what is trip-hop?

the styles of trip-hop

essentials

essential recordings

chord progressions

tips and tricks

triphoppin radio

links

contact me

Trip-hop essentials (for producers/musicians)

01 pianos 02 virtual pianos 03 synths 04 VSTs 05 sequencers 06 sample CDs 07 mics/efx

VIRTUAL SYNTHESIZERS

click the screenshots to read more about them and listen to mp3 demos made exclusively with each instrument only. You can also download demos of all of these instruments from their company websites to see which ones best fit your songwriting and producing style. At the end of this page are the best FREE virtual instruments!

Love the sound of a Novation Supernova, Clavia Nord Lead, and Access Virus? Try Linplug's Albino (one of the best virtual instruments ever made) and also RGC:Audio's Z3TA 1.4. Both of these virtual instruments include countless presets! The latter being a tremendously cool virtual instrument with EXCELLENT sound, even though it can be hard on your computer's memory, I think it fits more for trip-hop music, though the Albino is absolutely stunning):

Linplug Albino by Rob Papen

RGC:Audio Z3ta 1.4

Love AMBIENT sounds? Soundtracks? Film scores and background trippy music in movies? Leads? Fat basses? Weird-ass noises? Atmosphere's got it ALL. The ambient/pad sounds are to die for. Fully tweakable and TONS of presets. A necessity if you're making chillout, or dark/ambient trip-hop.

Spectrasonics Atmosphere

Love the sound of the oldschool Arp 2600? The 2600V by Arturia sounds just like it at a FRACTION of the cost:

Arturia Arp 2600V

Love the oldschool analogue (aka "Moog") sound? Heard EVERYWHERE from Erasure to Depeche Mode, Goldfrapp to Crustation, Air, Boards Of Canada, Archive, and countless others? Then try the Moog Modular V or Minimoog by Arturia, and also the insanely awesome Minimonsta by G-Media.

Arturia Moog Modular V

Arturia Minimoog V

Love that Yamaha CS-80 but can't afford to buy a real one used? Try Arturia's CS-80V.

Arturia CS-80V

Love more of that oldschool analogue sound? Try out Native Instruments' Pro-53 (modeled after the old Sequential Circuits Prophet 5)..

Native Instruments Pro-53

Love the sounds and variety of sounds in a Korg Triton? Try out Sampletank 2 XL. Its sound quality (in my opinion) blows away the Triton. Sampletank's instruments (basically all of them) sound incredibly realistic, especially the strings, pianos, bass guitars, and orchestral instruments. Extremely useful, especially for hip-hop heads and trip-hop fanatics (lots of the sounds seem to cater toward those two styles especially, but the variety of sounds can be used for ANY style of music.

IK Multimedia Sampletank 2 XL

THE BEST FREE VSTs
The following is a list of some of the best-sounding virtual instruments, that are FREE to all. Most of these are available from www.kvraudio.com (formerly known as www.kvr-vst.com). KVR audio is the #1 place to find information about virtual instruments (reviews, news, patches for your favorite virtual instruments, etc). A vast majority of the VSTs on the site are free. I've downloaded and tried basically all of them, and below is a list of the best, most useful ones (Figured I'd save you some work!).

LazySnake
http://www.bostreammail.net/ers/lazysnake.html
An incredible Rhodes emulation. I still can't believe this is free. He has a donation button on his page. I use this most for my Rhodes parts in my songs.

Crystal
http://www.greenoak.com/crystal/
This instrument works a lot like Native Instruments' Absynth, but you don't have to pay a dime. Very cool.

Oberon 8, Phibes, Morpheus, and more
http://www.funkelectric.com/~cockaigne/
The guy who creates these VSTs is exceptionally talented. Great, useful stuff.

Lallapallooza Lite 2
http://www.oustedproductions.net/lpll2.zip
A very fine virtual analogue synthesizer.

Linplug FreeAlpha
http://www.linplug.com/Products/FreeAlpha/freealpha.htm
Makers of the critically-acclaimed VST "Albino", the FreeAlpha has some really great sounds, mainly designed for trance and techno music.

Superwave P8
http://home.btconnect.com/christopherg/main.htm
Excellent virtual analogue synthesizer. Great sounds, tempo-synched delays, you name it. This has it.

Sun Ra
http://www.uv.es/~ruizcan/p_vst.htm
An amazing, playable ambience instrument. You can use the built-in sounds, or load your own .wav files. Pitch, delay, frequency, all can be tweaked bigtime. Awesome.

Propellerhead Rebirth RB-338 2.0
www.rebirthmuseum.com
This classic sequencing software (originally priced at $199) inspired a slew of imitators. Developed by Sweden's Propellerhead Software (designers of Reason), this program is a direct, believable emulation of the classic Roland bassline & lead sequencer TB-303, and the two classic Roland drum machines TR-808 and TR-909 (both of which are mainstays in all styles of electronic music, especially techno). Extremely powerful in so many ways, the software is now retired, and available as a free download from Propellerhead! This software has been used by countless professional artists including Juno Reactor, Bitstream Dream, Daft Punk, Ladytron, and BT. Check out the site below, read about its history, follow the CD image download instructions carefully, and enjoy!