Happy Halloween from the Haunted House

Happy Halloween from all of us here at Haunted House Records

Get AAS Ultra Analog VA-1 for $15!

http://www.audiomidi.com/Ultra-Analog-VA-1-BR-No-Brainer-Deal-P12692.aspx

There has been a lot of buzz the past few days about AudioMidi.com selling copies of Applied Acoustics Systems Ultra Analog VA-1 modeled subtractive synth for just $15 instead of $200.

AAS’s products sound great and I am sure this is no different so I will be snapping it up. If you want a 2^nd opinions then check out remix magazines review of it here:

http://remixmag.com/mag/remix_applied_acoustics_ultra

The deal is running until November 30^th.

Max For Live Tutorials

In the not to distant future Ableton Live will be accelerated into the furthest reaches of technology as it become probably one of the most powerful DAWs on the planet with the introduction of the Max/Msp integration, Max 4 Live (M4L), by Cycling 74.

Soundscape Available from Producerloops.com

My latest sound library, Ambient Worlds 2 : Soundscape, is now available form producerloops.com. More stores coming soon.

Vinyl Simulation

I am probably a little late to the game with this one, but it is new for me. It is a FREE plugin from Izotope, of Ozone (mastering), Alloy (Channel Strip) and RX (Audio Restoration) fame.

The plug-in simulates the sound of your track being played on vinyl with lots of controls to allow you to get a really good sound. I can see lots of other uses for this in sound design more than making your tracks sound like they are played on an old record player.

Let the sound design commence.

Stylophone Beatbox

It was only a few weeks ago that my wife and daughter bought me one of the new re-released sylophones for my birthday and I intend to do a lot of recording with it. So I can’t tell you how chuffed I was to hear that Debreq are releasing a stylophone beat box. Rest assured I will be buying one of these bad boys very soon and sampling the hell out of it

The End of the Loudness War

I came across a very insightful article the other about the loudness war in modern music mastering. The loudness war describes the tendency to master music at a very high volume. Labels seem to be competing to make their records louder than the competitors. The upshot of this is you loose dynamic range in the music and therefore a loss of punch and clarity in the mix.

http://prorec.com/Articles/tabid/109/EntryId/343/Over-the-Limit-2-The-End-of-the-Loudness-War.aspx

This article uses an interesting analogy of the Pepsi double blind taste challenge to discuss the loudness war. There is also an interesting discussion about the difference of mastering for CD and MP3, where mastering for loudness can be pointless with most mp3 players supporting auto gain levelling.

This is a very interesting article and I urge all recording artists to read it.

Synth Britania

There is a cool program on TV on the 16th of October on BBC 4. It’s called Synth Britania and charts the history of synth pop in the 80’s. Not sure if you non brits will be able to access it on iPlayer, but worth a try.

You can view the trailer for it here.

Ambient Worlds 2 : Soundscape

Today I have released my latest sound library called Soundscape. Soundscape contains over a gig of killer drones, pads and evolving textures, ideal for adding tension to any electronic music or film sound track.

DVD Clearance at Haunted House Records

At Haunted House Records we are going digital only. This gives us the freedom to release new products more frequently. Over the last year our customers have said to us that they prefer the instant access of buying their libraries as downloads.

So, we are having a clearout of the remaining Electronic Critters DVDs for some amazing prices. They are all available for £12.99 instead of £24.99. That is a saving of £12.00. This is a limited offer. When we run out of discs, that is it.

Happy shopping. Be quick or you will miss out!!