AfroDJMac has released a new free library for Ableton Live: Tape Hiss Vinyl Crackle.
Last week I received an email from Oliver Chesler, aka The Horrorist, who writes an extraordinarily useful and informative blog called “Wire to the Ear.” He is always amazingly on point and up to date, whether with production advice, great music, or the latest audio/ iOS gear. Oliver asked if I do request for Ableton Live Instruments (which of I try my best on); he was looking for samples of cassette tape hiss. While there’s an assortment of plugin emulators of the tape sound (including Ableton’s Vinyl distortion which I used on this freebie), as we all know, there’s nothing quite like the original. Funnily enough, just the day before I was looking for samples from vinyl records, and one of the samples I got the most use out of was just the vinyl crackle right before the music starts playing. So, naturally I thought Oliver’s suggestion was a good one.
After busting out my old Ka-Boom Box, and dusting off what remains of my cassette tape collection, I started sampling empty sections of the tapes. While I was at it, I took out some vinyl records of varying condition, sampled those, and grabbed a few minutes of tape noise from my Tascam Reel to Reel (the bad boy used on the Super Tape Drums Ableton Pack). I’ve used those samples to create a pretty excellent Ableton Live Pack for you all!
The Ableton Pack is a free download.
More information: AfroDJMac
