Cheap Fares

Aug 1, 2008 12:00 PM, By Mike Levine, Dennis Miller, Len Sasso, and Geary Yelton

EXPAND YOUR SONIC HORIZONS WITH SOFTWARE UNDER $50

With fuel prices at an all-time high, how far can you really go for less than 50 bucks these days? Well, if you're searching for new sonic vistas, look no further: we've got 17 products that are sure to give you extra creative mileage for less than the price of a tank of gas.

I asked the editors of EM to pick a handful of software apps under $50 that they use and enjoy. The only caveat was that the products could not have appeared in our other roundups of low-priced software, such as “Too Much Good Stuff” (August 2003), “Bargain Hunter's Delight” (May 2004), and “Twelve Under a Hundred” (March 2007; all available at emusician.com).

The results include shareware, donationware, freeware, and even one application with a hardware component. With such a wide variety of synths and effects, as well as an audio editor and a programming environment, you're sure to find a software vehicle to take you where you want to go. — Gino Robair

Audio Damage

DubStation (Mac/Win, $39)

Audio Damage (audiodamage.com) has earned a reputation for vintage gear emulations, and DubStation is about as close as it gets to a bucket-brigade analog delay. For example, the high frequencies degenerate with longer delay times, and cranking up the Lo-Cut knob reproduces the lousy bass response of those units (see Fig. 1). Delay times, which you can sync to tempo, range from 4 ms to 2 seconds. The Drive knob adjusts the input from -80 to 3 dB, and the Level LED flashes red to indicate analog-like soft clipping.

To encourage hands-on operation, DubStation offers only the essential controls together with an easy-to-use MIDI Learn implementation. The Drive (input level) and Regeneration (feedback) knobs, along with the Loop and Reverse buttons, beg for real-time use. Pressing the Loop button loops the contents of the delay buffer. Looping differs from full-level feedback in that the signal is not repeatedly passed through the delay line and therefore is not degraded. Incoming audio is overdubbed during looping unless you turn the Drive knob down. Reverse plays the buffer backward while new material is overdubbed forward (see Web Clip 1). If you like real-time delay effects, DubStation is a must-have plug-in.

Big Tick Audio

Cheeze Machine (Mac/Win, donationware)

Although it's been five years since its most recent update, Cheeze Machine, a plug-in from Big Tick Audio (bigtick.pastnotecut.org), continues to be a favorite instrument. It ostensibly simulates string synthesizers such as ARP's String Ensemble, but its real strength is its ability to generate floating, ethereal pads and other analog-type sounds (see Fig. 2).

Cheeze Machine comes with eight presets you load at the touch of a button. You can also save your own patches and download more banks from Big Tick's Web site. The instrument's oscillator produces waves described as “saw-like,” processed through phaser, reverb, and ensemble effects, each with user-programmable parameters. Other than attack, decay, and brightness, though, additional user parameters are minimal. You can vary polyphony from 1 to 32 voices, but Cheeze Machine's CPU usage is negligible.

Csound 5

(Mac/Win/Linux, free)

Csound 5 (csounds.com) is the latest in a long line of sound-synthesis programming languages stemming from Max Mathews's seminal work in the 1950s. It's supported by a huge number of users worldwide who collectively have created a massive library of resources that includes great documentation, numerous examples and tutorials, a journal published approximately three times per year, and a vibrant Web site full of utilities. If you've always felt that programming was something left to technical types or computer science majors, Csound 5 may just change your mind.

The programming environment runs on nearly all modern computing platforms and is capable of creating any sound imaginable. You can use it to synthesize additive sounds with hundreds of oscillators, rich and warm subtractive timbres, or complex time-varying FM patches. But those are just some of its old-school tricks. Csound also supports newer synthesis methods such as physical modeling — Perry Cook's WG (waveguide) opcodes are great for that task — and there are several robust techniques for producing granular sounds using either synthetic or sampled grains (see Web Clip 2).