Make It Funky: Plugin Round-Up

We've got some wierd and wonderful plugins for you to play with this week, some of which are modelled on vintage gear, others that come straight outta leftfield with a sound all of their own.

First we're going to look at a couple of VSTi that emulate the classic Mellotron - which famously featured on 'Strawberry Fields' amongst others.

Artifake Labs have two versions of 'Tron emulation. Their Redtron 400 features three violins, and eight-voice choir, flute, brass, string section and cello, each with loop on/off modes.

The Redtron MkV emulates one of the rarest Mellotron models, giving you access to what is effectively two Mellotrons working in tandem.

Both plugins are completely free and available from here. The developers also have a decent emulation of the Hohner Pianet N electric piano on the same page. Definitely worth checking out.

Elektrostudio also have a Mellotron plugin as part of their 'Oryg 10 Analog Pack'. It sounds pretty decent and allows you to blend the different voices into one another, which is a nice touch. The pack also contains the Rhythmus plugin, which emulates classic rhythm boxes, with samba, mambo, tango, waltz and rumba type patterns - great for getting some classic sounds out of, even if the full patterns are a bit naff.

You can download the pack, which contains 10 plugins, from here.

Some organ emulations are up next, starting with an excellent Hammond copy from Iliadis.

It's a pretty detailed clone featuring "Clean Sine Drawbars for 2 Manuals and Bass Pedals, 2 Percussion Oscs with the 9 "Standard" Harmonics, a Key Click Imitation, Vibrato/Chorus and Overdrive."

You can download it for free here, along with a superb rotary speaker emulation to complete the vintage effect.

For a slightly different take on the organ sound - veering into Doors territory, how about a Combo Organ emulation?

Combo V from Martinic is a fully-modelled (no samples) clone, with 32 presets and lots of tweakable controls. You can download it here.

Finally a versatile emulation, capable of everything from church organ tones to Farfisa sounds, how about the B8 from Autodafe? This is another freebie, available here.

Finally, we've got a couple of random percussion units for you to try: Shekrs from spacedad accurately captures the sounds of yoghurt pot, loo-roll and paper cup shakers, while Beatvox from Knobster is a beatbox/human percussion instrument.

Both are a bit madcap, but well worth checking out.

Make It Funky: Sound Like Herb

Want to sound like Herbie Hancock? Well this week we've got the best free and paid for tools, from VSTi to sample sets.

And to get you in the mood, check this video of the man himself showing off his Fairlight CMI to Quincy Jones:

So, if you want  to capture the classic sounds of Herbie Hancock, where do you start? Well after that video, why not start with the Fairlight CMI digital sampling synth.

If you don't mind dropping a bit of cash on it, there's a superb emulation from Best Service called Cult Sampler, which retails for 99 Euro and uses the Native Instruments Kompakt engine.

They say:

"This library includes the sounds of the late 70s to the early 80s. Because the samplers at that time suffered from severe limitations in memory capacity (RAM), excess artistic high level sound programming was a must. Pitching and stretching of sounds was obligatory and 8 bit sounds were mostly the standard. This resulted in sounds with very special character. A character that nowadays is missing in our hyper-clean 24 bit / 96 kHz world of almost unlimited RAM.

"The 2000 sounds and multi-samples are perfectly laid out to play on your keyboard. Sounds of early vintage samplers like Orchestron, EMU II, Akai S-612, Ensoniq Mirage, Fairlight, Synclavier, Linn, Mellotron, Master Studio Coll., FZ-1, DSS-1. Each sound and multi-sample was produced on a highly professional level with the original samplers. Also on board are all these classic factory sounds."

Get yours here.

There is an alternative way to get your hands on those tasty vintage sampler sounds - gcoudert over at the EmusOnAcid forum has posted his full collection of Fairlight samples. Go here to download, the packs contain everything from percussion to FX, analogue synths to strings.

Herbie also famously used the Arp Odyssey synth.

The daddy of Odyssey emulations has to be Oddity from G-Force, which retails for 99 Euro. But once again there is a free alternative, in the shape of the remarkably good sounding Oddy-Free, which you can download here.

And finally, to complete the legendary keyboard collection? Well you're going to need some smooth electric piano and sharp, biting clav sounds.

Mr Ray VSTi from GSI does a great synthesised piano, and you can get it as part of the free donationware pack here. It includes: four types of pickups for Rhodes Mark I, Mark II, Wurlitzer and FM (DX7) simulation, adjustable pickup symmetry and distance, mallet hardness and hammer noise, a wah-wah effect, distortion and other effects.

If you take your electric piano seriously and have a few quid to spare, you should also consider the highly aclaimed Lounge Lizard from Applied Acoustics. It costs just over $200, but the sound is an incredible emulation of Rhodes and Wurlitzer pianos. You can read more and buy it here.

E-Piano from MDA is another good freebie, which uses a carefully sampled Rhodes to devastating effect. You can find it on their VST synths page here.

Finally, the Big Tick Ticky Clav is great for all your Clavinet needs. You can get it for free from here, all you need to do is give them your email address.

So get in the studio and get creating. Send your tracks, WIPs and studio kit recommendations to blog@nufunk.net

Make It Funky: Bass

A solid bassline is the foundation of funk, be it Nu, Old or merely middle-aged.

So here at NuFunk.net we're going to point you towards some of the best free resources to keep your bottom end super phat.

First up some very nice multi-sampled electric basses.

Soundsnap has a mean Fender Jazz set, lovingly recorded by 'Soundgram Post'.

Over at the Freesound Project, jdstarrett has put together a nice set of contrabass sounds recorded from an 'Electric Six' bass. Grab it here.

Also on Freesound, there's a nice fretless pack compiled by FaireDesVagues, which you can download here.

But electric bass is only one way to skin the cat - how about some synths for those hard-hitting trouser-flapping b-lines?

De La Mancha's 'Subfreak' is a great freebie - simple interface, not too many controls, but a solid little sub-bass generator. Grab it and check out his other excellent plugs here.

Andreas Ersson has created the 'Iblit' synth, which is monophonic with 3 oscillators, pulse and sawtooth waveforms, a noise generator, a 24dB/octave LP/HP filter, two LFOs and loads of other features. But most important of all, it sounds great. Grab it here.

Cakewalk's Triangle 2 is another great sounding synth, capable of some really funky 70s-style Moogy synth basses. Get yours here.

Finally, if a mad wobble is the flavour you're after, why not try Angular Momentum's 'Analog Warfare'? It has two analog-modelled oscillators, three independent amp envelopes three filters each with their own envelope, two BPM-synced LFO's with many sources and 2x78 destinations.

With a total of 234 routing options, it's a semi-modular monster, capable of some devastating sounds.

Check it out here.