homebrew electric music

A friend turned me toward musicFAQ.net and more specifically their SynthEdit links.  Going to http://musicfaq.net/ and then clicking on the SynthEdit link in the frame to the right of the page will give two options.  First, a description of SynthEdit and an explanation of donationware.

Support your fellow artists. Help keep donationware feasible for those that work hard and offer their work for free but ask that you support them if you use their work. It's fair, it's honest and it's a incentive to keep music available for those that can't afford expensive programs. Music should be available to anyone interested in trying to learn.

The second option, under SynthEdit after clicking, is SynthEdit sites- which opens a page of links to different developers.  Many of these links are defunct, but some are very much worth checking out. 
Toward the bottom of the list is tweakbench -clicking on it or the link below will take you to the site.

http://www.tweakbench.com/

All of the instruments on the site look a little like the peach synth. I've tried a few of the free VST plug ins from this site.  They don't use up much memory (or disk space, or  too many processor cycles...) and sound pretty good.  I've tried out the percussive toad, the mellotron based tapeworm, and the digilog monomate.  The toad has some interesting sounds.  No deep bass drums, but a number of nifty clicks, whirrs, and groinks easily tweaked with the very simple interface.  I was impressed with the tapeworm VST synth most.  A very simple plug-in, its flute patch works well with light distortion and either chorus or flange to create quick, ambient pads or backgrounds.  The monomate produced a couple of interesting noises, but didn't respond to velocity triggers.  It also seemed stuck on ultra-loud when i tried it.  I'm going back to try the rebar synth and maybe the mashup effect.

If you like the gear, you can also wear it.  The cafepress site includes tees, mugs, a mousepad, and my favorite -a bumper sticker.

http://www.cafepress.com/tweakbench/

 

If you'd prefer to try building your own VST you can get the shareware version of SynthEdit (for win xp, nt, 2000, or win 98).

http://www.synthedit.com/

First things first, a solid PC is the only reasonable way to record/produce music. Personally I prefer XP, but producing music without a computer is out of the question. Most of the entries on this site will relate to different sites with downloadable synths or effects, but some will refer to research on how to get the most out of your IBM compatible.

Remember the last time you asked a salesperson about a difference between computers at a major retail outlet?  Most likely it wasn't as clear and concise as this article by Denver Mcanally on benchmarking the ATI x800 XT.

You may be asking what is the difference between the X800 SE, X800 Pro, and the X800 XT? Well there isn?t much difference in the GPU. Since there are 4 pipelines per quadrant, ATI simply deactivates defective ones and sells it as a lower model. The X800 Pro has ?12? pipelines. What this means is that one of the quadrants of an X800 XT is deactivated due to defective pipelines. If you look at an X800 Pro and X800 XT both built by ATI they will be physically identical. ATI uses the same HSF, PCB, and component placement on both models. AMD and Intel both use this same method of marketing when they have a CPU with defective cache. They simply disable the cache and re brand the CPU. This is how we get Celeron, Sempron, and Duron.

http://www.amdzone.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=Sections&file=index&req=viewarticle&artid=89&page=1

Less is more in sales.  Retailers don't want to lose customers.  Often they don't promote the actual differences between processor types much less the differences between types of video card processors. The benchmarks here definitely have me considering an upgrade from the ATI onboard graphics I currently use. For more benchmarks,  the following link to the article at Tom's Hardware Guide (updated in March 2005) now includes photos and benchmarks of Intel's Extreme Edition CPUs.

From 1995 To 2005: 116 CPUs From 100 MHz To 3800 MHz
http://www.tomshardware.com/cpu/20041220/index.html

Pretty amazing article, considering they ran all of the tests using Windows XP (even on the pentium 100).  Note that they tried to standardize the tests by using the same equipment with each chip/motherboard. If you now find yourself curious about your computer's processor you can download your own free copy of CPU-z and compare with Tom's screenshots for hours.

http://www.cpuid.org/cpuz.php

Note, CPU-Z is now on version 1.30, updated August 5, 2005.