PC and Music News

Cakewalk has announced Sonar 8 Producer and Sonar 8 Studio.

New Sonar features include: updated Loop Explorer 2.0 view, dedicated instrument track (single track optimized for mono/stereo virtual synths), Send Assign Assistant (wizard); numerous audio engine optimizations; transport, control surface, routing, and editing refinements; workflow enhancements; QuickTime 7 Import/Export.

New Instruments include: Beatscape loop performance instrument; Dimension Pro 1.2 updated with Digital Sound Factory Volume 2 Classic Keys and Hollywood Edge Effects Library; TruePianos Amber VSTi Module.

New Effects include: TL-64 Tube Leveler, TS-64 Transient Shaper, Channel Tools stereo enhancement plug-in; Native Instruments Guitar Rig 3 LE.

New Creative content includes: updated ACT Presets map ...

Roger Linn and Dave Smith have announced on their website that they won't be shipping the new Linndrum II this year and they can not offer any new delivery date for now.

Here is the message found on Roger Linn's website :

"I'm sorry to report that we won't be shipping in 2008 and I can't yet offer a new estimated ship date. The good news is that it's turned into a significantly more powerful and creative product. The bad news is that we'd prefer not to release details of the new design because it's so cool that I don't want to show our cards to the competition. However, I do want to thank all those who wrote in with suggestions because this interactive design process has very much helped to change what we thought the product originally should be into what we now know you really want. So please hold your questions while we're hard at work on it, and I'll be periodically updating this page as we release new information.
[...]
For those of you who are new to LinnDrum II, its new subtitle is "Beat-Centric Digital Audio Workstation with Integrated Analog Synthesis". Inspired by how the MPC product line that I (Roger) originally created for Akai has evolved a new genre of musical instrument, LinnDrum II aspires to raise the bar beyond the current crop of high-end pad-oriented music production station products in order to enable musicians around the world to better realize the next wave of beat-oriented music."

Sugar Bytes has just announced that their Crazy Studiopic Competition has just started : people shall create crazy pics of themselves in the studio and the 10 best posts will win !

Send them your craziest studio pic and win some phantastic prizes from the Sugar Bytes product line. And that's not all : Each post will win a 20% discount code for the Sugar Bytes shop. Do it on your own, with your band or your posse, just let it flow ! But you have to do something special since boring pics and double posts will definately be ignored.

For more information, please visit the link below :

Goldbaby has released Tape Drum Machines Vol 2 for Battery, Guru and Sample Pack. This new volume contains: 10 Drum Machines and 3 Tape Machines for a total of 1838 x 24 Bit drum samples, plus a bonus set of 36 x CR-78 Rex file loops...

Also released is a FREE samples pack: The Tape TR-66 and a set of CR-78 Rex files not included in TDMVol2.

For more information, please visit their website.

QuikQuak has just released Fusion Field v2.0. Fusion Field is an easy to use diffusion reverb created in response to requests for a RaySpace 'light' and a version of Glass Viper's own diffusion reverb.

Changes :

- Higher quality.
- Initial transients smoothed, improving percussion and short diffusions.
- New distance parameter with realistic attack phase.
- Better stereo balancing.
- Enhancements resulting from hundreds of hours in constant revision.

Fusion Field v2.0 is available now for Windows and Mac OS X in AU and VST formats at a price of £35.

"MOTU is a company that has an uncanny ability to jam pack every single audio-visual in/out you can think of into a neat little portable Swiss-army-type black box. They're also known for their excellent digital converters and flagship sequencer, Digital Performer. Electric Keys is a sample-based vintage keyboard player, adding to their growing line up of software instruments, such as the MX4 synthesizer, Ethno Instrument, Mach Five, and Symphonic Instrument. Adding a vintage keyboard emulator to the list seems like a practical next step to help round out things."