Ok, I give up, it seems everyone is having special sales in these days, and some of them are too good to not be mentioned here! Native Instruments just started a 4 days only promotion. You can get REAKTOR 5, ABSYNTH 5, MASSIVE or FM8 for $/€99 each. This offer is valid from November 27th to 30th exclusively in the NI Online Shop and only for the Download Versions. Here you get all the details...
We don't usually pay much attention to special offers and deals, but this is something really worthwhile. The guys at d16 are offering a huge discount (-50%) on their whole catalogue until the 1st of December! Actually their products are already pretty cheap, but now you can get them at an almost insane price.
The single SilverLine plugs (like Devastor, Toraverb, Fazortan, etc. - see our Devastor review) are now 17.50 euro each, (87.50 euro for the complete effects bundle), while "classics" like Drumazon are now only 64.50 euro. Have a look at the complete list here.
By the way, Toraverb has just got an important update (1.2.0), which should make Mac users happier:
- fixed compatibility with Snow Leopard (Mac OSX 10.6.x) - improved performance (CPU usage decreased by 10-20%) - other bugs fixed (preset name keyboard focus, VU meters animation, working with other D16 plug-ins simultaneously on MacOS)
Good news then, I'm gonna check the new version to see how much CPU usage improvement I get.
Steve Howell, the sound library developer knows as Hollow Sun, is working on a very interesting new project: a "new library of the amazing (and incredibly rare) Hammond Novachord, a polyphonic analogue synthesizer released - can you believe - in 1939!!", in collaboration with Dan Wilson of Hideaway Studios in Bath, England.
In Steve's words: "this phenomenal instrument was many decades ahead of its time with divide down oscillators and separate envelopes and LFOs for each note offering full and true 72-voice polyphony 35 years before the ARP OMNI and Polymoog and the 5- and 8-voice polysynths of the 70s. Even now, some modern polysynths would blush with embarrassment at such a voice count!
Dan has been busy renovating his instrument and has already put in many hours. However, Dan is going the extra mile and not replacing ailing components with modern equivalents (which would be the easy way out) because this could compromise and affect the original instrument's haunting sound. Instead, he is painstakingly re-building components himself where necessary... ...Work has begun on this and tentative sampling sessions are beginning to reveal what lies ahead of us - textures that would not be out of place on a modern synth 70 years on in 2009 but with a strangely 'earthy' and 'organic' quality quite unlike I've heard before, full of flawed nuances and subtelty. The Novachord doesn't generate sounds ... it breathes them in gasps and grunts and squeals and whispers!".
The pictures and the description have put the Novachord library on my "must keep an eye on this" list. What about you?
(This YouTube user, HALmotohashi, has some more interesting videos with the Wavedrum, check them out)
KORG has just introduced the KORG Wavedrum WD-X, described as a "Dynamic Percussion Synthesizer". It's a much more affordable evolution of the original Wavedrum (1994), which in the meantime has become a collector's item.
An AudioNewsRoom's reader, Rob DeLancey, has bought one in Japan (the Wavedrum has been launched there first) and has spent the latest three weeks beating, striking and tweaking it. Here's his Wavedrum WD-X review (by the way, this is the first KORG Wavedrum review on the web at the time of writing - at least in English -, so thanks for being an early bird, Rob!)...
Construction: it looks like a toy in all the pictures I've seen, but the rim is made of metal and is actually really solid. They obviously payed attention to rim's acoustic qualities as well as its structural qualities. The bottom is plastic, but the whole thing feels really solid.
Playing: it responds enough like a real drum that different playing styles can elicit radically different sounds from it, and I would imagine that that would apply even more to different players. Different programs can also completely change its response. Some are suited to playing with sticks, and others to playing with your hands.
I'm not a drummer, so my hands aren't tough enough to get a good range of sounds out of the rim, but that's the case with real hand drums, too. If your hands are tough enough to get a good range of rimshots on a conga, I'm sure you won't have any trouble doing the same with a Wavedrum. The playing style I've found works best for me is using my left hand on the head and holding a long chopstick in my right hand to play both the rim and the head. That allows me to damp the head effectively with my hand, and still get a good range of sounds out of the rim with the stick. I'm sure anyone who gets one will be able to figure out a style that works for them.
