Studio & Technical Information Welcome to the studio & technical information section of the
website! You'll find a number of (hopefully) useful stuff here...
Read Tom's Music Tech Blog Launched in June 2008, Tom Shear's "Waveformless" blog covers a wide variety of topics having to do with electronic music including reviews, tutorials, etc..
Free Synth Sounds (Legal
mumbo jumbo: Although these files have been tested and should work
without any problems whatsoever, you are downloading and loading these
sounds at your own risk. Assemblage 23/Tom Shear accept no
responsibility for any damage or harm caused.)
Assemblage 23 Access Virus Bank - 128 synth sounds containing many of the sounds used on albums like
Failure, Defiance, Storm, and Meta. This is a sys-ex file saved in
standard MIDI file format, so consult your users manual on information
regarding how to make sure the Virus can receive this data. As always,
be sure to back up any of your own sounds first, as this bank will
overwrite your 'A' bank! Be sure to try out the mod wheel when
auditioning sounds, as a good many have different modulations set up
for this. These were designed to be used on the Access Virus B or higher.
Assemblage 23 Korg Legacy MS-20 Bank - A full bank of synth sounds for Korg's excellent Legacy MS-20 softsynth. Includes sounds used on both Assemblage 23 and Nerve Filter albums.
Fan Remix Section Below is a ZIP archive containing the raw vocals and several individual and stem tracks from the song "Spark". These are saved as 24-bit/44.1k WAV files. Most of the relevant tracks are included here, but not EVERYTHING. All files start at the beginning of a bar, so they can be easily dropped into your arrangement, but some of these files include effects tails, so they AREN"T loops. The original tempo is 125 BPM. Please note that the copyright for all materials belongs to Assemblage 23 and any remixes are considered derivatives of the original and thus fall under the same copyright.
When you've completed your remix, you can send it directly to me (my email is listed in the networking section of the site) along with who the remix should be credited to and any personal website/myspace you'd like to have linked next to your remix. PLEASE BE SURE TO INCLUDE ALL THIS INFO WHEN YOU SEND THE REMIX TO ME. ONCE A FILE IS UPLOADED, I WILL NOT CHANGE REMIX NAMES, BAND CREDITS, ETC. Once the remixes start coming in, I will host them here for everyone to download as they like. The original tempo is 125 BPM. Have fun!
Apple Macintosh G5 Dual 2gHz "Compass" was the last album this got used on. It started to sputter out on me during the recording of the album, and ultimately died for good about a month after completion. It's a shame, too, because I probably could've squeezed at least one more album out of it. Despite being 5 years old, it still suited my needs and only the real processor hog instruments ever overloaded the CPU and even this was rare.
Emagic Unitor 8 MIDI Interface Back before Apple bought them out, Logic was made by a company called Emagic. They also made MIDI interfaces and this has been my interface of choice for the past 9 years. It's built like a tank and has never let me down once. It has 8 inputs and 8 outputs giving me a lot of flexibility in controlling my hardware gear.
Kenton Pro Solo Mk II CV-to-MIDI Converter In the days before MIDI, synthesizers could be controlled with something known as Control Voltage (CV for short). So in order to trigger old pre-MIDI analog synths from a sequencer, you need something to convert MIDI to CV and vice-versa. That's what this little box does.
Mark of the Unicorn 828 mk II Audio Interface Great
24-bit audio interface that will record at up to 96k if you need it to
(overkill for most electronic music, in my opinion). 20 inputs and outputs, so
technically, you really don't need a mixer if you have one of these
(unless you have a ton of hardware). Sounds great!
Focusrite Liquid Mix 32 Bar none the best investment I've ever made in my studio. The Liquid Mix is a DSP card housed in a small control surface paired with software emulations of classic analog compressors and EQs. Provides 32 mono instances or 16 stereo instance and features dozens of models of some of the more sought-after compressors and EQs in history. Sounds completely amazing and adds a really pleasing 'analog' sound to digital audio.
Apple Logic 8 I've been a Logic user since version 4 and 8 represented probably one of the biggest leaps forward for the program. The tweaks to the interface allow you to achieve most of what you need to achieve from a single page saving countless mouse clicks. It includes a huge variety of effects and instrument plug-ins giving you literally everything you need to make a professional-sounding track right out of the box. It's incredibly deep, but pretty easy to pick up the basics. I really can't recommend this enough.
Mackie CFX20 Mixer 20-channel mixer mainly intended for use with live P.A.'s, but it's actually perfect for studio use as well. Sure, it lacks the character of an SSL or Trident, but it's quiet, it has enough channels to accommodate lots of hardware, and it doesn't cost as much as a house. The built-in effects sounds pretty terrible, but they are not without a lofi charm that can work in some instances. The chorus on it can sound absolutely evil on analog synths.
