Welcome to the workbench

The product pages on this site tell you what each instrument does. This blog is where I'll talk about the how and the why: the decisions behind the sounds, the problems I ran into, and what's on the bench next.

How the gallery started

Every instrument here began life as a browser instrument. I'd build an idea in the browser, play it, tune it, and keep going until it sounded right. Once an instrument earned its place, I rebuilt it as a VST3 plugin so it could live in a DAW, and checked that the plugin sounds the same as the browser version.

That history is why every purchase still includes the browser version. It runs on any computer, Mac included, and it's the same sound engine as the plugin.

The one rule

There are no sample libraries inside these instruments. Every kick, snare, conga and hat is synthesized as you play it, starting from how the real thing makes its sound: a drum head vibrating, a pitch dropping as the skin relaxes, snare wires rattling underneath, or the stair-steps of an old 12-bit converter.

Synthesis is harder to get right than playing back a recording, but it means nothing is locked in. You can retune and reshape every sound until it fits your track.

What I'll write about here

• Behind the build: how a specific sound is put together, like modeling a conga head or the crunch of a 12-bit sampler.
• Sound design recipes: settings and techniques for getting particular sounds out of the instruments.
• Updates and release notes: what changed in each version, and why.
• What's next: new instruments as they take shape.

If there's something you'd like me to cover, a sound you're chasing, or a question about how something works, email me at admin@lowfrequencygallery.com. Reader questions make the best posts.

Thanks for stopping by the gallery.

Shannon