PC and Music News

Univers-Sons / Ultimate Sound Bank introduces Spirit of Gongs, another crazy and exclusive UVI Soundpack which features 80 ancient gongs and related percussions in one single library.

Gongs are mainly East and South East Asian musical instruments, the shape of a flat metal plate, usually hit with a mallet. There are gongs of various sizes, and this collection focuses on the most musical ones, middle to small-sized, from 5 to 26 inch.

Following their pristine audio quality policy, Univers-Sons did record these pieces of history with the best analog and digital equipment in 24-bit / 96 kHz, to capture the essence of these rich percussive instruments. Depending on the model, they were able to sample in multiple velocity levels.

In addition to the recordings, they assed the perceptual tuning of each sample, allowing the presets to be played around the keyboard. Thanks to that, the collection stands as more versatile than just a "classic" gong collection : sound textures are varying from large metal bongs, to magnificent and musical bell chimes.

Instruments are sorted in a very meticulous way, from their original location : Burma, Cambodia, China, Indochina, Japan, Malaysia, Vietnam... Pictures and actual sizes are provided along for most of the presets.

Spirit of Gongs is now available for $99, and includes the full version of UVI Workstation. Note that a video demo is available at :

Modartt announces the release of the new Vibes add-on for Pianoteq.

Using a newly extended model, Pianoteq can now reproduce the beautiful sound of the vibraphone. Two virtual vibraphones, V-M and V-B, reproduce faithfully the characteristic sound of two well-known vibraphone brands.

The V-M is a virtual copy of a Musser vibraphone that belongs to the famous French vibraphonist Dany Doriz. The V-B is a virtual copy of a Bergerault vibraphone that belongs to the Condorcet studio in Toulouse (France).

Thanks to the physical model the range of the vibraphones is extended from 3 to 5 octaves. Each instrument is provided with several variants and by using interface features, such as mallet hardness and tremolo, you can customize them to your own taste.

The Vibes add-on can be purchased by all Pianoteq customers for 49 €. Audio demos and a free Pianoteq trial version are available at :

Effective immediately, Cycling '74 will discontinue sales of prebuilt Max-based audio plug-in packages. This includes Pluggo, Mode, Hipno, and UpMix. They will still continue to support current users as best as they can, but there will be no further development on either the plug-in packages or their supporting technology.

"This was not an easy decision to make, and we know it will disappoint some users. We had originally hoped to update

Audio Damage unveils their upcoming new product, Eos, which is a new reverb plug-in. Eos aims to provide a nice, long, lush reverb outside of the normal CPU-intensive processes which means that it will be perfectly suited for live uses. Here is an excerpt from their blog :

"Here's a first real look at Eos, the next Audio Damage product. Some highlights:
1. As you can see, it has three distinct algorithms. Plate One is a summed input plate algo. This means it combines the left and right to proved the source input for the algorithm. It has a stereo output on a stereo track, though. Plate Two is a slightly different algorithm, with a stereo input. Superhall is a hall algorithm designed specifically for long dense modulated reverbs, like you'd find on a Harold Budd album. These algorithms were written by Sean Costello under contract to Audio Damage, and are very, very good. (And you'll note that I rarely qualify the word "good," let alone with two instances of "very.")

2. The control structure we've gone with is quite a bit different than our normal methods. You can grab any of the digit displays to change the values; grabbing them towards the left gives you big changes, and grabbing them towards the right gives you small changes. This seemed much handier than having a text value entry (the which I dislike intensely) and gives you control that is just as fine. Also, all the graphical displays are X/Y controllers. The big oval on the top, the X is decay (RT60 in the vernacular) and the Y is size. The little sperm thing inside the oval displays the modulation rate and depth. The filter displays are similar, with X being the cutoff for the respective filter and Y being the multiplier.

This plug-in has a much different topology internally than ADverb (née Reverence) and has a correspondingly much different sound. It also has a ludicrously low CPU usage. As far as I'm able to measure, the DSP itself has no real usage to speak of, and most of the CPU is a result of instancing a VST or AU in the first place. It can easily be used live on a laptop, or multiple-instanced. This was our real goal: to provide a nice, long, lush reverb outside of the normal CPU-intensive processes, and in my opinion that was accomplished."

Pricing & Availability TBA.

Trinity Audio Group Inc. refreshes it's line of mobile audio computers by announcing the Indamixx Netbook Model 2, an affordable Linux audio Netbook with pre-installed audio and mobility software.

"At $499.00 complete with hardware and fully loaded software, we provide the most affordable full featured mobile recording studio in the world," says Creative Director Ronald Stewart. "The Indamixx Netbook is an ideal product for music beginners and priced perfectly for the masses."

Model 2 improvements include :

• 3.0 Transmission (OS) - Custom Linux operating based on Ubuntu 9.04.
• A Private Label MSI Wind U100 with factory installed 2GB RAM - 1 year limited warranty.
• 160GB HDD.
• 10" Widescreen
• An Over clocked Intel Atom chip up to 2.0Ghz with up to 4 hour battery life.
• 3G and HSDPA capable.
• Pre-bundled software with award winning energy XT
• First solution to feature ArdourXchange
• More than 350 classic sample and scratches
• Over 260 Plugins and effects

MOTU has announced the release of Volta v1.01. This maintenance update has numerous enhancements and is recommended for all users. Volta v1.01 is available as a free, downloadable update for all registered Volta users.

For complete details, see the PDF documentation included in the 1.01 updater download.