AKG C3000 Microphone My microphone since the beginning. Not much to say except that it sounds great and has served me well over the years. It can sound a bit sibilant with some singers, but nothing that can't be sorted out with proper EQ.
Alesis Monitor Two Studio Monitors and RA-100 Studio Amplifier These have been my studio monitors since the "Failure" days. They sound very good and flat, but are absolutely enormous. They also go a lot louder than any reasonable studio application should require (My usual monitoring level on the Amp is around 2 or 3 out of 10).
Ibanez GSR200 Electric Bass Guitar I used to play bass back in my high school days and around the time I was writing "Meta", I found myself really missing it, so I picked one up. It's an inexpensive bass and certainly doesn't share the build quality of more expensive models, but it sounds surprisingly good and is very playable. Although I've mainly used it as an alternative writing tool, it has also appeared on the track "Madman's Dream" off of Meta and on "Angels & Demons" on Compass.
Ibanez GRX Series Electric Guitar I don't recall the precise model number, but it's a nice mid-price guitar that's very solidly built. I'm not much of a player, but it provides another tool for writing and I sampled it quite a bit on Compass.
Roland SH-101 Synthesizer with Novamod Roland's SH-101 is a deceptively simple monosynth from the early 80's. It's especially great for bass and acid type sounds. Incredibly stable tuning for an old analog and really nice, snappy envelopes. The Novamod is a modification that adds a slew of new knobs and features including a really aggressive overdrive and several different types of Filter FM which really expand the palette of sounds it can produce. It can be heard most prominently playing some of the sequences on "Leave This All Behind" on Compass.
Sequential Circuits Pro One Synthesizer When I saw this custom green(!) Sequential Circuits Pro One on eBay, I knew I had to have it. Probably one of the greatest monosynths of all time. Does amazing, tight, punchy basses but in a totally different way than, say, a Minimoog. Also does really nice oscillator sync and crossmod sounds. Mine is pretty beat up (the build quality of these was not great) and the tuning can be pretty unstable, but it's totally worth it for the quality of the sounds you can get out of it. A lot of the quick synth edits on "Spark" and "Collapse" from Compass are Pro One, as is the bass sound in "Leave This All Behind".
Access Virus B Synthesizer I honestly don't use this as much as I used to, but I'll never sell it. The Virus is definitely one of the best virtual analogs on the market and it's a lot more flexible than a lot of people give it credit for. If you really take the time to learn to program it, it has an amazingly diverse sound. Just please give the damn trance leads a break! The interface is very easy to understand and it's really quick and fun to program. You can hear it in action as the evolving filter sequence on the choruses of "Angels & Demons", as well as the lead in the choruses of "Impermanence", both off of Compass.
Waldorf Microwave XTk Synthesizer Unabashedly digital-sounding and extremely unique-sounding. Aside from the strange, evolving sounds wavetable synthesis is known for, it excels at really hard, metallic sounds. It's got a nice selection of filters including a waveshaper and has oscillator sync and FM to mangle the wavetables further. The built-in effects are pretty lame, and the OS is a bit buggy, but nothing else sounds like it. This got the most use on Defiance, but you can hear it performing the modulating filter sequence that pans back and forth on "Greed" from Compass.
Oberheim Xpander Synthesizer Lamentably, I had to sell mine earlier this year to help cover my taxes, but it did make it onto the Spark single on the b-side track "The Poison Moon" where it does the highpass filter sequence in the intro and throughout. Overall, it's an extremely powerful and deep synth with extensive modulation capabilities. 15 different filter types including one of the best sounding highpass filters out there. The envelopes are pretty slow and mushy, so it's not great for snappy basslines and the like, but it's great for pads and weird, thick synthlines. It's multitimbral, too, so the layering possibilities can result in some really dense sounds.
Ensoniq EPS-16+ Sampler You're probably surprised to see a sampler this outdated back on my gear list, but when I was re-recording some of my old material for the Early Rare and Unreleased CDs, I found myself really liking the grainy lofi quality it imparts on sounds. You can lower the sampling rate heinously low for some amazing bitcrushed sound. So on Compass I used it a lot on kick drums and anywhere I needed some grime and punch.
Alesis ControlPad I've wanted some drum pads for my studio for awhile now, but my studio is pretty small, so I've never had room for a proper set. The ControlPad offers a compact solution similar to the famous Roland Octapads, but at a much cheaper price. It's a lot of fun to play, although it can be a little tough on the wrists. I used this a lot on the new album for getting more natural sounding hi-hat parts and creating more interesting snare parts.
Creamware Prodyssey Synthesizer The Prodyssey is a hardware emulation of the classic Arp Odyssey complete with all the buttons and sliders found on the original. It sounds amazingly authentic and is a lot of fun to program. It also adds some new features such as the ability to switch between filters modeled on the Odyssey or filters modeled on the Minimoog. The downside is it only features a two-digital LED display and the system for saving files takes a bit of getting used to. The easiest place to hear it in action on the new album is as the bass on "How Can You Sleep?"
