PC and Music News

Keyfax has released a new video called "Using Cubase 4 Recording The Band". Shot live in Santa Cruz and featuring rock band "the Liminal," this DVD lifts the lid on what it takes to record a band in the 21st century armed with Cubase as your recording medium.

The DVD shows how to hook up a hardware interface, how to deal with mic-ed amps and drums, monitoring, recording procedures and techniques, and how to prepare the best mix for mastering. Everything in the program is geared towards the practicality of a multi-musician, band type of recording experience.

"Using Cubase 4 Recording The Band" includes the raw audio files on the DVD (Cubase 4 Project file, plus the final mix) and is available from all good music stores or direct from the Steinberg web site for $44.95.

Soniccouture has released a new sample library for Native Instruments Kontakt called Balinese Gamelan. A gamelan is a kind of musical ensemble of Indonesia typically featuring a variety of instruments such as metallophones, xylophones, drums, and gongs; bamboo flutes, bowed and plucked strings.

Features :

- 24GB Library — 24 Bit 96Khz Stereo Sampling
- 25 Individual Gamelan Instruments
- Up to 20 Velocity Layers
- Over 4000 Samples
- Multiple Round Robin Layers Kontakt 2 + 3 Format

This library is available now at a retail price of $499. To hear sound samples of Balinese Gamelan please visit :

De la Mancha has just released Bent, a circuit-bent resynthesis effect. It will recreate the incoming audio into an approximation of itself using a waveform-morphing audio oscillator. Depending on the volume and pitch of the audio, it will gate, stutter and morph the output in sync with your host tempo.

Bent is available now as a VST plug-in for Windows and it is free.

Moppel has recently released a new free virtual synth called Sonitarium. It employs a variant of DSF synthesis with aliasing-free oscillators that generate a quadrature stereo signal. Providing up to 100 oscillators per voice, Sonitarium is most suitable for smooth pads, layered leads, and some oddities.

Features :

- Aliasing-free DSF oscillators, each generating a quadrature stereo signal.
- Up to 100 oscillators per voice. Unison controls to alter the pitches and phases of the oscillators.
- Freely selectable polyphony with up to 16 voices.
- Text field input for all controls.
- Envelope and key tracking controlled volume. Adjustable pitch bend range.
- Freely adjustable Attack, Decay, and Release slopes.
- MIDI control of all parameters (CC).
- 60 presets.

Sonitarium is available now as a VSTi for Windows and it's free.

Allen & Heath will unveil two new additions to the ZED range of small-format USB mixers at the forthcoming MusikMesse. The ZED-12FX (6 mono + 3 dual stereo channels) and ZED-22FX (16 mono + 3 dual stereo channels) retain the same feature set as other models in the range with the addition of a comprehensive section of in-house designed effects.

ZED's effects are divided into 4 types: tap tempo delays, short reverbs, long reverbs and modulation. They are controlled by three buttons for easy navigation and editing, allowing the parameters of each effect to be quickly 'dialled-in' to, for instance, pinpoint the ideal delay time or amount of reverb.

The new ZED FX mixers have a responsive 3-band swept-mid EQ on the mono channels, with a 2-band EQ on the stereo channels, 100mm long throw faders, 4 aux sends (2 pre, 2 post fade), a USB send and return (for PC or Mac recording or playback), a unique dual stereo input capability, and advanced monitoring facilities.

ZED FX models will be shipping in March at the following price :

- ZED-12FX: £369+VAT
- ZED-22FX £535+VAT

Eiosis has announced that the E²Deesser is now available in all native formats for both Windows and Mac OSX. The update 1.2 now includes the VST version.

This new version supports Syncrosoft, and features the VST, RTAS and AU versions for Windows and Mac OSX.

A Syncrosoft demo version is available on our website, and now you can download the E²Deesser demo for both Syncrosoft and iLok.