Welcome to another issue of Technolite

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In todays newsletter:

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1. Competition Winners

2. Survey Results

3. Filter what?

4. Download this before they realise what they have done!

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Compo Winners

Many thanks to all that entered the compo- it was really easy to do- just type a few words...and thats it! The winners have been contacted by email (so please check) with all the relevant details to claim their prizes. So the winners are:

SBI Winner: Julian Grant

Beginners Bible and extra ebooks and sounds winners: D.Farrell and Sean O'Donnell.

Congratulations to all three of you, and good luck in your music making!

[APPLAUSE....STREAMERS....TICKER TAPE....PEOPLE IN THE STREET CRYING WITH JOY]

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2. Survey Results.

Many thanks to all that entered the survey and there has been some cool outcomes. First there seems to be alot of you that use other sequencers. This is pretty cool, but you may be wondering why not much webspace has been given to the other sequencers out there.

Well, the main point is that the site is predominantly aimed at people who want to make music cheaply or for free. However before you unsubscribe ;) within the next month or so there will be some (text and video) tutorials about the use of Ableton, and Reason. They all have their place, and I will be the first to say that Ableton is a really good application. Even for Ableton users, the programmers haven't put 100% of what Ableton can do within within the manual ?! Strange I know, but they thought that you should find the extra stuff.

Please note, the full tutorials will only be available on the newsletter member area, with links as well to additional extras like Refills etc.

For tracker users, and for other app users, please note there is one little extra that most trackers and music apps have- ReWire. From Steinberg, and is built into alot of music apps, it allows two or more music apps to "understand" each other. So in essence I can have Madtracker up and running while using the effects of Ableton (which is running at the same time).

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3. Filter what?

I have had one or two emails regarding the use of the various filter types that you tend to find on soft synths etc. They are low-cut and high pass filters, and vice versa.

High cut and Low pass (LP) filters are one of the same. They remove high frequency content from the frequencer cut-off frequency (find the freq knob, and turn it up and down. You will find that the sound becomes brighter or darker as the output rises or falls). With a HP (high pass/ low-cut) button, the low frequencies are now being removed. BP or Band Pass uses a high pass and a low pass filter- so only a small amount of frequencies within a certain range gets through.

An Auto-filter is also a Resonnance Filter. This means that the signal around the cut-off will be boosted as the resonnace control is increased. This is found in techno and dance tracks.

If we have a look at SuperWave P8 we can put all this together. Go to PSB 80s Bass. Have a look at filter 1 envelope, and drop down the DEPTH to about 4. In filter 1 increase RESO to about 9. Play some notes, then increase the CUTOFF as you play. if you notice on the right hand side. of filter 1, you see LPF, BPF, and HPF (low, high and band pass filters). If you bring down CUTOFF to about 4, and then press TYPE, you shall find your sound changing- chopping off low and high frequencies.

But we still have a bass sound in the background? Yes, but that is because we have two sounds running at the same time- filter 2. So if we give filter 2 exactly the same values of filter one, then we get true high and low pass effects. With messing around, we could have one "synth sound" running as HP and one running as LP, which gives us a bassier synth sound.

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4. Download this...

We all know that there are ooddles of free VSTs out there at the moment. Some are totally free packages, but some are free trialware packages. These are packages that music companies release into the public domain with one or effects or uses disabled...you give you a feel of their paid product. However, there is one company that has got too generous, KV331 Audio and their SynthMaster. Roughly, it is a $99 product that has had bit diabled, but it doesnt make one difference (apart that you can only play 5 keys at a time, and only load in 2 SynthMasters at a time). You can download it from here. Manuals are on the download page, but treat it like any other VST. So be quick, before they realise what they have done!.