Free Orchestral Samples from the BBC Music Production Toolkit

"Free Orchestral Samples" no doubt got your attention and likely brought you here so I'll keep this short and to the point.  Universal Publishing Production Music composers Martin Joustra and Andy Blythe have created an awesome sampling tool kit designed for the media industry and beginners alike.

Whether you create orchestral scores, wild trap jams or bleeps in bloops in Fruity Loops you can easily and quickly drag and drop high quality 48k WAV samples into your productions with ease.  There are 50 songs split into 3000 different cue points that are all in the same key, using the placement system provided nearly all 3000 cues are interchangeable with one another.  In simple speak this means little musical knowledge is needed to create something you can call your own.



Registration is free and required to download the toolkit but I'd say trading your email for something like this is more than a fair shake.  For more information on the music production toolkit check out the website linked below!

The 10GB BBC Music Production Toolkit

All the best,

Nick

Bitwig Studio Tutorials from Nick's Tutorials

I've done a couple posts in the past on Nick's Tutorials, his work is fantastic and certainly worth the coin. He has broken down Ableton and sound design using the DAW in a way that many of the other tutorial designers have yet to do. His work is interesting and most importantly, always informative.

 Nick isn't a giant company like Lynda or MacProVideo, he is a guy with an incredible skillset who has taken the time to share his craft with all of us. If that doesn't deserve your dollar I don't know what does.



Nick has decided to begin offering Bitwig Studio tutorials alongside his already successful Ableton tutorials. When you consider that the Bigwig guys used to be the Ableton guys it makes quite a bit of sense that many Ableton users may be jumping ship for Bitwig.  No word on when these tutorials will be ready but trust that they'll be worth the wait.  If you're one of those people and you're looking to get a leg up on your fellow Bitwig fanatics be sure to check out the Nick's Tutorials website and Nick's YouTube Channel.

Best Budget Friendly MIDI Controller Keyboards

Music Radar has put together a great list of what they believe to be the 12 best MIDI controller keyboards under $150. To be honest, I can't say I disagree with any of their recommendations when it comes to this class of controller.

They've done a fantastic job of presenting the reader with a great resource when it comes to making music on a budget. We all know playing MIDI notes with the home row of our keyboard is frustrating, spend a little time with this article plus a few bucks and you'll be tickling the ivories (errr plastics) in no time.

The 12 Best Budget MIDI Controller Keyboards

Awesome Custom Ableton Live Controller

Here is a video of an awesome customer Ableton controller from Ander.  The knobs overlaid above the LED's add an especially cool touch to the units.  Ander does an excellent job explaining his work in the video below so I'll let him do the rest of the talking.  Enjoy!

Mixing Hip-Hop Tutorial

Mixing Hip-Hop is a two part tutorial course from Matthew Weiss. (Snoop, Arrested Development, Gorilla Zoe, Royce Da 5'9 and more) This course is a simple to follow and easy to digest, the perfect way for the beginner to get their hands dirty in the world of urban music production and recording. The tutorial is broken down into two parts; one half focused on recording/processing rap vocals and another half on hip hop beat production.

Check out this Video Review from: SoundsAndGear.com



Topics Covered:

-Cleaning up vocals
-Controlling tone and dynamics Enhancing with EQ
-Constructing ambience
-Producing better vocals
-Setting levels
-Emotional automation
-Making the drums hit hard
-Enhancing the synths
-Home mastering tips

 The entire cost of the tutorial kit is $57 USD and it can be downloaded directly from the Mixing Hip-Hop website.

All the best,

Nick