PC and Music News

Yamaha is about to unveil its yet famous Tenori-on in the United States with launch events for the public and press.

Tenori-on literally means "sound in the palm of your hand" and is a twenty-first century digital musical instrument that is part art-piece, part must-have music gadget for the iPhone generation. The brainchild of Japanese Media Artist Toshio Iwai, Tenori-on emanates from his experiments with light shows and musical boxes, resulting in a hand-held, burnished magnesium-encased matrix of 256 LED buttons that glow as you access different sounds and textures ('Layers') over an infinitely repeating sequence of notes. Sound images are literally drawn with Tenori-on using a host of internal sounds as well as samples loaded from external sources. With an interface where sight and touch are every bit as integral as sound, the Tenori-on music making possibilities are as endless as they are addictive.

Launch events for the media and the public will take place in New York (Southpaw in Brooklyn on April 16th) and San Francisco (1015 Folsom on April 18th). The events will not only feature Toshio Iwai himself, explaining this new musical paradigm, but also a host of edgy new electronic artists such as Sutekh, Safety Scissors, Pole, and I Am Robot And Proud, who have already incorporated Tenori-on into their stage shows. The events are free to enter and will feature Demo Stations for an interactive experience.

Public registration for a launch event is free at :

Nucleus SoundLab has just released Viral Outbreak, a new product based on the sounds of Access Music's Virus TI hardware synthesizer.

Using the power of extensive 96khz multi-sampling, manual looping and professional preset design, Viral Outbreak contains all manner of TI-based sounds. Classic wavetables, raw saw and pulse waveforms (sampled at multiple pulse-widths), unison dance leads, breathtaking pads, bizarre formant effects, massive supersaws and even punchy synth drumkits.

Viral Outbreak is available now as a Windows VSTi plugin and a Reason 4.0 Refill with prices starting at $99.95. Note that a free demo Plugin and Refill are also available as well as a huge variety of audio examples.

Focal Professional introduces the new CMS 65 and CMS50, two new active nearfield studio monitors.

These bi-amplified active nearfield monitors, 165 watts for the CMS65 and 130 watts for the CMS50, benefits from the smoother sound of two high end class AB amplifiers. Thanks to separate HF and LF shelving adjustments, a Desktop Notch correction filter that controls first reflection when the speakers are located over the mixing board, rubber decoupling stand, spikes to tilt the speakers and adjust soundstage height, the Focal Professional CMS 65 and CMS 50 are versatile and will feel at home in any Broadcast, Post-Production or Recording Studio.

The aluminium die-cast cabinets are bringing unconditional rigidity while internal damping and bracing sets the monitor free from unwanted colorations. Focal's unique Al/Mg (Aluminium/Magnesium) inverted dome tweeter combines both, ideal lightweight mass and superb damping, resulting in a tweeter that easily extends up to 28khz at -3db, with a close to perfection pulse response. The PolyglassŪ bass driver combines hollow micro-balls of glass to a pulp cellulose cone thus permitting an amazing rigidity versus mass ratio. The rigidity versus mass ratio of Polyglass is 10 times better than polypropylene and easily exceeds Kevlar.

Prices :

- CMS 50: $695 each MSRP
- CMS 65: $995 each MSRP

The Italian Grand from Synthogy has been shipping for some time as an expansion for the Ivory piano software. Now the Italian Grand is available as a standalone product (for Mac and Pc) and is no longer just an expansion pack for existing Ivory users.

Highlights of Ivory Italian Grand Piano :

- Premium 10 Foot Concert Grand
- 19GB Core Library
- Over 2000 Samples
- 12 Discrete Velocity Layers
- Comes with Ivory piano engine
- Release samples triggered by velocity and duration
- Una Corda (soft pedal) samples at multiple velocities
- Full EQ and Effects section
- All of Ivory's Piano Specific features and controls
- Dozens of new Ivory programs and effects

Ivory Italian Grand is available now for Windows and Mac OS X in VST, AU, RTAS and stand-alone formats at a retail price of $169.

Yellow Tools has just released Independence Pro v2.1, the first update for the Independence Pro sampler workstation. All three products of Independence Pro (Independence, Independence Live & Independence FX) get updated to version 2.1.

Beside many improvements of the workflow, performance and stability, Independence 2.1 and Independence Live 2.1 now also support the import option of 3rd party VST Instrument und VST Effect plug-ins. Additionally the new Independence FX 2.1 update includes the import option of 3rd party VST Effect plug-ins.

The update to Independence Pro 2.1 is free for all registered users and is available for download in the Yellow Tools User Area.

Do you remember this excellent article about iZotope RX last month ? Well, iZotope has finally released iZotope RX audio restoration plug-ins, featuring the essential tools for cleaning and restoring audio.

Available for VST, Audio Unit, MAS, ProTools (RTAS, AudioSuite), and DirectX, the plug-ins are now included with the standalone version for the same price of $349. Current RX customers are eligible for a free download of the plug-ins. Note that a 10 day fully functional trial of RX is also available.