A Tribute to Klaus Schulze – Sounds and Presets
5,0 / 5,0 | 
A good mix of presets for you this week, including a tribute to Klaus Schulze, patches for the TUS JE-8086 and a bunch of polyrhythmic patterns for Arturia’s DrumBrute Impact.
Sounds and Presets
‘Klaus Schulze Tribute’ for KORG modwave by Nick Klimenko
Klaus Schulze is held in the highest regard by most of the electronic music community. He joined Tangerine Dream in 1969 as their drummer, only to leave a year later. After forming then leaving Ash Ra Tempel within the space of another year, he ended up forging a successful solo career.
Throughout the early 1970s, Klaus Schulze began to incorporate more synthesizers into his work and is often credited as the father of the Berlin School of electronic music. He continued to release music until his death in 2022.
The ‘Klaus Schulze Tribute’ for KORG modwave is Nick Klimenko’s homage to Herr Schulze using a modern-day classic. Consisting of 40 Performances that cover a range of Schulze-esque styles, this pack delivers classic Berlin-style sequences, arpeggios, leads, strings, pads and splits with both sequences and leads.
Nick drew inspiration from such Klaus Schulze albums as ‘Crystal Lake’, ‘Are You Sequenced’, ‘Mirage’, ‘Body Love’ and ‘Velvet Voyage’. He also ensured that all four macro controls were assigned and used on every patch to give more organic control over the sounds.
The Klaus Schulze Tribute for KORG modwave works on both Mk.1 and Mk.2 models, as well as the native plugin and desktop module, and is available for €15 from the LFO.store website. Nick has also produced Klaus Schulze Tribute packs for the KORG wavestate and KORG multi/poly.
‘Cinematica’ for TUS JE-8086 by Nick Klimenko
Whilst the JE-8086 has been around in alpha state for a while, it only recently moved to a public beta and has caused quite the stir! It very faithfully replicates Roland’s JP-8000 by fully emulating the complex DSP chips used in the original hardware.
And now we have preset banks already springing up for it, courtesy (once again) of Nick Klimenko. As the bank name suggests, these sounds are focused on pad sounds, but there’s also room for some very decent leads and basses. There are also some nice plucks and strings.
It’s great to see this endeavour supported by sound designers, as it will help solidify and grow the project by The Usual Suspects. It still baffles me that Roland themselves haven’t released a version of this stone-cold classic. There’s clearly a massive demand for it!
You can snag this sound bank for just €15 from the LFO.store.
‘HYDRASYNTH Performer Essentials Vol.1’ for ASM Hydrasynth by Roberto Macri
Given that ASM officially announced the Leviasynth on Monday this week, it felt appropriate to give its first synth some love here, just in case it and its users felt left out! There’s little doubt that the Hydrasynth was a massive success, disrupting the synthesizer market in a very epic way.
It single-handedly made polyphonic aftertouch popular again and, with its four different versions, made that wonderful expression tool available to everyone, no matter their budget or available studio space! So while we wait for the first Leviasynth banks to appear, check out this great pack for the Hydra.
Entitled “Performer Essentials”, this bank of 50 patches has been designed, so its creator says, to deliver sounds with a strong live and studio focus. I’m not sure where else they’d be focused, but there you go. However, this bank has many excellent sounds, ranging from electric pianos to synthy basses and leads, classic synth recreations and even drum sounds.
Obviously, this bank is fully compatible with all four versions of the instrument and is supplied in the native .hydra format, ready to be installed via ASM’s Manager application. Check out the video demo to see how this bank will easily fill the gaps in your HydraSynth tool kit.
It’s not the cheapest bank at €28.95, but I feel the quality certainly justifies the price.
‘Poly Rhythms’ for Arturia DrumBrute Impact by Anton Anru
When I finally got around to buying Arturia’s drum machine, the original DrumBrute had been discontinued, replaced by the DrumBrute Impact. It lacked the multiple outputs of the original, condensing them down to just four, but I decided to pull the trigger anyway.
No sooner was it out of the box that I realised I’d actually made a very good choice and started playing around with it. It had a very nice and familiar workflow and I was soon discovering its ability to create poly rhythms very easily.
Well, it seems I wasn’t the only one to appreciate this, as Anton Anru has created a bank of 64 preset patterns that exploit this feature to the max. The patterns supplied here are both very interesting in terms of their polyrhythmic nature, but maintaining that hook that keeps you locked in.
Of course, you can use all of the performance features to add further fun to the experience, such as the roller pad for fills, the ‘accents’ and ‘color’ settings. In fact, because it is a fully programmable drum machine, you can tweak every aspect to your taste.
Poly Rhythms is available from the Anton Anru store for just $14.95. These presets work on both the DrumBrute Impact and the limited edition DrumBrute Impact 1984.
‘Noise Structure’ for Sonicware Ambient Ø by KAV
Sonicware’s Ambient Ø continues to be one of their most popular LIVEN units, along with Evoke and Texture Lab, mostly due to its brilliant approach to creating sonic soundscapes with consummate ease. Following on from ‘Surfaces’ and ‘Sci-Fi Scape’, ‘Noise Structure’ is an all new bank.
It contains 34 new patches created from a new noise waves file. This bank, as you will probably suspect, given the nature of the instrument, is perfect for ambient, cinematic and experimental music. Whilst part of the appeal of the Ambient Ø is to use your own sounds, a little extra help doesn’t hurt!
This bank is just €12 and will add some mystery and noise to your recordings.
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