Sometimes your music won’t need another compressor or EQ. Seriously. You might already have everything you need to mix the track. What’s missing in many cases is good sounds. This is especially true if sound design isn’t your cup of tea.
A different drum kit, strange atmosphere, cinematic element, or synth preset can send an idea in a direction you never would have found using the same sounds you always reach for. And before you go thinking that means dropping a few hundred dollars on another giant collection, it doesn’t.
You can refresh your sound library for much less.
Do More With More Everyday Sounds
A good place to start would be The August Mega Bundle, which covers a lot of that ground with products like Leviathan 2, and All In-One Serum Essentials. Together, they give producers access to thousands of drum sounds, loops, melodic elements, MIDI files, and synth presets covering hiphop, pop, EDM, house, and other modern styles.
Add Sounds With More Character
Once that’s done, start looking for sounds that can change a track’s personality.
The August Mega Bundle also includes Factory by Sugar Bytes, Gorilla Drive & Hawk Phaser, and Ignition by W.A. Production.
Factory combines two synth engines with sequencing and an 8×8 modulation matrix. Gorilla Drive adds tube style saturation, Hawk Phaser creates vintage modulation, and Ignition combines dynamics, saturation, clipping, EQ, transient shaping, stereo controls, and other processing in one multi-effect.
Bring In Cinematic Sounds
Cinematic sounds are useful even if you never plan to score film or write cinematic music.
Sinister Cinematic Bundle by Ghosthack packs 4 dark cinematic libraries into an 8.17 GB collection containing 1,790 royalty free sounds. You get scraping strings, evolving drones, foley percussion, stingers, risers, impacts, synth basses, atmospheric sounds, MIDI files, and bonus Serum and Sylenth1 presets.
Drop an eerie string layer into a hiphop intro or hook (any section). Put a nice dark drone underneath a pop track. Chop an impact and lace it within the drums and percussion, just for something a little different than the norm.
Things like that help you stand out more.
Look Outside Your Usual Genre
Cliche…Yes, but a lot of music producers skip this, and it’s really the trick to taking your sound to the next level.
Don’t just buy more versions of sounds you already own. Add something that lets you make music in a different way. Something that adds a new piece to the puzzle.
The August Mega Bundle is currently $30, while Ghosthack’s Sinister Cinematic Bundle is $27, putting both below the $50 mark at Audio Plugin Deals right now.
Save More With Audio Plugin Deals
Audio Plugin Deals regularly offers discounts on plugins, virtual instruments, sample libraries, and music production software.
New to Audio Plugin Deals?
Create an account, grab the deal while it is available, and follow the included redemption instructions to download and activate your products. Deals change regularly, so check back often to see what new sounds you can add without wrecking your plugin budget. Go here for details