Presets: a lot of the presets are actually really good, but there's a significant chunk where they apparently decided to show off what it can do, and wound up with something way too busy to ever be useful. I also wish that there was a way to save edits to the presets, so I could go through them and turn off the delay on all the ones that have it.
MIDI (or the lack thereof): the first thing everyone starts yelping about when they see the specs is "OMGWTFLOLWUT....... There's NO MIDI?!? In 2009!?!" I think these folks are missing the point. For one thing, it uses the acoustic sound from the head and rim pickups as its basic input, so there would be no way to drive it with MIDI even if it did have it. The only only thing I can think of that MIDI input would be useful for would be controlling the pitch of the pitched algorithms. Even if they did put MIDI outs on it, the only MIDI data you could get out of it would be note on/velocity for the head and the rim, and one channel of CC from the pressure sensor. If you're trying to integrate it with external effects, note on and velocity are pretty easy to simulate with an envelope trigger or an envelope follower anyway.
Personally, I have a lot of respect for their decision to make it an integrated whole instead of trying to throw in every feature that people are conditioned to expect. If you want a MIDI controller, get the Roland Handsonic. It's a great MIDI controller. If you want an instrument, get a Wavedrum. There is, however, one thing I wish it did have some kind of I/O for, which I'll get to in the next section.
Programming/patches: It's much easier to program than you would assume from the minimalist interface. Each sound consists of one algorithm, which has the actual sound from the pickup as its input, and one PCM sound, which is essentially a triggered sample. Each of these can be chosen separately for the head and the rim (there are also a few completely integrated sets, to simulate real instruments, where you can't mix and match). It's possible to control the mix between the two, so you can use only the algo or only the PCM if you want to. The algorithms have eight controllable parameters, but the parameters are different for each one. They generally seem to be really well chosen. It's possible to make most of them sound remarkably like real instruments, but tweaking the parameters to extreme values can make any of them sound strange and electronic. The PCM sounds all have the same basic set of parameters available to control them.
The algorithms are all incredibly expressive, but it sometimes takes a whole lot of tweaking to get the PCM sounds to integrate with them without losing that expressiveness, so I tend to just turn the PCM sounds off when I'm programming it. I'm not saying it's impossible to get it right. Some of the presets are really well integrated. It's just kind of a fiddly process. Even in the best integrated patches, I find that the scraping surfaces tend to sound better with just the algorithm sound.
This leads me to the one thing I would actually consider a weakness: there's no way to load patches. The only redeeming factor is that the patches are simple enough that it would be feasible to just enter a whole patch by hand, but it would only be worth it if you were sure you wanted it. There's no way to share patches on the internet so you can learn from what other people have done with it. It would be really nice if it had some kind of I/O. This is honestly the only thing about the Wavedrum that I don't think is incredibly great, so it's not even close to a dealbreaker, but it would have been nice if they'd thought of it.
Conclusions: this is, hands down, the most expressive and subtle electronic instrument I've played. That title previously went to the Akai EWI 4000, but this one has it beat. It actually feels, and plays, like a real instrument (at least with the right settings, anyway. Some of the presets don't strike me as particularly useful). Considering that it uses the actual sound from the head and rim pickups as the input for its algorithms, I think it should really be thought of more as an electric instrument like an electric guitar or bass than as an electronic instrument like a synth or a set of sample trigger pads.
Melodyne Editor, maybe the most talked-about audio software of the past 2 years, has been finally released. Melodyne editor is the first Celemony product to feature the DNA Direct Note Access technology, which lets you access to individual notes in polyphonic audio material). A demo version should be available soon.
I spent some time with the beta version, and yes, the DNA technology is actually quite impressive. As you would expect, this is not an instant gratification kind of software. It's not easy to master and if I were you I'd keep the manual handy while doing the first tests. Also, the audio program you feed it with can give different results depending on its complexity/recording quality.
