PC and Music News

Prima is a virtual female vocalist modelled on the voice of a professional soprano singer, using Vocaloid 2.

Whether it's soaring leads, harmonies or backing vocals, Prima can sing any word from the English language (and other languages too with a little work).
Prima is also very well suited if you want to be adventurous and experimental, since her voice can be easily modified and shaped in many ways.

In addition to singing any words or combination of syllables or phonemes you can imagine, Prima will spread any sustained vowel (or voiced consonant) across as many notes as you like, with perfect legato. You can select from several different natural vibrato types and drag'n'drop your chosen type to any note or notes, and control the time-position and amount of the vibrato.

You have ...

Sony Creative Software has updated Sound Forge Audio Studio to v9.0c.

Version 9.0c adds support for LPEC files imported from Digital Voice Editor software. And also support for WAV files up to 4 GB. Select the Allow Wave renders up to 4 GB check box on the General page of the Preferences dialog to enable support.
Some Key shortcuts have been added : you can now hold Ctrl while dragging in a data window to switch to the Magnify tool temporarily. Select the Allow Ctrl+drag style zoom in data windows check box on the General tab of the Preferences dialog to enable this behavior.

Each of the following iZotope Mac and PC plugs have been updated : Trash and Spectron to v.1.13, and Ozone to v.1.14.
Performance and stability have been improved (especially in Pro Tools) and Mac OS X Leopard is supported.

Antares releases maintenance updates for Auto-Tune 5 AU and TDM (Mac) and VST PC are now available.
The AU version provides improved compatibility with Apple Logic 8. In addition, all three releases squash a few minor bugs. These are free updates for current Auto-Tune 5 owners.

While the release of Independence Pro delays for a few weeks to January 2008, Independence Basic, Freedom v2.0 and Origami v2.0 are shipping.

Independence Basic comes with the same audio engine as Independence 2 and is fully compatible with Independence Free and Independence 2. Apart from the ability to load 3rd party VST effects and VST instruments - which is not enabled in Independence Basic - the user has access to the same software features as Independence 2.

Freedom 2.0

All insert filters and effects of Freedom 2.0 are fully surround compatible up to 8.1. The format of surround files is recognized automatically and Freedom 2 assigns the respective channels accordingly. Freedom 2 offers a new FX Bank Browser, and automation features include minimum and maximum values (use the ...

Best Service releases Chris Hein-Bass, a bass guitar sample library powered by Kontakt 2 Player (12.7 GB, up to 4,089 samples per patch). Chris Hein has produced this collection including a Musicman Stingray picked & slapped, a LeFay fretless bass and an upright bass with three sets of strings: steel-strings (classic jazz sound), nylon-strings (high-fidelity sound) and gut-strings (40s swing sound).

All nuances of bass playing techniques are implemented, thanks to Kontakt scripting abilities. It offers 112 MIDI controllable features including things like repetition-hotkeys, keys-vibrato, fall-control, bridge/center playing, pickup micro-blending, expression-samples, pinch-harmonics, automatic-mode, slide-mode, chord-mode and much more.

The included IK Multimedia Ampeg SVX Uno (virtual bass-amp) adds more sound variations to the natural, basic, bass instruments.