PC and Music News

Pearlman Microphones is proud to announce the worldwide launch of its "Church" mic at the 125th AES Convention in San Francisco. A meticulously faithful remake of the revered microphone initially created by Stanley Church for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in the mid-'50s, the Pearlman model is the only replica truly adhering to the original schematics, including the use of the authentic Triad transformer that has been out of production for nearly half a century.

Church, who served as the famed studio's chief sound engineer during that era, produced no more than 200 of his custom vacuum tube condenser microphones strictly for in-house use at MGM. However, over the years, the rare mic's reputation and resale value have skyrocketed, with originals in decent condition fetching up to $20,000 on the vintage market.

Like its venerable predecessor, the Pearlman Church mic employs a Neumann M7 (or optional K47) capsule, hand selected GE five-star 6072 dual triode (12AY7) vacuum tube, and "new old stock" Triad transformer, which is currently exclusively being made available to Pearlman.

Built into the same housing as Pearlman's TM-1, the Church microphone is equipped with a handmade power supply, custom Mogami/Neutrik tube microphone cable, heavy-duty shockmount and aluminum shipping case.

U.S. list pricing for the Pearlman Church mic is set at $4,500.00, and orders are currently being taken for these truly limited edition products, which are being hand-built by Dave Pearlman himself one at a time.

Linplug has just announced the release of RMV Drum Addiction Drum Synthesizer, Drum Sampler, Audio Loop Slicer and Drum Librarian for Windows (Mac OS X version is scheduled for release later this autumn).

Main features :

- 48 polyphonic Percussion Pads for the universal or one of the more than 10 specialized Drum Synthesizers or a powerful Drum Samplers.
- Six independent Audio Loop Modules with up to 64 slices each.
- Each Percussion Pad and each Slice features all common and many in depth editing parameters, ranging from Volume, Pan, Output Selection, Tune over Modulation Matrix, LFO's and Envelopes to Insert Effects and EQ's.
- Each Pad and Slice can belong to one of 10 Edit Groups (parameters for all Pads or Slices in a Group can be adjusted simultaneously).
- 3 insert effects racks each of which can be set to one of nine different effects units.
- A "Varizer" for unbeaten realistic humanizing.
- Almost all instrument parameters are MIDI controllable.
- Each Sampler module can hold up to 30 samples that can be layered, velocity switched or -crossfaded and with parameters for start, end, delay and more.
- The Sampler and each Slicer also features a pitch and amplitude envelope.
- The Library contains a vast selection of partly multi sampled acoustic and electronic kits, synthesized kits and MIDI (partly from Groove Monkee) and Audio Loops.
- Four specialized "Librarians" offer sophisticated search capabilities and are used for the storage and retrieval of various types of data that the RMV supports: Pads (individual drum sounds), Kits, MIDI Grooves and Audio Loops.
- Samples can be imported using the RMV Sample Browser (supporting favourite folders and pre-listening.
- Samples, Pads, Kits, Grooves and Loops can be browsed while the instrument is playing.
- Each Pad and each Slice has access to three individual Insert Effects, a four band EQ and two out of three Send Effects Racks.
- Each Send Effect Rack can hold up to 3 individual effects and a final four band EQ.
- Each Insert / Send can hold one of these Effects Units: Stereo Delay, Filter-Delay, Reverb, WahWah, Flanger, Compressor, Multimode Filter, Bit Crusher, Gator.
- 6 fully independent Audio Loop Slicers / Players are available.
- Each Audio Loop can have up to 64 Slices.
- Each Loop Player can be used to load and playback audio loops in WAV, AIF, REX and REX2 format. Samples are automatically sliced.
- Slice start and end points as well as automatic slicing sensitivity are user-definable.
- Each slice has vast editing capabilities (like filters, envelopes, modulations, effects, individual output etc.).

The license fee is $179/€139 Euro including more than 10,000 individual drum sounds, partly precompiled to 340 kits, more than 1500 pre sliced Audio Loops, mainly from Frank Yenox Neumann and 2600 MIDI Grooves, partly from Groove Monkee and a 150 page manual in English (soon also in French and Italian).

ModernBeats launches a new music production site : Hit Talk.

Hit Talk is ModernBeats' new music production website devoted to answering the question "How do you produce a hit song?". There is no single answer that covers it all. That's why Hit Talk provides the answer in a multifaceted fashion including :

- Hit Reports that analyze Billboard hits from start to finish, teaching musicians each hit song's music production techniques.
- Music Production Tips that are posted weekly, providing musicians with constant music production techniques, ideas, & learning.
- Music Production Contributions that come from Hit Talk's growing music producer community.
- Music Producer Spotlight Interviews that feature unsigned and up-n-coming music producers.

Hit Reports are offered as a download and priced at $14.95.

ESI presents the M8U XL, a new midi interface which features 8 independent MIDI inputs and 8 independent MIDI outputs, providing 128 MIDI channels - all via a single USB 2.0 (or USB 1.1) connection to your PC or Mac.

Features :

- 19" / 1 HE Case
- 8 MIDI in / 8 MIDI out - 128 MIDI channels
- high-speed connection to USB-equipped PC or Mac
- MIDI activity indicators for each port
- Plug & Play installation
- compatible with Windows XP/Vista and Mac OS X
- fully class compliant, making it compatible with other operating systems

The M8U XL is priced at €227.

At AES 2008 (Booth #1218), Solid State Logic will demonstrate the Duende collection, the suite of DSP powered plug-ins that deliver the legendary SSL sound to your DAW. AES will be the first demonstration of Vocalstrip, the latest addition to the plug-in collection.

Combining EQ and dynamics sections with essential vocal processors, Vocalstrip aims to bring power, character and clarity to vocal tracks from a single interface. According to SSL, Vocalstrip solves the challenges of producing great vocal recordings with four processing tools carefully selected and calibrated to deliver great results every time.

Key features include :

- 4 selected vocal processing tools with a unique SSL twist
- Comparative analysis & dynamic envelope based De-esser
- Comparative analysis & dynamic envelope based De-ploser
- 3-band SSL EQ with High-Pass, 'asymmetric notch' and 'air' bands
- Compander featuring compression, downwards expansion and output drive
- Informative visual feedback showing EQ curves and real time FFT overlay

Pricing and availability TBA.

TL Audio announces the launch of its newly designed IEEE-1394 Firewire interface (The DO-F) at the 125th AES convention in San Francisco 2nd – 5th October 2008.

The new interface will be compatible with the new M1-F 8 and 12 channel consoles and also TL Audio's Fat Track Tube Production Suite. The DO-F is designed to offer an easy and high quality solution for interfacing TL Audio's products with your Mac or PC based DAW.

For Mac users, it's just a case of Plug and Play. PC users will need drivers... The DO-F provides 24-bit operation at 44.1, 48, 88.2 and 96kHz sample rates, with high quality AD/DA conversion and allows you to access all inputs and outputs of the analogue hardware via just one Firewire cable, making it a tidy, portable and reliable system. This also means that the Fat Track is now also able to be a unique interface for your DAW.

The DO-F is estimated to start shipping just in time for Christmas and the New Year and can be ordered to be pre-fitted to the Fat Track or new M1-F consoles.