What are your favorite keys and pads to use right now

Need some fresh sounds? Want to show off your sound design skills? Here's the place!
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Jmax
Posts: 665
Joined: 03 Apr 2015

28 May 2015

Currently I'm finding myself playing a lot of the Antidote default keys, some beautiful patches.  And going to the Rob Pritchard VAST and other refills for the thicker pads. Does anyone know if he's still making Refills or working on anything? His sound is next to none.  What are you guys doing? I've also been getting into predator a lot its such a great way to start off a track and also has so many rich patches.

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FGL
Posts: 412
Joined: 23 Jan 2015

28 May 2015

I think at this link you will found something:

http://www.reasontalk.com/post/the-exqu ... ?&trail=25

And to what I know Tom Pritchard is active and comes with something new from time to time.

tibah
Posts: 903
Joined: 16 Jan 2015

28 May 2015

No favorites, just what I think is a solid arsenal of good sounds.

Most of my sounds are for NN-XT. Soundcells, Bitley, Bitword and the FSB as main resources. This is something I got into when my computer was very *meh* and I couldn't go crazy with DSP heavier stuff and I kept it, even with a newer machine. I prefer using the sampler sounds over the Combinator patches for the simple reason of shaping the sounds with the effects I want to use. Re-Tron has some nice patches that are getting used along as a layer at times. That said, I don't like "your average pad sound here", which means I use effects like Neutron, Uhbik-G, Polar and Echobode heavily. 

As for synths, I like the PZP Parsec 200 ReFill quite a lot. Unusual stuff, nice for poly/pad sounds. Sampler patches can be static, so having that synth pad in there which has some movement or is changing its texture completely, like Parsec can easily do, is a nice diversion. 

As I'm also shifting my working method towards sampling/audio editing, I have a huge arsenal of decent musical REX loops that I mangle to make them my own. Since you can load single slices into NN-XT and detect the pitch, you can easily turn them into a playable patch with little work. You could also load the same loop into the different OctoRex slots and tune each loop differently and play progressions and melodies that way. :)

Jmax
Posts: 665
Joined: 03 Apr 2015

28 May 2015

tibah wrote:No favorites, just what I think is a solid arsenal of good sounds.

Most of my sounds are for NN-XT. Soundcells, Bitley, Bitword and the FSB as main resources. This is something I got into when my computer was very *meh* and I couldn't go crazy with DSP heavier stuff and I kept it, even with a newer machine. I prefer using the sampler sounds over the Combinator patches for the simple reason of shaping the sounds with the effects I want to use. Re-Tron has some nice patches that are getting used along as a layer at times. That said, I don't like "your average pad sound here", which means I use effects like Neutron, Uhbik-G, Polar and Echobode heavily. 

As for synths, I like the PZP Parsec 200 ReFill quite a lot. Unusual stuff, nice for poly/pad sounds. Sampler patches can be static, so having that synth pad in there which has some movement or is changing its texture completely, like Parsec can easily do, is a nice diversion. 

As I'm also shifting my working method towards sampling/audio editing, I have a huge arsenal of decent musical REX loops that I mangle to make them my own. Since you can load single slices into NN-XT and detect the pitch, you can easily turn them into a playable patch with little work. You could also load the same loop into the different OctoRex slots and tune each loop differently and play progressions and melodies that way. :)
I hadn't heard of bitley or bitlord before. I just checked their sites and it looks like amazing stuff. Can you recommend a refill in piticular you think would be really good to get. It all looks good but need to be a little conservative spending wise. I love a lot of ambient stuff.. Arps..pads..chords..

tibah
Posts: 903
Joined: 16 Jan 2015

29 May 2015

Jmax wrote:I hadn't heard of bitley or bitlord before. I just checked their sites and it looks like amazing stuff. Can you recommend a refill in piticular you think would be really good to get. It all looks good but need to be a little conservative spending wise. I love a lot of ambient stuff.. Arps..pads..chords..
Well, for Bitley that would be probably the Fairlight ReFill, which now is called Way Beyond Fairlight, if I'm right. It's a great deal in terms of value-for-money. 

