PC and Music News

After the beautiful Olga, Schwa has just released Oligarc, a collection of four virtual analog FX, tied together by a modulation nerve center that converts the input audio into control signals that can be routed to most of the effect knobs. Oligarc can be an LFO-driven filter, an envelope-controlled phaser, a gate-triggered saturation effect, or anything else you can think up, including mad combinations of linked modulation of multiple effects at once.

In addition, the Oligarc package contains standalone versions of the Drive, Phaser, and Chorus effects, for more traditional usage - although there's nothing traditional about these effects.

Oligarc is available in for Windows (VST) and Mac OS X (AU) and costs $60 (All hosts, commercial use license) / $40 (Reaper-only, non-commercial use license).

PSP Audioware has just announced the release of the successor to the PSP MixPack bundle. PSP MixPack2 not only updates both the usability and the processing algorithms of the original PSP MixPack plug-ins, but adds a new processor: PSP MixGate2.

PSP MixPack2 is a collection of five high-resolution, high quality audio processors designed to improve the quality of your digital audio tracks and mixes. It consists of: PSP MixBass2, PSP MixTreble2, PSP MixSaturator2, PSP MixPressor2 and PSP MixGate2.

The new PSP MixGate2 is described as an high precision noise gate. The gate is fully configurable and can operate fast enough for special effects (such as "stuttering audio") and smoothly enough to gate unwanted noise without sounding artificial. It includes both high and low pass filters so as to tailor the control signal. By filtering out unwanted frequencies, you can ensure that only the desired frequency can trigger the gate.

PSP MixPack2 is available for both Mac OSX and Windows at $199 in VST, AU and RTAS formats. Owners of the PSP MixPack can get the new plug-in at discounted price of $49.00 until May 1st, 2008. After this date the upgrade price will be increased up to $79.00. All users who bought PSP MixPack bundle on August 1st 2007 or later get the new PSP MixPack2 for free. Note that a full-featured 2 week demo version is also available.

Today at NAB in Las Vegas, iZotope unveils the ANR-B Adaptive Realtime Noise Reduction Unit, bringing the company's renowned audio algorithm for adaptive noise reduction to a dedicated hardware unit for use in real-time broadcast applications.

ANR-B uses iZotope's advanced noise reduction technology to intelligently identify and suppress environmental broadband noise, hum, phone line artifacts and more. Unlike other noise reduction solutions, this unit actually detects noise in real-time and adapts to changing noise over time, allowing for automatic operation with little to no input required from the user.

Key Features:

- Automatically removes noise from audio in real-time
- Two channels can work independently or as a stereo pair
- Includes presets for specific scenarios
- Residual Noise switch lets user quickly preview the noise being removed
- Single knob controls noise suppression on each channel for fast operation
- Learn button allows for manual operation by capturing a noise profile
- PC/Mac interface for managing presets and designing advanced programs
- Remote control capability

ANR-B will be available in Summer of 2008 at a retail price of $4995.

Mixosaurus has just announced the release of Kit A v1.1 which brings a huge usability improvements and significantly expands its range of possible applications:

"ECO" Instrument Patches:
These have lower RAM requirements and faster loading times (down to 1/7 of the full patches). They will work even on "average" computers, and all programming you do with them will be 100% compatible with the full patches.

MIDI Translations:
Built-in ability to understand and play MIDI tracks of all major MIDI drum formats: Addictive Drums, BFD, DFH, EZ Drummer, General MIDI. Also included are dedicated Translations for Roland's TD-3, TD-10 and TD-20, and for Ya ...

Synesthesia has released the second version of Mandala which is now an USB Drum trigger pad packed with a Virtual Brain software control module. The Mandala Drum pad is able to detect where and how hard you hit it and translates that information into sound and sound controllers.

Features :

- Every hit gives you a Note with Velocity AND a Strike Position for HD sound control
- Surface detects 128 strike positions from center to edge
- 128 strike velocities from soft to hard with no false triggers
- Multizone configuration allows mapping of up to 7 zones per pad
- USB interface with easy, yet powerful 'Virtual Brain' software for Mac or PC.
- Includes original sound library with scores of instruments, or load your own samples
- Tons of out-of-the-box presets to get you playing right away
- Connect multiple Mandalas to your computer to form a kit
- Also works seamlessly with Logic, Battery, BFD, Live, Reason, GarageBand, etc.

Each Mandala is hand-crafted and thoroughly tested before it is shipped. The Mandala 2.0 retails for $349, and is available online.

Sound Devices is about to unveil the 788T eight-track recorder at this year NAB Show.

Designed specifically for multi-track on-location productions, the eight-track 788T features a significant expansion of input and output capability — eight full-featured microphone inputs and eight tracks of recording. In a stainless-steel and aluminum chassis weighing less than 4 pounds and roughly the size of a hard-backed mystery novel, this unit accommodates individual controls and connectors for each of its eight inputs, plus numerous additional I/O and data connections.

The 788T comes equipped with a 160 GB 2.5-in. internal SATA hard disk drive. This on-board storage provides up to 30 hours of 8-track, uncompressed 24-bit audio recording of industry-standard Broadcast Wave files. Additionally, CompactFlash cards with UDMA support and external FireWire mass storage volumes can be used for recording and playback. All three storage mediums can be selected for simultaneous, redundant recording.

The 788T is powered by 7.2 V Li-ion batteries or external DC (10-18 V) and offers an on-board Li-ion battery charger.