Camel Audio Alchemy Probably one of the most original and innovative softsynths currently out. Alchemy uses samples as a starting point, but it is far from a ROMpler (although it can do that too). Instead, it can either resynthesize the sounds with thousands of sine waves or chops the samples into tiny grains that can be repeated, rearranged, frozen, etc. It basically gives you complete control over your samples and lets you manipulate them in ways that previously were only possible through high end sound design platforms like Kyma. This is just the start, though, as you have 4 layers of this, each with some of the deepest modulation abilities of any synth I've seen. All sorts of LFOs, ADSR envelopes, mutli-segment envelopes, step sequencers, X/Y pads, and sophisticated morphing abilities. Ships with a great sample library to get you started, but you can load your own as well. On the new album used a lot of samples of me beating on different metal objects like washers and dryers, pots and trays, etc. and I used Alchemy to turn these into melodic instruments. Listen for it on "Impermanence", "How Can You Sleep?", and "Alive" among others.
Native Instruments Kontakt 2 This used to be my primary sampler, but I don't use it as often as I used to. There's nothing wrong with it (aside from a terrible database system that can never seem to remember where my samples are stored), it's just that it actually has more power than I need for most sampling applications. Kontakt is essentially a modular sampler. After mapping your samples, you add only the parts you need (LFOs, envelopes, step sequencers, effects) to sculpt it into a final sound. This makes it a great choice if you really want to twist your samples into something different from the original. It also features granular abilities for mapping a single sample across the keyboard with out the timing changing or assigning pitch to samples that normally wouldn't have one. I mainly use it for playing sounds from the sample library I've built up over the past ten years or so and converted to Kontakt format.
Apple Logic EXS-24 Sampler I never really got into Logic's built-in sampler until recently, and I don't know why, as it's one of the easiest to use soft samplers I've tried. Include the root key in the file names of your samples, and it will automatically map everything out for you upon invert. Then you have a handful of LFOs and Envelopes that can be assigned to modulate different elements of the sound the mod matrix. For most "standard" sampling tasks it's extremely fast and puts my entire library available from a single drop-down menu. Samples load extremely fast too, even if you move the samples from their original location. About 60% of the drums and a good number of analog synth samples throughout the new album came form here.
Casio SK-1 Sampler Some day when I have a moment of spare time, I really want to learn circuit-bending. If you're familiar with circuit-bending at all, you probably already know the Casio SK-1 is a favorite "victim". My friend Craig happened to have one laying around and sent it to me, but after playing around with it, I didn't want to mess with it at all. The SK-1 was a cheap, consumer level sampler made by Casio in the late 80's. It's 8 bit and has an extremely low sampling rate, so it is extremely lofi. Actually, it's a level below lofi - the samples it takes through it's tiny built-in mic tend to sound virtually nothing like what the original sound was and I love that. I got this when I was already working on the album, so I only used it for a single sound on a single track - the "Ah-ah-ah" vocal in "Helicopter Girl", one of the b-sides on the "Spark" single. I intend to use it a lot more in the future, though.
Sonic Charge Microtonic Drum Synth Microtonic is a great drum synth by the same guy who made the Maelström synth in Reason. It gives you just the elements you need to make just about any electronic drum or percussion you might need. It has a 16 step built in sequencer, but I prefer to program it from within Logic. The only thing I am not crazy about is that the distortion effect on it is very digital sounding. I used it a lot on the new album to add more low end to my sampled kicks, for synth snares, and for analog hi-hats and "laser" sounds. All of the drums except the snares on "Alone Again" from the limited version of Compass came from Microtonic.
Korg Legacy MS-20 Softsynth While
it doesn't sound exactly like a real MS-20 (and it can sound VERY
close), this is probably one of the most authentically 'analog'
sounding softsynths I have ever used. Really cool, unique sounding
filters, extremely flexible modulation and routing possibilities mean
it can make some REALLY weird sounds. The plug-in version adds features
not present on the original, including the ability to play sounds
polyphonically, and a very nice Unison mode. Very hard to beat for bass
sounds, and can absolutely scream when you get into it deep. Also comes
with a great controller that is basically a 3/4 size replica of the
MS-20 which makes programming the softsynth great, but also gives you
lots of knobs and stuff to assign to other soft synths that allow MIDI
learn. The gritty reverse "wah" sound on "Spark", the strings on "Chosen" and the noisy, screechy synth on "Grind" from the limited version of the new album are some examples of it in action.
