Failed Muso

New Material, Price Drops & Updates from Hollow Sun

Ok, as ever, Steve Howell has been busy as hell and he has some new goodies for you!

First of all, there has been some tweaking to the site itself, with the product pages getting a more structured layout. A single “BUY” button uncovers all the formats and their pricing which leads me on to the next update which is a revised price structure with most material dropping in price. It’s now an even better time to stock up on Hollow Sun libraries!

Here’s what Steve has to say…

Hollow Sun Nebulae

Hollow Sun Towers has had a bit of a facelift on each of the products’ pages. THIS one is a good example but they’re all pretty much the same.

More significantly, perhaps, is a price re-structuring for many of the titles with as much as a third off. They are…

- All Novachord formats (Kontakt, EXS24 and Reason Refill) are now $80. This represents a $40 saving on the award winning Hollow Sun Kontakt Novachord.

- All the $60 products are now $40 (‘Nebulae’ pad library, NewTron, CP70, Oberheim M1000, PPG, FS1R, M/01) representing a third off those titles.

- The Hollow Sun ‘Prog Pack’ is also available in Kontakt and EXS24 formats. At $100 for a bundle comprising the CP70 (and Wurli EP200, Hohner Pianet and RMI Electrapiano), NewTron, Taurus and string synths (with some steaming Hammonds thrown in for good measure), there’s a saving of $70 to be had there.

There’s also a fabulously authentic Vox Continental in the works here in Kontakt format which provides full control over drawbar settings as well as amp and cab simulation and Leslie – even a ‘Damage’ control to re-create a beaten up Conti! This will be released any day soon for a mere $20 so watch this space.

These changes mean that it’s never been more affordable – or easier – to own some of the greatest, most desirable, quirkiest and rarest electronic instruments ever made with all the samples lovingly hand-crafted to provide you with the closest experience of having ‘the real thing’ in front of you to use and abuse as you think fit.

Cheers,

Steve

In terms of new material, we have the Crumar Performer package, updates to the Kontakt version of Nebulae as well as a new Reason ReFill of that library (see my demo track, written with Micky Dodds) and a Roland VP330 package in Kontakt format.

As usual, the Kontakt libraries benefit from Steve’s clever use of scripting and using a uniform control method throughout all his Kontakt libraries. The Reason ReFills have been created in conjunction with Jiggery Pokery and are some of the best sounding and best value ReFills on the market.

Now, go fill yer boots!

Still here!!

Here we go again!

Yet another apologetic post, making excuses for a recent spate of silence! I’ve no proper excuse other than life just getting in the way. However, there should be some good stuff coming soon, including some new goodies from Hollow Sun, one of which is pretty massive!! Sworn to secrecy, but this could be mahooosive for Steve

Also, I’ve been, and still currently am, involved with a marketing exercise with Nokia and their Comes With Music service. 20 of us from around the globe have been recruited to download as much as we can from the Nokia Music Store and then talk about it on Facebook. Apart from giving me tons of free music and a new mobile phone, I’m getting a good insight into online music retailing and some of the good and bad things about it. Be assured that there will be an extensive review about my experience right here.

I’ve got a bit of time off work soon, so hopefully that should see a few more posts popping up! Thanks for checking back and persevering!

“El Sol, Y Mi Canto” – New track from Failed Muso & Micky D

Another fruit of our labour!

This track was composed and performed yet again in Reason, using the soon to be released Nebulae Refill from Hollow Sun throughout. Much props and love to Micky D, Steve Howell and Matt Black

Enjoy

El Sol, Y Mi Canto by failedmuso

Sneaky Peek – Hollow Sun EPII for Kontakt

Ok, just snuck these babies out of Hollow Sun for your delectation. Steve is still churning out update after update to his Kontakt portfolio and this is next on the line, due for release this week, if all goes to plan. It’s the Kontakt-ised version of his exemplary Yamaha CP70 library. As well as the classic CP70, it features a Hohner Pianet T, Wurlitzer EP200 and RMI Electrapiano. No audio demo’s yet, but here are some screen grabs…

Using Kontakt’s highly flexible and powerful scripting, each instrument has multiple panels to tailor the sound to your liking, including phase shifter, chorus, tremolo & reverb.

I remember Steve sampling the CP70 a few years ago. He bought a good model, assembled it in his front room, had it professionally serviced and tuned, and then sampled each note at multiple velocities, before applying his expert techniques to get the best sound with the smallest footprint. The upshot of this is probably the best CP70 sample set available that loads quickly and is supremely efficient.

