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Abakos Free

Abakos Free
Substractive Synth
Features:
- 2 VCO with 3 waveforms.
- LFO with multiple waveforms.
- 2 ADSR for sound design.
- Envelope Follow.
- Onboard Delay, Tremolo, Vibrato and Wah Wah.
- Noise Generator.
- Ring Mod.
- Digital / Analogue Filter Modes.
- Internal preset management system.

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Karnage

Karnage is the result of a collaboration between Krakli Software and Kriminal.
Features:
Two oscillators with width (fatness setting) and wave-shape control, a sub oscillator/white noise oscillator mixable with a level control.
24db/12db Filter modulated by a dedicated envelope, velocity, and up to 2 LFOs.
A dedicated ring modulation section that can use keyboard tracking, velocity, envelope, and up to 2 LFOs for modulation of Ring Freq.
Amp section where amplitude can be modulated by velocity and a dedicated envelope - with it's own built-in compressor. Plus Velocity control of Amp and Filter ADSR Decay.
A performance section that has Poly-Mono switch, Glide, Glissando and retrigger switches with Time control on the glide. Glide can be routed to OSC1, OSC2 or Both.
A dedicated distortion unit which uses pre and post filtering (it is this which can give Karnage its unique sound). The modulation (LFO1 or LFO2) is of the pre-post cutoff but the types of filters are set by the shape control so all sorts of effects are possible from a phasing type of modulation to a vocally formant shifting effect, (talk-box effect).
Two LFOs, whose rate is controlled manually or by host tempo. Destinations are Filter, Ring Modulation and Distortion for both LFOs and you can apply each LFO to more than one destination at once. The LFOs also have MIDI Trigger On/Off (Gate).
Full set of 128 presets by a variety of respected patch-makers.
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Two new desktop synths are available

Small, independent manufacturers are still keeping the flag of the hardware synthsizer units up for the sake of the enthusiasts. In the first picture is RozzBox One V2 from L. L. Electronics, which is a renowned version of a previous product - now it has 5-note polyphony (instead of being monophonic), and it has got an additional filter stage with a real tube. It produces sound with digital oscillators, and has three filter solution: a digital one with variable characteristics, an ordinary analog 24 dB low-pass filter, plus the tube filter with low-cut also. It eves does FM with seven algorhythms. Multitimbral up to five parts, and has independent outputs for all the five voices. Costs 2000 USD, here.

Shape the transients

Similar to a physical unit, but Schaak Audio's Transient Shaper is still a software plugin which can only set the incoming signal's attack and release. Behind it there can be a kind of compression because the output has significantly more energy than the input as we can hear it in the demos. Its price is 49 euro, order here if you like it.

Beat morpher

Beat morpher is a sample playback drum machine “with a difference”.
You specify start and end positions for each drum hit, then you can morph between the two patterns using a slider or by just pressing the auto-morph button - the beat will gradually morph over a specified number of bars.
This effect was inspired by the music of Simon Posford aka Hallucinogen and Shpongle (with raja ram).

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Virtual Minimoog

Based on the most popular analog monosynth of all time! This amazing softsynth sounds very close to the original Minimoog. Like the original, it's a monosynth (no polyphony), but there are many additional features not present in the original Mini, including: dedicated Release knobs for the two Contour Generators (envelopes), Tuning of Osc 1, Fine Tuning sliders for Osc2 and Osc3, Aftertouch control, adjustable filter Velocity curve, 3 independent Overdrive sliders (one per oscillator), Global Overdrive with hi and lowpass cutoff, Oscillator Sync, Chorus, an independent LFO that includes oscillator drift and stereo panning, and a fully programmable Digital Delay.
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Intensify your vocal tracks

Vocal Intensifier is db audioware's newest plug for the VST and AU world, and it makes a lot of sense on your vocal tracks. With parallel compression, it rise your vocal recording from the mix significantly. Al you have to pay is 79 USD to get it, here.

MTron Pro is coming soon

Sonicstate.com shot a long, detailed video on NAMM about GForce's new, upcoming virtual instrument, MTron Pro. Based on their previous Mellotron emulator, MTron, they developed really a lot: a new, rewritten audio engine, new features like reversing all the tapes and so on. The biggest news inevitably is the sound set: MTron Pro plays not only the original Mellotron soundset but sounds of two other classic instruments from that age, Birotron and Optigan. Enjoy the video here.

China pours the plugins

Kong Audio, specialist of China's people instruments has sampled a new one, suona. It is something between the woodwind and brass instruments, with a very unique, harsh sound. It came originally from Persia, and adapted in China during the Ming Dynasty. Kong sampled two suonas, a big and a smaller one, in 24/96 quality. The overall size of the package is 380 megabytes which contains several dynamic articulations to maximize the playability. The VSTi costs 68 USD, here.

Sonic Academy Propellerheads Reason 4.0 Sequencer Demo Pt 3

Sonic Academy Propellerheads Reason 4.0 Sequencer Demo Pt 2

Sonic Academy Propellerheads Reason 4.0 Sequencer Demo Pt 1

Well-equipped keyboards from the scratch

A new company, Icon manufactures this keyboard, Inspire 8PS (and some smaller models, too). As you can notice on the picture it is not a low and product, having nine faders, 16 knobs, a huge bank of push buttons and eight velocity-sensitive drum pads. Under the bender there are even an X-Y pad, already known from the very successful Kaoss Pad-series. The LCD display placed in the centre is quite a big sized, and this PS version has a hammer-action keyboard (quite unfamiliar in that size). You can enhance the instrument with the ASX sound card from Creamware's successor, which gives incredible modeled analog and digital synths for a really little money. We still don't know the price, but check the keyboard's official info page here frequently, probably they will publish it soon.

