PC and Music News

Mike Massberg and Dave Gamble proudly present Harmony Box, a free virtual synthesizer that has the rules of modal jazz built-in : you press a key, it plays the right chord. You just pick the key and the mode. An alias-free oscillator drives a self-oscillating filter and it has LFOs and Envelopes for fatness. Harmony Box was created especially for the Music Hack Day 2009.

Harmony Box is free and is available for Windows and Mac OS X in VST and AU instrument plug-in formats.

Universal Piper is a new high-definition Bagpipe virtual instrument for Windows and Mac OS X.

Features :

• Play Highland Bagpipe (other bagpipes coming).
• Sculpt your sound on each note.
• Add effects (Reverb, EQ, ...).
• Listen to BWW and MIDIfiles with the Universal Piper sound.
• Switch between tempered and natural scale.

Universal Piper is available for Windows and Mac OS X in Stand-alone and VST and AU instrument plug-in formats. It costs €49.

Pro Audio DSP has updated its DSM - Dynamic Spectrum Mapper plug-in to version 1.3.

The Dynamic Spectrum Mapper (DSM) provides multi-dimensional control over both the spectral response and dynamic characteristics of audio programme, bringing a whole new dimension of facility and artistic ability to the sound engineer.
Novel processing and programme capture algorithms provide the ability to achieve exemplary results in common tasks such as :

• programme compression
• loudness enhancement
• de-essing and vocal character processing

Furthermore, the ability to capture, modify and re-apply the spectral characteristics of programme is a powerful creative tool in all stages of the production cycle, from recording and mixing to mastering stages :

• personalise m ...

Best Service announces that Titan is now shipping.

Titan offers 5,500 multi-samples of the best sounds from 200 classic Analog Synthesizers and Modular Systems, including the biggest and most famous Digital Synths and Workstations of the 80s and 90s, and from the newest virtual instruments and current synths, all in one massive plug-in. That means 40 years of synth history and sound variety. Best Service put great emphasis on preserving the unique sound character of each instrument - that's why many of the instruments were partially sampled with their original effects and filters, which can be hard to reproduce in the virtual domain. All instruments were sampled and looped perfectly and inserted into the new Best Service ENGINE. ENGINE was developed by Best Service in cooperation with Yellow Tools. It is based on Yellow Tools' high-end sampler Independence Pro and offers all performance features of a contemporary sample engine.

Titan is available for Windows and Mac OS X in VST, AU and RTAS plug-in formats. MSRP is €249 (incl. VAT).

Remenber D-CAM: Synth Squad, the virtual synth that FXpansion unveiled at the latest Winter NAMM ?

Well, this synth will be available worldwide in August 2009 for £157, $249, €189 excluding local taxes where applicable. For more information, please visit the link below :

NuGen Audio has just updated its audio analysis tool Visualizer to version 1.9.

This update introduces a new feature in views supporting chromatic scaling. In these views, the frequency axis now displays frequency as a note name and number. The tone generator (right-click tone function in Set-up options) also snaps to note values at the appropriate dB level, when chromatic options are chosen.

This new feature can be used to simplify and accelerate tonal detection (including individual notes within existing audio), harmonic & overtone inspection and tuning compatibility analysis.