PC and Music News

Toontrack Music announces the release of the Funkmasters EZX. This is a unique and exclusive recording of two of the most important drummers in popular music. Clyde Stubblefield and John "Jab'o" Starks.

On their own or in tandem, Starks and Stubblefield were the principal drummers for the Godfather of Soul and Funk, Mr. James Brown. Fans and critics alike cite their collective era in Brown's band as the pinnacle of Funk. Their combined drumming on the classic double-album "Sex Machine" is some of the most innovative, inspired and funky playing ever recorded.

Samples and looped audio of their original beats and breaks would go on to become the foundation of Hip-Hop. Their breaks gave birth to countless genres reaching deep into the realms of underground, experimental and popular music. It is also crucial to note that the use of their breaks inspired innovation within the techniques of DJ-ing and sample based production, thus making Starks and Stubblefield the most sampled and influential drummers in modern day music.

Toontrack Music has sampled both their unique sound and grooves.

The Funkmasters EZX feature two kit interfaces, one for Clyde and one for "Jab'o". The EZX also features effects sliders in the EZmixer, a Vinyl effect created with the use of iZotopes Vinyl plug in and a large Plate reverb resampled at Toontrack Music Studios, UmeΒ, delivering all that you need to create those real sounding Funk tracks.

The Funkmasters EZX will be available through Toontrack Music distributors and retailers at the end of November.

Blue Microphones today introduced Icicle, an in-line USB converter and preamp. Designed with Blue's unique sense of style and commitment to quality, Icicle makes connecting XLR microphones directly to your Mac or PC simple and effective.

A key design goal of Blue is to keep technology out of the way of making music, so there are no complicated drivers, I/O boxes, or messy converters required. Icicle works with dynamic and condenser microphones, providing high quality and hassle free connectivity with Mac or PC for recording, podcasting, voiceovers and more.

Icicle features :

- Studio quality microphone preamp
- 48V phantom power
- Fully balanced low noise front end
- Analog gain control
- Plug and Play driverless operation
- 44.1 kHz, 16-bit CD quality converter
- Mac or PC operation

Icicle will be available in December 2008 for a suggested retail price of $59.99.

Blue prints and photos can give an acoustician the information needed to create acoustical models of a given room, but there is no better way to gauge the acoustical problems a room faces than by obtaining acoustical measurements. Auralex Acoustics can now lend its acoustical expertise to any project through its first-to-market, new Room Analysis Plus and Room Analysis Pro programs.

Room Analysis Plus is an off-site analysis service where dealers/integrators can download an audio file featuring a swept sine signal from 20 Hz to 20 kHz at the Auralex website. Users can then record the sweep with an omni-directional measurement microphone in the location of the room in question. All files can be sent via e-mail, along with the Personalized Room Analysis Form, directly to Auralex for exami ...

Native Instruments just launched "Holiday Values", a series of time-limited special offers for many of its products for producers and guitarists. Offers include a substantial discount and additional software package for the popular Guitar Rig 3 Kontrol Edition, a free copy of Absynth 4, FM8, Massive or Pro-53 on top of every purchase of the Audio Kontrol 1 audio interface, and a half-price discount on the update versions of all NI software instruments including the Komplete bundle.

For more information, please visit the following link :

Vienna Symphonic Library (VSL) announces the Vienna Suite, a new effects bundle that includes eight advanced, yet easy to use, plug-ins for mixing and mastering. For highest precision, they offer full 64-bit audio processing on all major 64-bit and 32-bit host platforms.

The Vienna Suite includes :

- Equalizer for smooth highs and deep and powerful lows – includes an integrated 120 band spectrum analyzer. Extremely low CPU usage.
- Master Equalizer provides 3 filter types on 5 bands and additional high and low shelf filters with 2 filter types. The use of 4x oversampling makes internal calculations even more precise. Ideal for delicate sonic mastering tasks.
- Limiter with real-time input/output waveform display and auto-mode for transparent maximization.
- Compressor – featuring modern and vintage algorithms and a real-time input/output waveform display.
- Multiband Limiter – offering 4 bands with transparent crossover filters and an additional full-range brickwall limiter at the final output stage.
- PowerPan for powerful stage positioning of instruments, featuring real-time audio angular analysis.
- Exciter – offering 4x oversampling, tone-color sliders for mixing odd and even harmonics, and a high frequency FFT spectrum analyzer.
- Analyzer – featuring a 120 band analog modeled spectrum analyzer, fast and accurate display of bass frequencies, auto mode for automatic range management, and loudest frequency note display.

Priced at €395, the Vienna Suite will be available "soon" for Windows XP/Vista 32 and 64 bit versions and Mac OS X 10.4 or higher in VST (OS X, Win), AU (OS X) and RTAS (OS X) plug-in formats.

TC Electronic announces that PowerCore 6000, the latest addition to the PowerCore platform, is now shipping. According to TC, by combining System 6000 algorithms with PowerCore platform users now get the ultimate studio tool for their DAWs.

PowerCore 6000 features eight FreeScale DSP engines, the same DSPs used in System 6000, and it has an SRAM memory design that supports high performance reverbs and delays. This enables users to run famous reverbs and delay-algorithms from System 6000 with popular DAWs like Logic Pro, as well as with any other VST- and Audio Units-compatible host.

PowerCore 6000 includes 7 pristine plug-in algorithms, which are ported 1:1 from System 6000 : VSS3 Stereo Source Reverb, Nonlin2, DVR 2 Digital Vintage Reverb MD3 Stereo Mastering, Brickwall Limiter, UnWrap stereo to 5.1 conversion and TapFactory.

PowerCore 6000 ships with PowerCore software 3.2 and is compatible with the latest Mac OS and Windows XP/Vista 32.

Suggested retail price : €2999