For Bitword this would be the WaveFront ReFill. It's a bit more pricey than some other ReFills out there, but to me, it's really worth it. One of my favorite ReFills. You get Combinator patches but also loads of NN-19 *modules* that those patches are made of, so you can easily make your own custom patches by combining those different layers or access them directly. WaveFront is on sale several times a year, so you may want to wait for one.

Overall, both are great. WaveFront has a more *modern* sound and overall more surprises to me. The Fairlight ReFill has some great goodies and loads of vintage sounds and can hold its ground as a decent bread and butter sounds collection too. I would recommend WaveFront just that little more, but really, both are great and became almost irreplaceable to me.



Jmax
Posts: 665
Joined: 03 Apr 2015

29 May 2015

Jmax wrote:I hadn't heard of bitley or bitlord before. I just checked their sites and it looks like amazing stuff. Can you recommend a refill in piticular you think would be really good to get. It all looks good but need to be a little conservative spending wise. I love a lot of ambient stuff.. Arps..pads..chords..
tibah wrote: Well, for Bitley that would be probably the Fairlight ReFill, which now is called Way Beyond Fairlight, if I'm right. It's a great deal in terms of value-for-money. 

For Bitword this would be the WaveFront ReFill. It's a bit more pricey than some other ReFills out there, but to me, it's really worth it. One of my favorite ReFills. You get Combinator patches but also loads of NN-19 *modules* that those patches are made of, so you can easily make your own custom patches by combining those different layers or access them directly. WaveFront is on sale several times a year, so you may want to wait for one.

Overall, both are great. WaveFront has a more *modern* sound and overall more surprises to me. The Fairlight ReFill has some great goodies and loads of vintage sounds and can hold its ground as a decent bread and butter sounds collection too. I would recommend WaveFront just that little more, but really, both are great and became almost irreplaceable to me.

Awesome thanks for the tips!

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mbfrancis
Posts: 647
Joined: 02 Feb 2015
Location: Orange County, CA
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05 Jun 2015

I was inspired by my ReTron trial and have been making fun, lush combinations of mellotron sounds, with some real strings blended in.  Double them, pan, and shift the sample start time on one a bit...so sweet.  I used those on verses here.

Also have been trying to use 70s string machine samples (RS202, Solina), which work well with my more guitar based stuff.  Jiggery Pokery's Retrospective refill is great for these (also has some wonderful classic analog and digital patches).

I love the pad presets in Mixfood Orange...very unique.  

Bitley's WBF is wonderful...you'll have to do a lot of browsing though, nothing is named "pad," ha. There are also some lovely fat analog and some nice silky digital ones, too.

Finally the (free) XSynth OSC refill has some lovely creative pads.

This isn't even touching Antidote refills (eg NSL, Exode), Exode's massive free refill (all native devices, massive), the recent (free)  Thor's hammer.  We're spoiled for choice...
Producer, songwriter, multi-instrumentalist. I make indie pop as Port Streets, 90s/shoegaze as Swooner, and Electro as Yours Mine.

Jmax
Posts: 665
Joined: 03 Apr 2015

05 Jun 2015

Thanks I just downloaded the XSynth patches.  Its always nice to have more.  And looking forward to checking them out.

I just got the Pathenon recently from Nucleus Soundlab.  Very nice refill.  It was on sale for 15.. not sure it still is but worth the money.

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Tincture
Posts: 938
Joined: 18 Jan 2015
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05 Jun 2015

Make sure you have any of Exode's free refills as well. Unfortunately I couldn't find a convenient link where his free Refills are listed so you'll probably need to search the free refills on the Props site. I'm really surprised he doesn't have his own website!

Jmax
Posts: 665
Joined: 03 Apr 2015

05 Jun 2015

I think I have a bunch of the Exode freebies. At least a couple but I really want his refills for Antidote and Parsec. I might just have to purchase those soon. Navi Ratlev is another that I need refills off. Any comment on the quality of his?

I primarily use Soundcells, Nuclues Soundlab, Tom Pritchard jiggers pokkery and a few others. There are so many great ones out there that's for sure.

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Tincture
Posts: 938
Joined: 18 Jan 2015
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05 Jun 2015

I don't go in for Refills much but have bought Tom Pritchard, Nucleus Soundlab and Jiggery-Pokery ones that I find very useful.

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