Recording - April 2011 - 62

Applied Acoustics Systems
Reviews by Mike Metlay

RECORDING'S

SHOWCASE OF SOUNDS

AAS Player and Sound Bank Series

powerful, and attention-getting... a real showcase of the best of VA-1’s most aggressive and effective analog timbres. Or part of them. The flip side of that coin is the Starlight collection. Classified into groupings for easy reference (ambient, arpeggiator, arpeggiator bass, chime, effect, keys, lead, pad, rhythm, and synthesizer), these patches have an emphasis on clear, open, ethereal, lyrical, and altogether lovely sounds, from the days before digital synthesis when a clever programmer was expected to make his analog synth evoke bells, pianos, organs, and more.

Sometimes all you want to do is just play. There are lots of very tweakWith all that analog goodness at hand, one wonders if the able, programmable, editable sounds elsewhere in this issue, and indeed String Studio VS-1 collections could possibly have as much all over the world of soundware... but surely there’s a place for a plug-in breadth and variety? The startling answer is that they may actuthat doesn’t ask you to turn knobs, move sliders, select dropdown menus, ally offer more. Accompanied by patch notes ranging from the or anything else, that just gives you sounds and lets you play them? cryptically informative to the hysterically funny, Entangled Applied Acoustics Systems seems to think so. When they started releas- Species and Journeys both stretch the capabilities of string moding the Sound Bank Series, collections of presets for their modeling plug-ins eling into impossible shapes, from very pretty electric pianos and like Ultra Analog VA-1 and String Studio VS-1, someone hit upon the love- demented hurdy-gurdys to harpsichords with bamboo strings, ly idea of letting users try out the sounds all by themselves without owning electric sitars, and a surprisingly good electric organ. Some the full plug-in versions. This was done with a new plug-in called AAS sounds will make you shake your head and wonder why anyone Player, which is now bundled free with the Sound Banks. If you own the full would want them, while others will transfix you and leave you plug-ins, the sounds can be loaded, edited, stored in new versions... and if playing your studio time away, just for the sheer joy of it. And you don’t, the AAS Player gives you a simple way to use them. which sounds are which will be different for every player! How simple? After you download AAS Player and authorize it with your Even for the hardcore synth programmer, there’s something serial number (it runs for 15 days without authorization if you’d like to demo liberating and fun about just playing these sounds, letting the sounds for yourself), you open it inside your favorite DAW, and it gives them speak without the immediate temptation to edit them. you... are you ready for this? A Volume knob. Period. And if you decide you simply must edit them, you can invest There’s a level meter, and a dropdown menu for selecting Sound in VA-1 and/or VS-1, which remain two of the best modeling Banks and individual patches... and that’s all. Patches respond to key plug-ins in the world. velocity, pitch bend, mod wheel, and hold pedal, and that’s pretty Intrigued? I’ve saved the best news for last: these libraries much it. Choose your sound and play it. are not expensive at all, but there’s a way to try them via Once you get past the idea that you can’t edit anything, you quickly dis- AAS Player, completely free. It’s a special Sound Bank called cover that these sounds are fantastic, with the full muscle of the AAS mod- Swatches, which contains a handful of selected sounds from eling engine behind them, and they all reward simply playing them. each of the Sound Banks... all the ones I’ve reviewed, plus as Tassman, the first widely available modeling plug-in, is still the AAS flag- of press time a representative sample from the new VA-1 ship, and their expertise shines through in these collections, each with over bass-synth library called 30.8676 Hz. Download it, give it a 120 patches in a variety of styles. I had a chance to check out five full try, and if you like what you hear, it’s easy and inexpensive Sound Bank Series titles, and had a blast with all of them. to get the full collections for yourself. Ultra FX is a collection of sound effect and soundscape patches for VAKudos to AAS for giving keyboard playing back to the key1. Of all the libraries, this one was perhaps the least successful for me, board players! because if one of these effects doesn’t sound quite right to you, your hands itch to edit it into shape... at least mine do... and Delivery: Web download you can’t. That being said, there are car sounds, train ambiFormat: VST/AU, Mac OS X 10.5+ (Intel only), Windows XP ences, alien landscapes, machinery running rampant, a whole SP2/Vista/7 (32 or 64 bit) host of odd and exotic effects to spice up your soundtracks. If Copy protection: serial number and response code (on or offline) you have a need of non-sampled, organic-sounding synth Licensing: No royalties on music composed with sounds; single effects for your tracks, Ultra FX just might do the trick for you. user, multiple non-simultaneous computers Having gotten that one library out of the way, I am now Documentation: none free to gush about the others. Analog Essentials packs the Prices: $39 each best capabilities of VA-1 into a collection of solid bread-andMore from:Applied Acoustics Systems,www.applied-acoustics.com; butter analog synth sounds, with leads, arpeggiated patchdistributed by ILIO, www.ilio.com. es, pads, sound effects, basses, and more. They’re rich,
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RECORDING APRIL 2011

http://www.applied-acoustics.com http://www.ilio.com

Recording - April 2011

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