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.

Sample package from Hungary in the Reason-package

Leading Hungarian sample creator company, PinkNoise Studio has provided his most successful package, PRO.TON - an analog synthesizer construction set in refill - for Propellerhead to share it for all Reason users freely. If you are registered Reason user you can download it right now from Propellerhead's web page - the sample set has been slightly enhanced, and a brand new Combinator bank has added. Check it at Propellerhead's front page.

Numark ships new iPod mixer in ten days

Numark has revealed their second iPod-DJ product, the iDJ2. It is much superior than its predecessor since it doesn't need two iPods for playing two channels but one instead. Beyond this, you can tempo adjust, scratch and loop both channels with its proprietary controls. It handles external USB hard disks - we hope it can play songs from there directly -, and accepts phono and line level inputs as well as a dedicated microphone. The color display is very nice and the QWERTY keyboard which is optional enhances the mixer's usability even much further. I have to mention the 3-band EQ on the channels, and an also important factor is direct playing all the protected iTunes content downloaded - but without any manipulation. iDj2's price will be 600 USD - here is the official page, enjoy.

Moogfest 2007 in New York

If you were in New York in 22nd, September, find B. B. King's Blues Club where the annual Moogfest will be held. Performing acts are Thomas Dolby, Don Preston from Frank Zappa's Mothers of Invention, Jordan Rudess of Dream Theater and many more. Here is the detailed info page. In case you cannot attend you can still order last year's performance with Jan Hammer, Keith Emerson and others for 18 USD at the official Moog web site.

Prophet 08: the first official photo

No more rumours: Dave Smith has posted the first photo of his planned Prophet 08 synthesizer on his website. Incredible.

New keys at Novation

Novation has announced a new family of master keyboard controllers, the Remote SL Compact series. Existing still in 25 and 49 keys, the new models' highlight is the company's leading technology widely known as Automap. The keyboards has a really big text screen supporting that, plus have a new function called PAC (pointer-assigned control) which easily assigns a software controller on the screen with a knob. All two models have After Touch, and has a great bundle software, Ableton Live Lite 6. Price still not known, but here is the official news page.

Waves strikes back

In a recent article of Pro Sound News Europe we have learnt about a secret action of Waves against software piracy. Earlier this year, the company rent several private investigators who act as a potential studio client and checked several leading studio in the US and UK. During the demonstration they have secretly filmed as the studio guys showed them their Waves plug-in potential - these video recordings can prove the crime legally as Waves hopes. After the action they have sent out several letters to the studio leaders and let them know about the intent to prosecute, or, alternatively, to pay Waves a reasonable sum. There did not started not a single case until now and we are very curious about the next steps both sides.

Prophet reloaded

Dave Smith brings life into the hardware synth platform again: Prophet 5's 30th anniversary inspired him to continue this product line with Prophet 8, an all-analog but state-of-the-art piece electronic equipment. One of his employee, David Bryce has announced it via this Vintage Synth forum topic, and later a teaser YouTube-video has arrived also. They develop the instrument in complete secret, it has eight voice with built-in sequencer and arpeggiator, has a reasonable amount of patch memory, and costs only 2000 USD (street price).

Small but great-sounding piano plugin

Musicrow has assembled a tiny piano plugin for Windows/VST at a very low cost, and a very low hardware demand. It works with samples - 34 megabytes only -, but their own technology called SCS makes it a turbo-sounding piano beast which rivals the high-end piano products found elsewhere on the market. It is called PianoBoy, and its demos sound really nice, try them, and the software is ultra-fast really, again. It has a polyphony of 22, and costs 55 euro, here.

Brazilian carneval from Zero-G

Zero-G will not enter the event organizing market definitely - instead of that they published Carnival Drums, a comprehensive sample library of latin drums, played by ten professional Brazilian musicians who play at Rio regularly. More than 2000 individual samples lay in the package (formats: Kontakt, EXS24, Halion and NN-XT), and around 1400 grooves in Rex2, Acid Wav and Apple AIFF. It costs 120 euro, here.

Futuristic controller from Yamaha

Things like this were mentioned as instruments of the XXI. century a couple of years ago - and really! Yamaha considers their newest baby, Tenori-On as a game thus they distribute it only within the UK but nobody knows what can be the future of this device. What we can see is we can get - a 16 by 16 push button matrix with LED inside, but the actual spec will be revealed only in 4th September at the launch parties and on its website which is still half-empty nowadays.