PC and Music News

Abletoncourses.com is a new website which features two online Ableton live video courses for beginners, intermediate and advanced level students, which has been designed and delivered by Ableton certified trainer Rob Jones.

The concept of this new internet business is to allow students of all abilities and locations to login and study online whenever they choose, getting professional instruction and support as modules are delivered.

Each course is presented in a modular format with each lesson lasting around 20 minutes and in total 26 modules are available which cover everything from initial setup through to advanced racks and performance techniques. Each module comes with comprehensive notes and students also follow a series of live sessions with Rob which are included in the course ...

The X1 by sE Electronics is a new large diaphragm condenser microphone which is hand built in sE's own facility in Shanghai like all their products. It features a 10dB pad and a bass cut.

The X1 will be available in December at a price of €120.

The Plugin Discounts website has published a teaser about a new reverb plug-in... We don't actually have any details, just a picture which looks like a Lexicon 480 reverb.

Wait and see...

Propellerhead has announced the immediate availability of Reason Soul School ReFill for Reason. This ReFill explores the classic sounds coming out of three of soul's biggest capitals: Detroit, Memphis and Cincinnati.

The Soul School ReFill sample library features twelve unique soul and funk instrumentals with all their musical elements – bass, drums, guitars and horns - in Propellerhead's tempo-independent REX format, as well as a collection of the 60's and 70's-sounding instruments multisampled for use with Reason's NN-XT sampler and Combinator device. Reason users will find the library organic sounding and extremely flexible; they can use the ReFill as a starting point for song creation, play their own tracks from the instruments or add "classic spice" to any style of music.

Composed exclusively for this ReFill and recorded using the finest in vintage technology, all material was played live by funk-savvy session musicians simultaneously, without overdubs, for that genuine feel.

The Reason Soul School ReFill is available exclusively for download through Propellerhead's web shop at a price €79/$99.

Sugar Bytes has updated Artillery to version 2.1. This update includes several bug fixes/improvements and four new effects :

• Timestretch: Stretches your audio tracks and shrinks your editing time.
• PitchLooper: Pitchshifting combined with a looper.
• Scratch Looper: Scratching on highest level.
• Reverb HQ: High quality reverb algorithm at the usual low CPU charge.

On top of that, Sugar Bytes has also announced some "Christmas Special Deals" :

• Buy 3 - Pay 2 : When you purchase three Sugar Bytes products, the cheapest one is free.
• Unique cheaper : Sugar Bytes' Unique Synthesizer is now available for €99 / $129.
• Sugar Bundle cheaper : The Sugar Bundle is now available for €399 / $599.

U-he presents ACE (Any Cable Everywhere), a new modular virtual synth.

According to u-he, ACE delivers top quality sound at a highly competitive price. The selection of modules and clear layout make ACE the ideal instrument for newcomers delving into the fascinating world of modular synthesis. The number of ways to connect modules together is practically infinite, and you will soon discover how much more fun it is to make your own sounds in ACE than in a non-modular synthesizer.

Details :

• ETA: early December 2009
• pricing: 69EUR (includes 19% VAT, ca. 85 USD net when bought from overseas)
• formats: VST on Windows, VST/AU/RTAS on MacOS X
• system requirments Mac: Apple Macintosh Computer running MacOS X 10.4+ on a G4 processor or newer, Intel Core 2 Duo or better recommended
• system requirments Win: VST2 compatible host software on a PC with SSE2 supporting processor, Intel Core 2 Duo or better recommended
• number of presets and such: tba
• fun factor: high !