PC and Music News

Heavyocity Media has announced the release of Evolve, a new virtual instrument that "supercharges creativity and streamlines productivity for modern composers and sound designers".

Created by the TV and video game composers from Heavy Melody Music & Sound Design, Evolve is a virtual instrument powered by Native Instruments' Kontakt 2 Player. With an emphasis on the dramatic, it is geared toward film and game audio, as well as artist production and live performance. Sonically, Evolve doesn't just contain the typical sounds that form the foundation of most composers' setups. Instead, it accentuates them with a powerful combination of diverse percussion, massive stings/transitions and evocative tonalities in ways that have "never been heard before".

Evolve's signature collection feature ...

Schwa has just released a new plug-in called Oligarc Filter which is described as a sophisticated emulation of a classic analog ladder filter complete with nonlinearity, instability, character, good looks, and danger.

Features :

- Resonant Filter: lowpass (bludgeon) / wide bandpass (cleaver) / narrow bandpass (scalpel).
- Brickwall Limiter: Engages a soft-clipping limiter to protect your delicate organic structures.
- Fully MIDI-controllable.

Oligarc Filter is available now for Mac OS X and Windows in VST and AU formats at a price of $20. Note that all proceeds for this plug-in will be donated to the alliance for climate protection.

Toontrack has released updates for all existing EZdrummer EZXs with more MIDI files and the addition of copy protection on the DFH, Vintage Rock and Latin Percussion EZXs.

The updates also include new mixer presets by Richard Devine. Richard Devine is an Atlanta-based electronic musician. He is recognized for producing a layered and heavily processed sound, combining influences from old and modern electronic music praised for, among other things, a remix of Aphex Twins Come To Daddy. Apart from engineering and performing his own music worldwide Devine has also contributed sound design to a number of hardware and software manufacturers and scored commercials for Nike and Touchstone Pictures.

All the updates are of course free of charge.

Softube has just announced that the Acoustic Feedback Deluxe plug-in for Pro Tools HD and VENUE is now shipping.

Acoustic Feedback is the first ever realistic simulation of guitar feedback. Softube has expanded on this concept in Acoustic Feedback Deluxe, which allows the user to choose which harmonics will dominate during feedback, providing greater control over the result. For even more sonic possibilities, an optional sub-harmonic function has been added, allowing the plug-in to feedback at half the fundamental frequency, providing a deeper, smoother effect.

Features :

- Added functionality: Choose harmonics with the Harmonic Selector
- Added functionality: Sub-harmonic modeling
- Realistic simulation (physical modeling) of guitar feedback.
- Fully responsive to vibratos, bends, slides, tremolos etc.
- Simple user interface: Control amount of feedback with the Feedback knob, and the sensitivity with a Tolerance knob.

Acoustic Feedback Deluxe is at the present only available as a TDM plug-in at a price of $199 excl. VAT.

Today we are pleased to publisha new article about Speakerphone, the impulse-response based speaker emulator from AudioEase.

"If you are in post for film, video, broadcast, or even a musician looking for a creative tool to put your audio in specific situations, Speakerphone should be at the top of your list of purchases."

For a limited time only, Waves and Ableton are pleased to bring you a special bundle : Waves Gold Native and Ableton Live 7, together as a single low-priced package. Note that this software package includes the full version of Ableton Live 7, not Ableton Live LE, and upgrades to Ableton Suite are available.

The Waves Gold Native and Ableton Live 7 combination package will be available May 2008 with a U.S. MSRP of $1500. (Offer available in U.S., Austria, and Switzerland only).