BA-1 The first proper analog-modeled emulation of the CS01, a beloved and cultish 1982 monosynth!

Review video of BA-1 synth!

Watch my video review of BA-1 and listen to the warm analog glory!

Want to try the BA-1 synth for free? Get it via the link below. The trail version will insert 5 sec of silence every 60 seconds.

– The Essence of Analog Bliss –

BA-1 is the Yamaha CS01…but polyphonic, and with effects!

YAMAHA CS01 from 1982 is a wonderful little portable synth. BA-1 makes a perfect emulation of the CS01 and takes the synth to new territories with “battery control”, polyphony and a classic analog “budget” effects section.

Yes, the original CS01 was monophonic, but you can also flip a switch on BA-1 if you want to make it sound mono like the classic!

Speaker emulation

Even the speaker emulation from the CS01 is included in the BA-1 synth, so you can flip a switch and instantly get that sweet lofi sound!

Embracing the Warmth

The BA-1 synth captures the essence of vintage analog warmth in a digital age. Its meticulously crafted sound engine and careful attention to detail ensure that every note you play resonates with a beautiful, organic warmth that is reminiscent of classic analog synths. Say goodbye to sterile and lifeless sounds— the BA-1 brings your music to life with its authentic analog character. And if that’s not enough, degrade/reduce the battery amount and make the sound sparkle (fuzz) even more!

A Journey Through Time

To truly appreciate the BA-1 synth, let’s take a moment to delve into the rich history of analog synthesis. From the iconic Minimoog to the legendary Roland Jupiter-8, analog synths have shaped the sonic landscape of countless genres. Baby Audio pays homage to these timeless instruments, incorporating their iconic sonic qualities into the BA-1, making it a gateway to the magic of vintage soundscapes.

Intuitive User Interface

Whether you’re a seasoned producer or just starting your musical journey, the BA-1’s user-friendly interface makes it easy to navigate and create stunning sounds. With intuitive controls and clear visual feedback, you’ll spend less time tweaking parameters and more time immersing yourself in the creative process.

Oscillators unleashed

The BA-1 synth features dual oscillators, each offering a wide range of waveforms. From the classic sawtooth and square waves to rich triangle and pulse waves, the oscillators provide a versatile foundation for crafting unique sounds. Experiment with detuning and blending the oscillators to achieve fat, lush tones or create intricate harmonics that will captivate your listeners.

Sonic Shaping

To truly shape your sound, the BA-1 synth offers a suite of built-in effects. Add grit and character with the distortion module, create lush textures with the chorus effect, or immerse your sounds in a rich, spacious environment with the reverb. These effects provide the perfect finishing touches to polish your sounds to perfection.

The post Unleash Analog Magic with the BA-1 Synth appeared first on Morningdew Media.

Check out Beatmaker VICE at UJAM website.

UJAM, the company behind Beatmaker suite of plugins

UJAM is a software development company founded by the renowned Hans Zimmer and Pharrell Williams focusing on developing high quality plugins for music producers and composers. This is truly an exciting rooster of experts in cinematic sound design for film and media composition.

Beatmaker VICE – what’s in the plugin?

Straight out of the box, we can hear that Beatmaker VICE pays homage to the lovely 1980s drum machines from Roland, Korg, Linn etc.

Fans of Vangelis, Jean Michel-Jarre, Giorgio Moroder and Trevor Horn will feel right at home with the palette of sounds that VICE offers. While the major concept of VICE is to give you hands on access to excellent synthwave drum beats. It can also yield more modern and hyped drum sounds with ease.

The plug-in is comprised of 10 drum kits, 12 smart-mix presets with over 30 styles and 60 presets to play with. VICE is pre-loaded with 460 patterns to be used as segments of an arrangement. The patterns include intro, verse, chorus, fill, ending and so on.

It is a big plus that all the Beatmaker plugins have a similar design and layout. That makes it easy to get going if you know one of the Beatmaker plugins from before.

Beatmaker VICE comes as VST, AU and AAX plugins.