Spectrasonics Stylus RMX Although
this is touted mainly as a drum loop library, that really sells it
short. While it certainly does come with a ton of drum loops, this is
really just the beginning, as you can rearrange the individual slices
of a loop as MIDI data to create entirely new loops or variations, and
the synthesis capabilities let you take things even farther away from
the original source. A great tool for building demo tracks quickly, and
if you have ReCycle or another program that can create REX or REX2
files, you can import your own stuff in very easily. Also comes with a
great selection of single-hit drum and percussion sounds. A recent update allows you to generate musically-useful random variations of any loop or even change an existing loop to fit into an entirely different time signature.
Eastwest Stormdrum Sample Library Although it is aimed at providing imposing, cinematic drum sounds and loops, this sample library also features some fantastic-sounding multi-velocity acoustic drum sets that are really responsive to playing. It makes creating really convincing acoustic drum beats a breeze. You can hear it most easily on "Damaged" on Meta, but it makes plenty of appearances on Compass too.
Rob Papen Blue Softsynth Rob Papen is probably best known for his Albino softsynth, which sounds a lot like a tamer version of the Access Virus. Blue, however, is a different beast all together. It is a hybrid synthesizer in that it can combine many types of synthesis such as subtractive, FM, and Phase Distortion. It has a very nice, clear, present sound to it and with 6 oscillators, built in modulation step sequencers, etc. it can do some pretty complex sounds. Not the most fun softsynth to program, but once you get the hang of the interface, it isn't too bad. You can hear it on Compass as the metallic arps in "Greed" and "Impermanence"
Tone2 Gladiator 2 Created by the same team that made reFX's ubiquitous Vanguard, Tone2 is a much more advanced a deep instrument. It uses a method they call Harmonic Content Morphing Synthesis which is not unlike wavetable synthesis, except you can manipulate the spectra of these wavetables in some extremely complex ways that mimic the way the harmonic content of a sound works in the acoustic world. Add in 40 filter types, effects, step sequencers, step LFO's, arps, a mod matrix and much more and you can see that this is a synth with a lot of possibilities. This got a lot of use on the new album, such as the synth strings on "Impermanence".
Gmedia Minimonsta Softsynth As the name suggests, this is a software emulation of the famous Minimoog analog synth. Not only does it sound amazing, but it adds some modern features to expand on the original feature set such as a unison mode and the ability to morph in between several different patch variations using simple performance controls. Like the real deal, it does great basses, leads, and synth percussion sounds. You can hear it most clearly on the new album as the bass in "Smoke" and the modulating bass sequence in "Alone Again".
Cakewalk Rapture Softsynth Although it's a few years old, this is an extremely underrated softsynth. It's based around short, looped waveforms much like the Ensoniq SQ-80, but it manages to go places that type of synthesis never did by offering 6 oscillators (which can in turn each be put into a sort of 'supersaw' mode), extremely flexible multi-point envelopes, a wide array of filter types, modulation step sequences, and pretty decent sounding effects. The downside of this synth is the interface. It's not bad, but it isn't the most fun synth to program, particularly the envelopes. Luckily, it received an update recently that went a long way towards correcting some of the weak spots. It comes with thousands of presets, but even those barely skim the surface of what it can do. You can hear it most prominently on the new album as the string and pad sounds on "How Can You Sleep?"
Native Instruments Massive Softsynth Probably the last truly innovative product Native Instruments has made in some time, this is a very modern sounding softsynth with a fantastic interface. It's based on wavetable synthesis but includes very 'analog' features such as oscillator feedback, ring modulation, fantastic-sounding filters, and some very unique modulators such as the complex 'performer'. The easiest place to spot it on the new album is to listen for the modulating resonant sequences in "Smoke" and "Leave This All Behind".
Insert Here Plz Mr. Alias Softsynth While more digital and software synthesizers aim to avoid aliasing, this is a softsynth that fully embraces it. A bit hard to describe, but it's free (although a more advanced "pro" version is available for pretty cheap), so just try it. It specializes in all manner of digital shrieks and squeals like you might hear out of circuit-bent equipment. Listen for it on "Helicopter Girl", the b-side to the Spark single.
Native Instruments Reaktor 5 I didn't use this one as much on the new album as I have in the past, but it still a fantastic piece of software. It's basically a kit for building your own software instruments. You're limited only by your imagination and your technical abilities. Synthesizers, granulizers, samplers, drum machine, effects, sequencers... it does it all. And if you don't want to delve into making your own instruments, there is an absolutely enormous user library of instruments to download and put to work right away. On "Conpass" i mainly used it for ambient intros and the Solina-style strings on "Angels & Demons". If you want to hear it more extensively, check out the Linear album by my side project Nerve Filter.
Vember Audio Surge Created by one of the members of Burikusu!!!, Surge is sort of like an FM synth on steroids. It has a beautifully clean and clear sound. I haven't had the chance to delve too deeply into it yet, but check out the bell sounds on "Alone Again" on the limited version of the new album as an example.
Studio & Technical Info 
