PC and Music News

Today VirSyn releases a new plug-in : Bark - The Multiband Filter.

Bark takes the approach to match the reception characteristic of the final destination of all sound: the ear. The ear behaves as if it contains a bank of filters, each filter passing frequencies within the critical band. Two tones separated by more than a critical bandwidth are received by the ear independently. For this reason Bark contains a filter bank with 27 bandpass filters matching the critical bandwidth.

In fact, the human ear have also its own built in compression system which are based on the critical bands. Consequently Bark incorporates an independent compression algorithm for each of it's 27 bands.

Features :

- 27 Bark band Equalizer/Compressor
- Linear phase precision filters for maximal transparency
- +24 / -48 dB gain change rate per band
- Surround operation with channel link/unlink*
- Minimized latency ( 12 ms )
- Real time pre/post processing spectrum display
- Compression parameters overall and per band.

*only available for AU / RTAS / VST3 version.

Bark is available in VST, AU and RTAS versions for Mac OS X, VST and RTAS for Windows. From now till June 30st, 2008 you can buy Bark for €99.- instead of €169.-

MHC Synthesizers and Effects release an ambient drum plugin.

Ambient Drums is a drum plugin which features 12 drum pads, a search
application, predefined drum kits which may be edited and an ambient
drum sample library.

The plugin includes a default soundpack with over 700 ambient drum samples.
There are three optional soundpacks which upgrade the plugin, giving
the user 1024 presets to explore, 120 preprogrammed drum kits and over
2000 ambient drum samples to use.

The plugin has a traditional synth section, including a resonant filter,
filter envelope, amp envelope, pitch modulation and an effect section.
The effect section features 130 different effect modes, including
a variety of filter banks, flanger, resonator, pitch shifter etc.
Effects may be layered or ...

The Blue Cat Audio has just announced that the StereoScope Multi and FreqAnalyst Multi plugins have been updated to v1.3.

These new versions bring a new view that let you compute and display the differences between several curves as well as several other improvements. The plugins are available with 10% off for a limited time and the upgrade is free for existing customers. Note that demo versions are also available.

To celebrate the release of its new product (Tape Drum Machine Vol 1) Goldbaby has created a free sample pack called: TheTapeVeronaDRM.

Contains 142 x 24 bit samples of the Vermona DRM. Recorded on an Otari MX5050 1/4 inch tape machine... plus the original drum hits without any tape love as well.

Each drum sound has also been recorded multiple times for use in Round Robin Layering. This can help recreate the analog feel of the machine.

QuikQuak has released Crowd Chamber, an audio plug-in that layers multiple variations of a signal to create a crowd simulation. Up to almost 2,000,000 layers can be produced enabling simple chorusing effects, small crowds and stadiums, on to impossible situations and effects.

When each voice is mixed, it is altered in varying time and spectral content, making unique versions of itself to create the illusion of different sources. This effect can be fed back onto itself to create many thousands of voices in real-time.

Once the concept had been created it became clear that Crowd Chamber could create far more than simple crowd scenes. Because of the feedback, wave cancellations, and, simply, the thousands of layers, it is the perfect tool for creating strange and twisted effects.
Crowd ...

XLN Audio has just announced the availability of a demo version of its "Complete Drum Production Studio" Addictive Drums.

The good news is that this demo version is a fully functional software which is not time limited ! You can load and save presets, get a taste of the Beats and Fills (Midi Library) and tweak away on the built in insert effects and reverbs etc. It includes some tasty presets that give you a good idea of what AD is capable off.

Limitations :

- Only 1 Kick, 1 snare, 1 Hihat and 1 Crash is provided.
- The real version ships with lots of different drums, cowbells and cymbals.
- A very limited "taste" of the rhythms in the AD Midi Library is provided.
- The real version has over 3000 Midi files.