally, SlickEQ allows to exclusively process either the stereo sum or stereo difference (i.e. “stereo width”) without additional sum/difference encoding.

In order to warm up the material with additional harmonic content, SlickEQ offers a switchable EQ non-linearity and an output stage with 3 different saturation models. These options are meant to offer subtle and interesting textures, rather than obvious distortion. The effect is made to add the typical “mojo” often associated with classy audio gear.

You get to choose from four different EQ models – American, British, German or Soviet EQ. In use SlickEQ is very smooth and gives a real warmness to your sound. Absolutely recommended.

Download for free from Tokyo Dawn Records here