Visit Hollow Sun for more details.

Update to Hollow Sun String Synths! Now with Added Elka Rhapsody 490

Only a few days ago, I announced the arrival of Hollow Sun’s updated String Synth II package for Kontakt. And then yesterday Steve, who clearly has consumed some kind of sampling Viagra, added yet another classic string synth to the package at no further cost!

Now users can get all Tangerine Dreamy or Vangelis pre his love affair with the CS-80 as the classic Elka Rhapsody 490 has now been added. Courtesy of the wonderful team at Forgotten Keys, this awesome and unique sound can be had in all it’s glory. This really is a joyous sample set.

If you have already purchased the updated Kontakt version, your link should still be active and allow you to download the updated version. If not, drop Steve a line and he’ll fix you up

Purchase the String Synth package here!

More Improved Kontakt Libraries from Hollow Sun

Blimey, when Steve get’s stuck in, he gets stuck in! Hot on the heels of the String Synth package comes updated Kontakt versions of two of my all time favourite HS libraries, Vintage Samplers & Newtron Bomb.

Vintage Samplers

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Tron Boys Choir

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Tron Brass

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Tron Choir

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Tron Flute

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Tron Mixed Strings

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Tron Violins

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Tron Watcher

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Featuring the same seamlessly looped samples as the originals, Steve has created some really great programs in Kontakt, utilising it’s scripting features and powerful FX. These samples have never sounded better!

But don’t just take my word for it, try listening to the demos and then go buy these babies at next to nothing prices

Vintage Samplers $25

Newtron Bomb $60

New Hollow Sun Strings Synths II for Kontakt

You know the old saying, “You can’t teach an old dog new tricks”?

Well, I beg to differ. I remember having many lengthy conversations with Steve Howell about “modern technology” and how it was all a pile of rubbish compared to the hardware of old. We would pontificate about how software synthesis and sampling was the realm of lazy “musos” who were probably using ripped off samples and things like software samplers were not even samplers and just plain old playback devices with FX.

But not too long ago, Steve started to dig into Kontakt, the application from Native Instruments, and began to find that it had begun to become a far more powerful tool than first thought. This exploration was made for a number of reasons. Firstly, there was the economic choice, given that so many people were using Kontakt, it was a market that couldn’t be ignored, especially as the predominantly hardware markets had begun to significantly dry up. Secondly, there was the issue of security. An Akai S5000/S6000 sample pack is made up of 2 or 3 types of file; an Akai Program and/or Multi and the .wav sample files. These can easily be taken and dumped into any sampler and with no proprietary format to break before doing so. Finally, the level at which you can manipulate samples in Kontakt now, especially with it’s new scripting features, puts it up there as a “cannot be ignored” sonic tool.

Having seen the incredible work done by Tracy Collins at Indiginus and the fantastic use of Kontakt to bring his sounds to life, Steve set about converting and creating material in this format. The Novachord package was one of the first and certainly the biggest Kontakt project undertaken and now Steve is slowly, but surely, transferring his legacy material into this format. And it’s not just a straight port either. Steve is having great fun using Kontakt’s unique features, all in the relative and increased safety of a proprietary format with a greatly reduced risk of piracy.

And so, here we have the latest of these ports. The Hollow Sun String Synth II Library. I remember first hearing these samples many years ago and they were some of the first samples I gravitated to when Hollow Sun was still running it’s highly altruistic free sample library. For me, string synths were some of the first and certainly most evocative synthesizer sounds I had heard. My first real love of synths came from Jean Michel Jarre and his use of the Eminent 310, featured in this very package with a very authentic phaser effect as an option. These sounds were intergalactic in nature and conjured up all sorts of audio induced imagery.

In addition, we have the Solina String Ensemble, Moog Opus and Roland RS202 which Steve has coupled up with a Roland VP330 for some vocoded formant loveliness.

Using Kontakt’s scripting, Steve has enabled a wide range of FX on each instrument, and there are other layers that can be brought in to beef things up or lend a new sonic quality, such as the brass samples included with the Solina.

And to top this all off, Steve has included 3 classic PolyMoog programs, Strings I, Strings II and the incredible signature sound of Gary Numan, the Vox Humana preset. Start layering these sounds with some of the other instruments for truly mind blowing results.

Better still, this package only costs a paltry £16 / €19 / $25 and is also available in Akai & EXS24 formats, albeit without the bonus PolyMoog programs.