Just one thing though: don't expect Melodyne Editor will let you take a complete band recording and edit the guitar part or the bass, etc. It's not meant to be THAT magic! Its purpose is to help (or experiment, which may lead to even more interesting results) with single polyphonic tracks, or polyphonic solo recordings (think of piano solo recording, etc.). It's a revolutionary tool, but it's still a tool. It could prove to be very useful in some situations, especially when time and money are an issue, and it is a great tool to try out new ideas (actually, that's the most interesting approach, at least to me). That said, it should not make you stop taking music lessons or practicing a few hours a day, ok?
Melodyne editor runs under Mac OS X and Windows as a plug-in or as a standalone application. According to the company, "both the plug-in and stand-alone implementations of Melodyne editor boast numerous improvements over previous editions of Melodyne, including a very short loading time, a plug-in window the size of which can be varied at will, still further improvements in the note detection process and sound quality, and much else besides". Price: 349 USD/349 €
If you don't need the polyphonic capabilities of Melodyne Editor, you can save some money and get Melodyne assistant (equivalent to Melodyne editor but without DNA: 249 USD/199 €). For the insatiable ones, Melodyne Studio is now called Melodyne studio bundle, and contains Melodyne studio 3 as well as Melodyne editor, for a price of 699 USD/699 €.
Something new is cooking in u-he labs. We knew about the big modular project, called Berlin Modular, and we were shown its first prototype (called Bazille). Since Berlin modular won't be out before summer 2010, Urs is going to show us some of its potential with a smaller synth: ACE (Any Cable Everywhere, yes, that means this synth, like is bigger brother, is a patching heaven). Then, once Berlin Modular is released any owner of Ace receives a voucher of the full price of Ace to be put towards Berlin Modular.
Here are the specs for ACE:
- 2 x LFO (1 sine, 1 sine/tri/saw/sqr) 0Hz - 20kHz - 2 x ADSR (same as Bazille) - 2 x VCO (saw/pwm) 0Hz - 20kHz, VCO1 with SubOsc - 2 x VCF (almost same as Bazille, but only two outlets: LP1/LP2/LP3/LP4, HP/BP/BR) - 2 x VCA/Pan - 2 x Multiples (as in Bazille) - 1 x Mixer (Osc balance, Sub, Noise, Aux) - 1 x Ramp Generator (up->hold->down->rest, loops if rest < 100) - 1 x noise (white, pink) - 1 x the common extras, such as Glide/Glide2 - 1 x stereo chorus (global) - 1 x ping pong delay (global) - 1 x Bass/Treble booster (global)
25 signal sources, 30+ signal targets, some paths wired internally so that it makes noise even without a single cable attached (think ARP 2600).
- exceptional sync /w FM (VCO1->VCO2, think Virus) - LFOs that can be used as additional VCOs an vice versa - exceptional filter sound including convincing self oscillation
In Urs' words ACE is "a conceptual marriage between ARP 2600 and SH-7, with a touch of SynthiA. Soundwise however it's rather on the aggressive side". The GUI with its 3D knobs is impressive as well. Price: 69 euro (VAT included). Formats: VST on Windows, VST/AU/RTAS on MacOS X. Availability: December. For those interested in u-he news, as usual the best place is his KVR forum. But be warned, lots of threads in there, it's easy to get lost!
Happy birthday Soundcloud! The Berlin-based company has just announced some nice improvements/changes to its service.
What's new?
