Blog

What is the 808 and why is it so great?

  What is the 808 and why is it so great? We take a deep dive on the most well known and widely utilized drum machine in modern music Whether you’re a professional producer or a casual music listener, unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past 40 years, you have undoubtedly heard the sound of the Roland TR-808 drum machine. Since its launch in 1980, this unassuming piece of music equipment has become a steadfast pillar of contemporary music. This classic rhythm composer has

How to Build The Best Vocal Chain

Get a professional-sounding vocal by using the right plugins in the right place. Ask any recording engineer and they’ll tell you; vocals are perhaps the most difficult thing to record and the most important to get right. Because we’re so used to hearing the human voice, our ears are especially sensitive to it when we listen to music. This means we focus on it above everything else in the track and pick up all the nuance and detail – good and bad – in the way it sounds. Getting a good vocal

Best Drum VST Plugins

Whether you’re a classic hardware fan, a modern innovator or a sample-tweaker – there’s a drum machine for you. The drum machine is one of the most important and influential instruments in modern music. Classic hardware drum machines like the LinnDrum and Roland 808 would come to define genres and eras in the latter half of the 20th century, making a permanent mark on the popular and underground music landscape. These vintage bits of gear now cost thousands of pounds and are largely 

Essential Production Techniques for Lo-Fi Hip Hop

  Give your tracks some nostalgic warp and warble with these essential lo-fi hip hop techniques When it comes to lo-fi hip hop, aesthetic is everything. Be it visual or sonic, the general vibe of the music is almost more important than the melodic elements – although strong chords and melodies are, of course, essential. In this article, we’ll take you through a few techniques that you can use in your lo-fi hip hop productions to elevate your music to the next level. All of these met

5 Pro Tips for Mixing Reverb

Essential Reverb Tips and Techniques Learn how to use reverb like a professional mixing engineer with these useful tips When it comes to music production, we tend to situate the elements of a track in their own space to add depth and dimension to the mix. Treating a sound with reverb is an excellent way of giving it space, but it requires a careful balancing act that should take into account the character of the source sound, and how it relates to both the other elements in the track a

iZotope Neutron 4: Everything You Need To Know

iZotope’s mixing package keeps getting bigger and better. While version 3 brought us the Mix Assistant, Visual Mixer and Balance Assistant (which was three years ago), there’s been plenty of time for the Massachusetts AI-fanciers to develop a stunning follow-up. Neutron 4 contains a few new additions, some quality-of-life tweaks, and even a couple of complete overhauls. The Mix Assistant is transformed into Assistant View, a whole eco screen that helps you define and reach a spectral target,

The Best MIDI & Music Theory Plugins

Our Guide To The Best MIDI & Music Theory VST Plugins We’ve compiled the best MIDI and music theory VST plugins for producers available on Plugin Boutique. The world’s most famous plugins are usually instruments and effects, helping with Mixing Skills and providing Easy Methods for Synthesis. From the likes of super synths like Pigments 5 and Diva, through FabFilter and Soundtoys effects, there’s a lot of love for audio plugins. But there’s a third category of plugin that can be infini

Sampleson on Stage54

Sampleson on Stage54, and How We Made our New Collaborative Plugin Together Model citizens Augusto Filamino and Lucia Tkach use spectral modelling to summon rare instruments to life  Thanks to continuous innovation in the field of virtual instrument development, music producers today can arm their tracks with authentic sounds they could only have ever dreamed of owning previously. Fancy a string section? Check. What about a church organ? Check. Sampleson, the developers behind our new e

Ten Years of Plugins

Relive the past decade of twists and turns in the world of music software with this trip down memory lane It’s hard to imagine a life where we couldn’t reach for our favourite synth, EQ, compressor, or barometric visual spline compander without a simple click and drag of a mouse, but there truly was a time when plugins didn’t exist. At the time that Plugin Boutique was founded, though, plugins had become an accepted part of most producers’ lives. Soft synths like Massive had been so influe

Ten Years of Music Tech

11 things that have changed the way we make music in the past decade In the ever changing world of music tech, if you’re standing still, you’re going backwards. Technological innovation directly impacts how music is made. For example, when CDs came along (remember them?) their increased data storage meant longer songs and more tracks per album; that is until streaming services saturated the music market and compelled artists to get to the point. Since Plugin Boutique landed in your laps

Ten Years of Plugin Boutique

Ten Years of Plugin Boutique After a decade of service under the awnings of the plugin marketplace, our ability to serve our customers is the strongest it's been yet. We’re not ones to toot our own horns, but Plugin Boutique exists today as the place where the best music software companies come to sell their wares to producers, musicians and DJs worldwide.  Nowadays, we host over 6000 plugins from nearly 200 developers, from the Best Synths Out There, at All Budgets, to the Strangest I

Carl Craig's Plugin Picks

  From his early days as a pioneer of the burgeoning sound of Detroit techno to his Grammy nomination in 2008 for his remix of Junior Boys’ ‘Like A Child’, Carl Craig has ensured that his signature sound has remained not only distinct, but gradually evolved in new directions. As the subject of producer focus for Loopcloud this month, subscribers can get closer than ever. Alongside an exclusive Planet E Breaks pack hand-crafted in his Detroit studio, Carl is also judging an exciting

Shop now. Pay over time with Klarna

Artist Insight: Marius de Vries on Creativity & Collaboration

In between producing for the likes of Bjork and Brian Eno, Marius de Vries has played pretty much every role there is to play in creating world-renowned music. We caught up with the grammy-award winning composer to find out about his latest work on the film CODA, directed by Sian Heder (Orange is the New Black, Little America), his approach to film scoring, and the gear he uses to keep him creative. Congratulations on your score for CODA (dir. Sian Heder). Can you tell us how that came ab

Why Studio One by Presonus is the Perfect DAW for ALL Types of Producers

Why Studio One 5 might be the Perfect DAW for You! Learn more about PreSonus Studio One 5 Choosing the right DAW is fundamental in any modern producers’ journey and with there being so many to choose from, each with their own fervent community of users championing reasons why each one is the best, it might seem impossible to choose one over the other. Well, in this video I’m going to tell you why Studio One might be the right choice for you.  Presonus have created a DAW that

Reason Lite Rack Plugin | Tutorials

Reason Rack Plugin Tutorial #1 | Basic Introduction Reason Rack Plugin Tutorial #2 | Matrix Sequencer - Control Internal & External Instruments Reason Rack Plugin Tutorial #3 | MClass Compressor Sidechain - Internal & External Routing Reason Rack Plugin Tutorial #4 | Scales & Chords Player Reason Rack Plugin Tutorial #5 | Combinator Basics - Rotary & Button Macro Routing