Another small, yet perfectly formed package from the true master of vintage synth sampling. Check out the audio demo…..

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Hollow Sun Novachord released for Propellerheads Reason & Record

Well, I’ve been sitting on this one for weeks, but today I can finally reveal that the Reason & Record ReFill version of the totally unique Hollow Sun Novachord library is now available for sale at the Hollow Sun website.

I’ve mentioned the Novachord library a number of times before in this parish, so I won’t go into any detail in this post about it’s existence and how it came into being. However, in my last post, I mentioned I had had a sneaky peek at the Reason/Record ReFill and how nice it was. Well, things have moved on greatly since then and the release candidate that I have been trying out is even more astounding! Hollow Sun enlisted the services of Matt Black to do the Reason conversion. Actually, I say conversion…. don’t expect to see a patch by patch replication of the Kontakt library. Oh no. A new lease of life has been given here. Whilst some of the patches remain, Matt has taken time to utilise the many unique features of Reason to come up with even more sounds, some authentic, others using the Novachord samples as a basis for creating new and wonderful sounds. Excellent use has been made of the Combinator instrument.

For those who don’t know Reason, the Combinator allows a user to build one new instrument using any or all of the existing instruments and FX tools within Reason. For example, you can layer numerous NN-XT patches, tag on a bunch of FX, run it through an arpeggiator, via some Mastering tools and bundle it all up into one easy to control instrument.

In doing this, Matt has also employed the excellent Thor polysynth to take care of numerous routing and filer combinations. This also makes the ReFill only compatible with Reason 4.0. There are also collections of the standard samples, as well as all the FX Combinators that you can use in any way you wish PLUS a whole section of sounds running through some of the superb FX that come with Propellerheads excellent audio recording application, Record.

Users who have both Reason & Record (and let me tell you, the two programs seamlessly fit together and form a music making powerhouse of impeccable quality) will be able to take advantage of these. Users who just have Reason will just be given a message informing them that these particular gems are for Record users only. A nudge, if any were needed, to go buy Record!!

So, all of these things combine to form a fantastic and very inspiring set of sounds. Here’s how Hollow Sun categorise them….

The Hammond Novachord Refill for Reason & Record is structured into the following folders:
• Classic Novachord
Here you will find the classic tones of the Refill, in Combinator
format
• Esoteric Novachord
This folder contains Combinator patches with a modern
twist, including layers, splits and FX
• FX Patches
Subfolders for all the FX modules used in the Combinators:
Line 6 USB Pod Farm (see opposite) , Reverb,
Scream, Thor Modulation Matrixes and Combinator FX
• NNXT Patches
All the tones saved in *.sxt format, plus additional subtle
variants of some patches
• Novachord Amped [R+R]
Combinator patches with Line 6 amp tones for Pod
Farm. Please note that as of writing, these patches will
only load within Reason+Record.
• Samples
24-bit, 44khz samples.

I’ve been noodling with these for a while now, and they really do work well within the Reason/Record environments. The immediacy and simplicity provided by the host environment allow you to really start exploring and tweaking these sounds VERY quickly. I’ve been playing around with these in combination with the Fairlight Legacy library and getting some very satisfying results.

Visit the Hollow Sun store now to pick up your copy of this unique ReFill now!!

Awesome Akai S900 Video Manual!!

Discovered by Mike Goins on the Akai Mailing List, this is an incredibly cheesy and very 80′s instructional video for the Akai S900 sampler!! Steve Howell recalls how him and his fellow UK based Akai employees recoiled with horror at the sight of this!!

Whilst it is instructional, it’s also laden with naffness, but that makes it all together more endearing.

The 7 parts to the video are playlisted below

New Look Hollow Sun!!

I’m strangely excited by this, mainly because Steve is a great friend of mine and his website has been the source of great inspiration for me over the years, as has Steve himself. I was shown the new website design last week and thought it awesome and a marked improvement over the old design, and I think you will all agree.

Launching at the same time as this new look website is the inclusion of Patrick Fridh’s Fairlight Legacy Refill collection (including Supremacy and De Light) in the Hollow Sun shop. I acted as a bit of a middle man to try and get Patrick’s product out to more people and to ensure he got the best possible distribution deal and a fair chunk of the proceeds. His refill fits perfectly into the portfolio of Hollow Sun products which invariably focus on vintage synthesis, something for which they have become quite legendary over the years.

Take a look for yourself and check out the amazing deals in the shop.