C64 SID synth for your USB port

Hardsid.com, makers of hardware solutions based on the legendary C64's SID synth chip, has released their latest and probably most advanced product, HardSID 4U. The unit is a desktop hardware synth modul, which can hold up to 4 pieces of the SID chip, and you can command them via USB. A sophisticated VSTi plugin interface provides a clean and natural interface for handling the presets and the program parameters - it goes fay beyond the original SID's capabilities. With sophisticated software driver solutions, the VSTi performs more envelope generators, four LFOs, an 8x8 modulation matrix, and most significally, it can accept an audio signal (sampled at 8kHz) on its virtual input and you can modulate any parameter of the SID with this. If you preorder HardSID 4U your cost is 249 euro (existing users of their previous products pay 199 euro) - these prices does not include any SID chip, you have to go after them yourselves (you will find them on eBay, flea markets etc). An advanced version called Studio Edition is also available which has strictly separated digital and analog circuitry plus additional noise filtering - you have to pay 349 euro for the better audio quality.

Vestax has a solution

Vestax was thinking about a compact DJ solution: the result is here, called VCM-100. It can be used as on the picture, and functions as an audio interface and a MIDI controller in one. It has four analog inputs (with 18 bit resolution), and four analog outs (20 bit), and you can adjust a total of 60 different MIDI controller in the same time with its tricky switches. It runs on USB power, and made of metal fully. Price is still a secret, check the product page to learn more.

Decent reverb from VirSyn

VirSyn makes us happy with this reverb, Reflect which is somehow a crossover between the algorhytmic and convolution reverbs. It uses both method to produce good-quality sound environments, check its web page for listening to the results. The normal price will be 169 euro but for a limited time, until 30th September you can buy it for 99 euro only. VST, AU, RTAS are supported, on every Mac and PC.

Digidesign shows two small samplers

Digidesign presents two lighter versions of their Pro Tools-only flagship sampler, Structure. First, Structure LE has limited editing functions plus limited sample mapping capabilities if you compare it with the original but costs only 150 USD. It comes with a 3 gigabyte sound library. There is an even-cheaper version, Structure Free which has a sample library of885 megs, and further limitations. It can play four instances at a time, no database handling, partly-adapted MIDI Learn, four parts multitimbral only, only a stereo pair of audio output, and no effects. But still not so bad, isn't it? Check the detailed specs and features comparison table here.

Ableton makes it easy

Ableton is out with a light version of their flagship sequencer product. Live LE costs you 150 USD (download version), and has the next serious limitations if you compare it with the original: the number of the channels is maximized in 64, handles maximum 2 audio inputs and 4 outputs, soft instruments'number is limited in 8, effects in 12 at a time, there is no Freeze, no Rendering, does not use your MIDI outputs, no ReWire, and no video player. But it's still a nice toy, isn't it?

Funky bass for Kontakt

Attention funky and disco users: Scarbee offers a sample package for you. Black Bass contains 2.8 gigabytes of real, live, fingered bass sounds for 100 USD, sampled all four strings fully. There are numerous articulations implemented which are all well-known for the bassist but not me. What I can explain is the automatic selection of the proper strings while playing - a smart algorythm finds them from the previous notes. There are a nice slide feature also, has a feature for setting release times randomly - check the product's web page if you are interested more...

The ultimate wave-to-MIDI converter has arrived?

A company called ims says they produced the application everybody wanted since a long time: it can convert multichannel, multi-instrumental, polyphonic, mixed audio files to MIDI arrangements. The software's name is intelliScore but it has no demo version which could easily prove whether it is true or not - but here is their website, try to catch them if you want. Price is 130 USD, or, a light version can be ordered for 80 USD also which converts only a single polyphonic channel. Send your real-life experiences on the topic please (if you have any).

Roger Linn has a comment

Roger Linn, father of the modern drum computers is in the news again: the Master now has a personal web page where he places comments on some very new and hot musical instrument solutions. The page can be found here, and we can read about some well-known gadgets: Reactable, Tenori-On, Monome etc.

Prophet 08 user's manual published

Dave Smith keeps the Prophet 08 campaign very hot: now he has published the user's manual of the new analog supersynth online, you can download it from here. We still haven't read it, if you find something cool please comment this post.

Roger Linn's guitar effect

From the big names here is Roger Linn who is still active also: the man who invented the digital drum machine now presents a guitar effect, AdrenaLinn III. The small box is available through his website for 375 USD and promised to be distributed via ordinary shops for 500 USD. Main feature of the new effect is modeling 40 kind of amplifiers, and has a huge bunch of additional effects: compressor, tuner, stereo reverb, filters and so on. It receives not less than 10 MIDI switch controllers plus two continuous controllers. Since it is a Linn product there is a built-in sample based drum sound generator and sequencer (its sounds can be triggered from the MIDI input also). In both cases the periodic effect programs can go after the tempo as well as the small, 32-step sequencer which can be applied to the filter frequency. This is not only the guitarists' dream machine, is it? There are numerous additional effect which will fire your fantasy so check the official webpage now.

Brand-new mellotron is on the market

This month's issue of Future Music publishes a quick test of a new instrument from the two mellotron-specialist, John Bradley and Martin Smith. Their company, Streetly Electronics has just released a new top-mellotron called M4000 which is seriously superior than all the former models. It has 24 built-in sound programs, and the switching time between them is quite short (if you consider the fact this is a mellotron): 9 to 60 seconds. A new gadget on the product line is a two-digits display with which you can adjust the start point of the samples - a feature which is very well known in today's samplers. The price of the instrument is horrible if you compare with samplers and soft samplers: around 10,000 USD but you get a real and working piece of an ancient instrument for that money. Check their site for more.