Grooveware sounds

Groove Criminals’ second new sample pack switches over to our cover theme with a selection of sounds created using freeware. Here’s Oli…

“More than ever, there is a feast of good quality, free software out there for producers of all genres to download and use. We’ve grabbed a good handful of the freeware covered in this month’s feature and given it a test drive, making some loops and multis. Some of the software we use already on a regular basis (the excellent Valhalla reverbs, Vital Audio and Glitchmachines Fracture) but we’re new to other apps.

“All the synth loops either use the softsynth’s effects (Vital and Tunefish have some really useful effects), or we added some Valhalla Supermassive or Freq Echo or left them dry. We twinned the Harvest Mini MIDI sequence creator with Vital, mostly using the random feature until we settled on a sequence we liked, a fast way of getting inspiration to kick-start a session.

“We love Glitchmachines plugins which are mad (in a good way) and Fracture never disappoints. We fed it with drum loops which we then tweaked – our favourite way of using the plugin.”