PC and Music News

Kong Audio has released Matouqin VSTi, the 7th installment of its Chinee Series, which is a faithful sample-based re-creation of one of the most representative traditional Mongolian instruments. With the unique sound character and playing style, Matouqin has become one of the essential music elements in today's China.

Matouqin contains various types of legato, tremolo, trills, slaps, and staccato, as well as special techniques, phrases and articulations. With the extensive sampling and modwheel triggered expressions, Matouqin VSTi provides composers and musicians with an extremely playable and authentic plugin. All samples are recorded in 24 bit 96 kHz.

Matouqin VSTi is for Windows platform only and is priced at $68.

Sonalksis, software editor of Essentials, Multiband Dynamics and Creative Elements series offer a great deal on their products until the 29th December.
You can get up to 20% discount on bundles, with a special 20% and a
further 10% on the Grand Bundle (8 commercial plugs and the free Free G).
Here are some examples of the offers (all prices quoted exclusive of VAT) :
-The Sonalksis Essentials Mk2 Bundle (SV-315 Mk2 Compressor, SV-517 Mk2 Equalizer and SV-719 Gate) is at 255.99 GBP / 479.99 USD / 383.99 EUR.
-The Sonalksis All Plug-ins Bundle (Essentials, Multiband Dynamics, Creative Elements) at 499.99 GBP / 935.99 USD / 737.99 EUR.

The composer Karlheinz Stockhausen passed away on December 5th 2007 at his home in Kuerten-Kettenberg and will be buried in the Waldfriedhof (forest cemetery) in Kuerten. The "father of electronic music" ad founder of the WDR studio composed 362 individually performable works (Kontakt, Gruppen, Momente, Stimmung, Helikopter-Quartett, Hymnen, Licht). The works which were composed until 1969 are published by Universal Edition in Vienna, and all works since then are published by the Stockhausen-Verlag. Numerous texts by Stockhausen and about his works have been published by the Stockhausen Foundation for Music. tockhausen always said that God gave birth to him and calls him home.

On Thursday, December 13th 2007, from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. it will be possible to personally say farewell to Karlheinz Stockhausen in the chapel of the Waldfriedhof in Kuerten (Kastanienstrasse).

AudioWarrior has just released TRON 'Mello-Rack', a sample library for Kontakt 2 produced by Greg Giametta and based upon the famous Mellotron.

The original hardware version of the Mellotron was an electromechanical polyphonic keyboard musical instrument that was originally developed and built in Birmingham, England in the early 1960s. It was used on countless hits including The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Radiohead, etc... Unlike the original Mellotron the 8 second samples in TRON 'Mello-Rack' have been perfectly looped for the modern world however the loops may be turned off to recapture the vintage effect of certain voices ending at variable times.

TRON 'Mello-Rack' for Kontakt is available now for Windows XP | Vista and Mac OS X. Note that it requires Kontakt 2 or higher from Native Intruments.

SM Pro Audio is proud to announce the immediate availability of their portable multi-purpose acoustic treatment panel The Mic Thing in white. Designed for minimizing room artifacts and improving separation during microphone recording sessions, The Mic Thing is great for a range of applications including helping to control room ambience, minimizing spill from instrument amplifiers, or even creating temporary control rooms.

It can be mounted on just about any microphone, drum, or speaker stand up to 1" (25mm) in diameter. Its two winged panels can also be adjusted to create anything from a flat planar absorber to a tight semi circle enclosing the microphone. This way, the amount of separation and absorption can be easily be manipulated to suit requirements.

Like the black edition the Mic Thing white is shipping with the Mic Stand for a limited time.

This week, Greg Paxton and our partner audioMIDI present a full review of Steinberg's Sequel, entry-level DAW.
That "entry-level" statement could be put into perspective, as says the author : "Sequel offers a feature-rich program for anyone getting started - on both a PC and a Mac. The instrument library provides a versatile palette of sounds[...]. The loop library and editing capabilities are more than impressive. Other features [...] make Sequel anything but "entry level"."