Sounds and Presets – Think Like a Synth and Make Your Own with Anthony Marinelli!
Plus new patches for the Ambient Ø, Nord Stage 4 and Polybrute family
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Week after week, I deliver some amazing presets and samples to stuff into your instruments but why not learn to make your own with Anthony Marinelli’s new “Think Like a Synth” course!
I’m a huge fan of presets. I mean, it’s probably why my editor has me write this column, week in, week out! Part of that is laziness, some of it is speed – I don’t want to waste time designing sounds when I can be writing – and, quite frankly, there are people WAY better than me at programming synths.
One of those is Anthony Marinelli, a synth programming legend who has worked with the best of them. So I thought it would be great to feature his new course here. But don’t worry, there are some great new samples and patches further down. Enjoy!
Sounds & Presets
Think Like a Synth with Anthony Marinelli
To call Anthony Marinelli a YouTube sensation seems wrong, given his decades of experience and work in the music industry, but it was just a few short years ago that Anthony sprang into our YouTube and podcast feeds with his ‘Stories in the Room‘.
Documenting his work on the biggest selling album of all time, Michael Jackson’s ‘Thriller’, he gathered together fellow contributors to that album, such as Greg Phillinganes, and recounted fascinating tales about recording sessions with the ‘King of Pop’
This then led to his now legendary YouTube channel where he frequently demonstrates synths and imparts his knowledge freely. More recently, he has been interviewing the great and the good of the synth world, including Bob Margouleff, Dr. John Chowning, Chromeo, Colin Wolfe and Mike Dean.
Now Anthony Marinelli is turning his hand to education with the release of his new online video course entitled ‘Think Like a Synth’. Across 24 lessons and clocking in at six and a half hours of content, Anthony, with the help of his son, Dante, guides you through the basics of synthesis using his beloved ARP 2600.
He could not have chosen a finer synth as its creator fully intended it to be a teaching synth. Anthony goes through every single aspect of synth programming, during which he uses on-screen graphics, patch diagrams, quick tips and even homework for you to do.
If you’re going to learn synth programming, you may as well learn it from Anthony Marinelli, someone who has decades in the industry, programming synths for many of the great artists and scoring Hollywood blockbusters with things like the NED Synclavier!
Free Ambient Ø Artist Presets
Sonicware’s LIVEN range has been a huge success for the Japanese company. A consistent platform with each iteration being a brilliant little box of tricks that has its own unique sound and function. Their most recent effort, the Ambient Ø, has been one of the best received so far.
This little box is an ambient musicians dream, packed with sounds to evoke a wide range of sonic imagery, and crammed into a unit that features superb effects and a super useful sequencer. Plus, it’s totally portable with the ability to be powered by six AA battery cells!
You can use the built-in presets or bring your own samples in via the line in socket. And now, you can import other people’s samples in with the release of four free Artist Preset packs, available to download directly from Sonicware’s website.
The four packs are:
- KODA by zirou zen
- KAZE by zirou zen
- AMBIENT DUB by Limbic Bits
- WILD by Takemi Amaya
Each of these packs contain four new sound patches for you to play with, sequence and manipulate within the Ambient Ø.
Download the Ambient Ø free Artist Presets from Sonicware’s website here.
Berlin Sky Presets for Arturia Polybrute 6/12 by lfo
We’re beginning to see a few more sound sets that mention the Polybrute 12 but most seem to be made on the original six-voice variant and don’t take much advantage of the 12’s expanded polyphony and performance features. That may well change very soon (watch this space!) but for now, here’s an excellent new bank.
We’ve featured lfo’s work here before and they’ve done a very credible job on this bank of sounds which, as you’d expect, works on both versions of the mighty Polybrute. The bank contains 64 presets which utilise many of the Polybrute’s performance features such as the Morphee pad, ribbon controller and aftertouch.
Installation is a breeze, using Arturia’s superb Polybrute Connect plugin/application and the bank contains a wide variety of sounds covering strings, brass, pads, drones, arpeggiations and, as the name suggests, a bunch of Berlin-style sequences. Check the video demo out below!
Buy lfo’s ‘Berlin Sky’ soundset for the Arturia Polybrute 6 and Polybrute 12 here.
O-6 Synth Pack For Nord Stage 4 by Patch Foundry
Everyone loves an Oberheim, am I right? Well, I do! And if you have a Nord Stage 4, which I sadly don’t, you’re in for a right treat. Hailing from Nashville, TN, the centre of popular music in the U.S.A., Patch Foundry have taken it upon themselves to sate the Oberheim appetite for Stage 4 users.
Hot on the heels of their Juno-6 pack, the O-6 pack takes the Dave Smith/Tom Oberheim collaboration, the Sequential OB-6 and delivers a sound set that packs that classic Obie punch. The pack includes 15 NSMP4 samples, 15 program files, 15 synth presets and a Program Bundle weighing in at nearly 270MB.
This pack is compatible with the Nord Stage 4 73, 88 and Compact running OS 1.46 or higher and requires the latest Nord factory sound bank or Patch Foundry collection to be installed. Given that the big red slabs of Nord are seen on stages the world over, I imagine this will appeal heavily to those using them for synth purposes and more!
Grab the O-6 Synth pack for Nord Stage 4 by Patch Foundry here for just $14.99.
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