Author: George Robinson

[adrotate banner=”3″] GTPS caught up with UK composer and sound designer Matt Bowdler, aka The Unfinished, to delve into the methods and secrets of a top-level synth programmer and sound designer. Read on to find out much more about his sound design philosophy, his thoughts on the current analogue synth sound revolution, avoiding creative blocks, and many nuggets of wisdom that we can all apply to get the most out of our favourite soft synth plugins… Even if the mysterious name The Unfinished is not yet familiar to you, if you’re a film music fan or player of big-budget video games, you’ll most likely…

Hi guys, A couple of weeks ago I put up this post asking for your feedback on GTPS, and you responded with a huge number of emails – so I just want to say thank you for your messages! It means a lot to hear your thoughts and encouragements, and it’s absolutely helped further shape my ideas for the site going forward. As promised, five of the best responses have won a coupon code for one of the Ultimate Guide ebooks of their choice – I’ll be in touch with each of them shortly with details. So what’s the upshot? Essentially,…

Loopmasters have launched their Summer Sale promotion, with a huge 40% off sample packs from many of the worlds top sample and preset creators. This sale is really worth highlighting: 762 different products are included, with sample packs from Niche Audio, Artisan Audio (our current favourites), Raw Cutz, Black Octopus, Capsun Pro Audio, Resonance Sound, Sample Diggers, eLab, Singomakers, Samplestate, Zenhiser and Rankin Audio, amongst many others. You can also get 25% off Sample Magic and Wave Alchemy products. Whatever styles of music you work in, from the various electronic ‘future’ genres and deep, emotive techno/house stuff to cinematic soundtracks or rock and acoustic songs, there are…

Arturia have updated their V Collection of soft synths to version 5, which features improved releases of their well-established classic emulations like the Mini V and CS-80V as well as five entirely new instruments: Synclavier V, Farfisa V, B-3 V, Stage-73 V, and Piano V, a collection of classic pianos. The collection now features 17 classic instruments, and can currently be had for the introductory price of £314.59 / $399 / €399 on PluginBoutique. If you already have V Collection, you can also upgrade to version 5 for half the full price. These are some of our favourite ever soft synths and…

Fully updated and expanded for 2016, the ultimate round-up of all the very best compressor plugins, for every budget and every style! Including the best emulations of classic hardware, cutting edge modern designs and the best free compressor plugins.

FabFilter have recently announced the release of Pro-Q 2, the sequel to their already-amazing EQ plugin. If you’ve seen our run-down of 30 Of The Best EQ Plugins In The World, you’ll know we’re already big fans of the original, and we weren’t sure how they would improve on that – but better Pro-Q 2 is, with a host of new features and fairly dramatic enhancements to existing specifications, not least in terms of CPU efficiency. Some of the highlights in the New Features list include: A new Natural Phase mode to even better model the response of analogue EQ, and improvements to…

[the_ad_placement id=”top-content-300×250″] It’s normal to experience the ebb and flow of creativity, but sometimes we’ll find a creative block lasting much longer. What do you do when you’re sick of creating music – when the thought of returning to the computer to continue on that track or album project, instead of excitement and a sense of fulfilment, fills you with dread or frustration? It’s easy to see how we get ourselves into this situation. Modern music production is full of pitfalls masquerading as “infinite opportunities”: falling down the rabbit hole of endless fine tweaks; overwhelm at the limitless options; switching out…

[adrotate banner=”4″] We get asked a lot here at GTPS, “What is the best music software?” Fortunately, there are many possible answers, depending on your musical style, your preferred workflow, budget, level of experience with music software,  and even GUI/visual preferences. One of the first series posts I ever wrote for GTPS was titled ‘How To Choose The Best DAW For You’ – it’s a fundamental decision for every aspiring producer, and one that needs to be revisited every once in a while, both as your own skills and software demands increase, and as the range of available DAW platforms…

Hi everyone, For the past four years GTPS has operated using the same basic design and features. We’ve grown a lot – thanks to your support! – and the old design was starting to show it’s age, so over the last few months I’ve been working towards launching this brand new version of the site. Despite various unplanned delays and obstacles – including completing the sound design for a feature film and more recently, just as I was about to relaunch, being rushed to hospital to have my appendix removed! – I’m finally very pleased to announce something of a…

This is very cool. Ever wanted to see what sound waves would actually look like as they move through the air at 761mph? Thanks to the guys at NPR, now you can. In this video they demonstrate a technique called Schlieren Flow Visualization, which in fact anyone can try themselves with a camera and a heat source like a lighter or candle. [Via: Beatport]