Retro Futurism – VICE presets for modern and retro synthwave

In VICE you will find three main categories of presets; Retro, Modern and Experimental. The presets will adjust between the various kits and smart-mix presets to give you instant access to specific settings.

The Beatmaker VICE presets includes mix settings with compression and saturation to balance and fit the beats into your songs.

Multi-output of individual drums in Beatmaker

Yes, in Beatmaker VICE you can select, per individual drum sound, if you want to included the drum in the main mix, or as a separate mix output. In conclusion, this gives you complete control if you want to mix and process the individual drum sounds in the DAW. Or let VICE make the perfect mix for you.

While the individual outputs can be fun and give you deep control, I personally think that the main stereo output and processing of Beatmaker VICE gives you a punchy and perfect drum sound.

If you want to learn more about how to produce and compose Synthwave you can check out my article and video on producing the track “Shields Up”.

Drag and drop midi loops

In the Beatmaker VICE plugin you find a huge array of midi loops which give you instant access to 80s inspired beats. The loops are excellent for making quick song arrangements.

The quickest way of working with VICE is to trigger these loops via the keyboard. It’s also possible to latch the loops. Latch works like an on/off switch function so you can activate or de-activate the playback of a loop. The latch is time synced to beats, and also makes sure no more than one midi-loop is active at any one given time.

If you want to edit these pre-made loops further you can always just drag / drop the loops unto your DAW arrangement.

Buy Beatmaker VICE at UJAM website.

Boost Your Productions – Pristine Sound Packs

The post Beatmaker VICE Synthwave plugin by UJAM appeared first on Morningdew Media.

Ever wanted to travel back to the (glorious!?) 80’s and make some smooth music of the time? We have a whole “wave” of genres depicting some of the lovely smooth sounds of the time. Synthwave, retrowave, vapourwave….wave… Are we surfing or making music???

We look at arrangement, instrument layering, bass, concepts & lyrics, melody, production, plugins and vocal processing.

About Shields Up – How to Synthwave!

I first decided to write a song in the synthwave genre. No, it’s not the genre I typically write in. But I’ve done my share of 80’s tracks while practising composition in school. That’s a whole other chapter we will come back to.

The red thread in your song

To me it really helps to define an exciting topic, or concept when writing songs. The concept will help you on the path of finishing the piece of music.

The topic is your red thread throughout the session.

For Shields Up I pictured myself walking the streets of Tokyo during the 80s with arcade halls all over the place. I was wearing a yellow jacket and the rain was pouring down as I jumped into one of those arcade halls to play one of the games.

Need some great Synthwave drum sounds? Check out Beatmaker VICE from Ujam.

The yellow jacket…Totoro goes Synthwave

Hmm, I wonder if that yellow jacket idea was unconsciously stolen from Totoro… It’s weird how inspiration works. This happens all the time both in music, writing, design and…basically anything we create. We draw inspiration unconsciously.

I grew up with Spectrum, Commodore 64, Atari ST and all these gaming machines so it’s kinda second nature. And I wanted to include these machines in this retro track. One game in particular came to my mind, R-Type.

So Shields Up became kinda of an R-TYPE tribute song.

R-Type is an uber hard retro shooter! Try it if you don’t believe me! I wanted to capture the essence and vibe of this golden gaming era with blazing shooters. I hope you can hear that in the final song.

Ok, so that’s a little introduction to the track. Now go check out the Synthwave tutorial and learn more about the actual music production.

Listen to GELHEIN – Shields Up on Spotify

Peace!

What gear I use in the studio? Check out the Resources Page.

Join my exclusive community: https://www.patreon.com/gelhein

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The post Synthwave tutorial – Gelhein – Shields Up appeared first on Morningdew Media.

Gelhein

For more music from the artist Gelhein (aka Mattias Holmgren), please visit the official Gelhein website.

What gear I use in the studio? Check out the Resources Page.

Join my exclusive community: https://www.patreon.com/gelhein

Be sure to sign up to our newsletter for new exciting articles in design, music production and sound design.

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