Wednesday, July 18, 2007

Namm Show: Reason 4.0 Synth Sneak Peak (THOR)

A new player on the brass market


Wallander Instruments is a newcomer in the market of the ultrarealistic acoustic emulations - their first product, Brass 1 solves the brass problem of the electronic musician completely. Brass 1 is the first part of their product line called WIVI - on their website they write a lot of interesting statements of the brass topic so I won't tell any more but the price: 600 USD. Try the free demo at first, of course.

Patch your digital studio with TC Electronic

TC Electronic will ship their new Digital Konnekt x32 soon - it is a very sophisticated audio interface and digital audio patch bay and format converter. Working with AES/EBU, S/PDIF, TOS and ADAT, you can patch your signal easily with a 16x16 matrix, and you can even sample rate convert 8 channels simultaneously, between 44,1 and 192 kHz. DAW integration is possible via Firewire. The box four scene memories to store different complex digital patching, and has a stereo analog output for listening. A smart feature is a bundled VST/AU plugin called integrator, which makes external effect integration into the VST environment a snap. Check the full feature list.

The Akai midi controller


Akai has also introduced a new dedicated MIDI pad controller, the MPD16 , which has 16 velocity sensitive pads for drum and percussion programming and offers superior feel, response and sensitivity. Both, USB and MIDI connections are available for total flexibility. The MPD16 is also available as a bundle with Native Instruments highly acclaimed Battery software drum sampler

Enormous price cuts for the summer

Both giant soft synth factory decided to enhance their summer sales with incredible price cuts so we will not buy any soft instrument any time but summer. Arturia offers not less than their all synths - the V Collection holds Minimoog V, Moog Modular V, CS-80V, ARP 2600 V, plus the two Prophets, and the very big bonus, the new Jupiter-8V. The full kit would cost more than a Porsche if you buy them as hardware but prefer the software versions and you will top at 549 euro - that's a price of wonder. Order here until 30th September.

Native Instruments has numerous smaller offers instead of a big one - buy Kontakt 2 now for a half price of 250 euro, or the classic keys edition which covers Akoustik Piano, Elektrik Piano plus the B4 II for 349. For more Native offers click here, their Summer of Sound action closes at 31th, August.

Steinberg Sequel

Sequel, Steinberg's new entry-level music creation tool is in the shops from now. Its price of 79 euro helps to make Garageband's life harder, and the very simple operating model with only a single window also supports it. It has 600 preset sounds plus 60 drum kits, and a huge array of 5000 grooves. A fine feature is the real-time pitch shift and time stretch of the audio track regarding the tempo changes, but we still miss the VST plugin support. It has an own domain with an own site.

Important update on Sonic Synth 2


IK Multimedia developed a lot on their famous synth workstation called Sonic Synth 2. The new 2.1 version is free for all registered users and runs on Intel Macs also, has a stand-alone application, fully compatible with Cubase 4, has a smoother response on Control Change messages, has BPM-syncable LFOs, got 16 stereo outputs and so on. Check and purchase here.