- some slight naming changes (PRO is now Premium)
- clouds are cheaper: there's a new Lite Premium account (€29 per year) and the price of the yearly Solo, Pro and Pro Plus accounts too has been lowered (now it's €79, €250, €500). This new pricing structure seems much more rational and inviting than the original one, I guess we'll see many new users on the platform soon (reminder for Soundcloud's team: don't forget to improve the service's bandwidth/stability). Here you get an overview of the new prices/features
- minutes instead of tracks limit: the number of the tracks uploaded is not a problem, their timing becomes the most important criteria. Well, to all the hardcore and oneminutesongs bands, it's time to join Soundcloud ;-)
- two new players: a lovely, minimal one (a simple 'Play' button alongside a single text line for the name of your track) and the Artwork player that focuses on the artwork, logo or image that you uploaded with a particular track or set (you can choose among different sizes and colors, to let the waveform fit nicely into your artwork).
- greatly improved stats: well, if you love numbers and graphs (or if your label's boss has hired you for this job), this is for you
- private track sharing via secret link: a long awaited basic feature, with some nice additional touches (you can now control if you want people to comment or your tracks or not, hide the stats around your track and make comments only visible to yourself)
- last but not least, the iPhone Soundcloud App. It's already available at €0,79 or $0,99.
Ok guys, but one thing is missing: where's Soundcloud's 1st birthday party?
Good news, KORG has announced it's switching from the USB Key Copy Protection to Challenge/Response License Authorization for its Legacy software. Today KORG has released KLC updaters where the user can choose either copy protection method.
KORG is going "to stop providing user support services for the USB Key Copy Protection system effective from April 30, 2010. And from May 2010, any updates we issue will support only the Challenge/Response License Authorization system, not the USB Key Copy Protection system".
Unfortunately KORG has made things quite complicated for its Legacy customers until now (the first release of the software had a c/r method, then they adopted the USB Synchrosoft/Steinberg dongle, and now they're changing back to a simple c/r method). Let's hope they'll streamline the whole thing from now on, also because from a sonic point of view the package is excellent.
- [PC/Mac] RTAS support, which means it can run within Digidesign's Pro Tools software
- [Mac] Intel-based Mac support
- [Mac] Mac OS X Snow Leopard (32-bit) support
- [PC] Windows Vista SP2 (32-bit) or later support*
*Regarding Windows 7 support, we will check the compatibility after DAW applications support this OS.
(3) Upgrade Price
15.00 USD
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2. Upgrade to ANALOG EDITION 2007 which includes Mono/Poly
EZdrummer users, until now, were "limited" to more or less traditional drum kits. Now, with the upcoming Electronic EZX library, they'll be able to use "classic, circuit bent and resampled electronic drum sounds" as well.
The ubiquitous Richard Devine is the lead designer behind this expansion pack, assisted by Josh Kay of Phonecia/Schematic Records. Given the names involved the expectations are quite high, isn't it?
Electronic EZX will be released in November, and Toontrack got in touch with us to announce that "anyone who orders Electronic EZX between 1st and 30th November 2009 can claim any other EZX expansion pack completely free!"
How does it work?
Simply purchase Electronic EZX as normal, either through Time+Space or a participating dealer, and then send proof of purchase with the rebate form (downloadable from timespace.com/toontrack) to Time+Space and they'll send the free EZX direct to you at no extra charge! The free EZX can be any of the following titles: EZX - Claustrophobic EZX - Drumkit From Hell EZX - Latin Percussion EZX - Nashville EZX - Twisted Kit EZX - Vintage Rock EZX - Funkmasters EZX - Jazz
The Jazz and Nashville are probably our favorite expansion packs, but the Twisted Kit is another hit as well (lots of unusual and inspiring percussions there). We'll talk of EZdrummer again soon on these pages...
Vestax, in partnership with Algoriddim, has just introduced a new USB midi/audio controller, Spin, specifically made for Djay 3 (see our Djay review). It's a plug and play device (no drivers, so class compliant), the jog wheel seems to be quite different from the ones we're used to. There's a tabletop microphone included in the package, and a USB connection. No words on the materials used yet, but since we're talking of a 1,5 kg device I guess it's plastic (mostly).
It requires OS X 10.4.11 or higher, and it only works with Intel Macs (but we need to double check this). Price: 250$, to be sold only in Apple Stores in the US and Canada (soon elsewhere too). More info on the official page.
Well, at least for american guys this Vestax Spin seems to be a great package for starters and it could be a nice christmas gift, since it comes bundled with a copy of Djay 3. Let us know how it works...
A busy day for Ableton (and Cycling '74, in this case) PR people, I guess. The release date for the long-awaited Max for Live has been scheduled for November 23, 2009.
It will cost USD 299/EUR 249. If you already own Max 5, the discounted price is USD 99/EUR 79. More pricing details here.
There's also a public beta available here. Have fun, be brave but don't forget going to sleep tonight!
It's a fact: DAWs are getting cheaper and cheaper. Logic Express showed the way in 2004, and then we have seen all sorts of light versions (more or less limited). But now everything is becoming so cheap that's almost embarassing. Just in the last two months we got Avid introducing its ProTools Essential, and now Ableton introducing its, ehm, Live Intro (which replaces Live LE).
Intro is a 99 euro/dollar (this is the download version price, if you need the boxed version it's 129/139) light version of Live 8. Live LE 7 price was 149/199 dollars, so here we have a significant reduction. The download and boxed versions differ just for one thing: the boxed version has 7gb of loops, instruments and beats while the download version offers just 1gb (to save bandwidth).
Limitations? In Ableton's words "the limitations are quantitative rather than qualitative, i.e. you're limited to 64 audio tracks, 2 effect sends, 12 Ableton effects at once and so on."
Going deeper in the features list, it's true that some of the limitation of the previous Live LE version are gone (there's full ReWire support now, good news!), and of course you get the Live 8 engine's improvements (but no Complex Warp Modes), more extra contents, but there are still some (potentially) annoying things like the External VST/AU instrument or effect instances per project limitation (you can get just 4 of them), and you cannot edit Instrument, Drum, Effect Racks.
Anyway, Intro is so cheap that we should not complain much. And you know, having some limitations can even force you being more creative (repeat as a mantra: the Beatles did wonders just with a 4 track recorder!).
To have a clearer picture of the differences between Live 8 and Live Intro, have a look at the official feature comparison. Live LE users can get Intro for free. For those wanting to upgrade from Intro to the full Live 8 version, the price is 229 euro/dollars for the download version, or 279/349 for the boxed one.
The guys from Camel Audio are running a group buy, and it seems the time is right to add some "alchemic" sounds to your palette. The group buy is not limited to Alchemy, but since this synth is one of the best things around for sound-tweakers, I'd grab that one first (in short, if you love Absynth, Kima, Metasynth, you should have a look at Alchemy).
By the way, soundbanks are included in the group buy, so if for example you have NI's Absynth, I'd recommend getting some (or maybe all, if you're in the mood!) of the Camel Audio soundbanks created for this beautiful synth. Scroll down the products page to find the Biolabs and Starscape collections, they're excellent and will keep you busy for months!
Here are the details:
"As widely requested by potential customers in our recent survey and in view of the tough economic times, Camel Audio are pleased to announce the Camel Audio Group Buy opportunity. Its already proving hugely popular - in less than 24 hours we have already reached 40% discount! The price of Alchemy is currently $249 outside of the Group Buy, but with a maximum discount of 50% you could end up paying just $125 for Alchemy, $43 for CamelSpace/CamelPhat or $29 for a soundbank. Whether or not we reach the 50% level will depend on your efforts as well as ours to tell more people about this program. You'd better hurry if you want to participate - the Group Buy will end on Monday, November 16th. To take part, simply visit this page and select the products you would like to purchase."
Existing customers should be happy as well: "Due to the exceptional success of the promotion so far, Alchemy users can already look forward to receiving 1.7GB of additional samples including Choirs, Basses, Keys and Synths. Additional Alchemy bonuses include a sound bank of 90 presets from some of the most requested sound designers in our survey, and 40+ minutes of new video tutorials. If you purchased Alchemy recently at full price, and despite the above benefits you don't feel happy, then please send us an email to support@camelaudio.com and we'll do our best to put a smile back on your face. You can find out more on the Group Buy thread on KvR."
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