PC and Music News

Plasticlicks, by D16 Group, is drum ssounds collection.

Plasticlicks is a collection of over 1500 totally fresh, ready-to-use drum sounds.

All the sounds in this collection have been designed completely from scratch with the goal of creating something truly unique in the world of electronic drums. Not a single preexisting sample has been used during the creation of these sounds: they're all completely original, built from the ground up—a full spectrum of carefully designed drum sounds.

Available now at a price of €69.

SoundToys is workong on a virtual analog input channel modeling plug-in called Juice. Here's what they say about it :

"Our Decapitator plug-in was built out of abused and tortured analog gear, and is meant to be used as a not-so-subtle effect. The feedback has been amazing, and so many of our users having been telling us that we really nailed the sound of analog with this one.

But it's also been interesting to see how many people have been using it for much subtler stuff than we designed it for. For some people, even ZERO drive isn't clean enough, so they've been inserting trim plug-ins before Decapitator to pad the inputs and dial the effect back even more.

As thrilled as we are by all the love for Decapitator, we also thought it would be even better to create a new tool designed for the subtler side of analog. So meet Juice, our upcoming analog input channel modeling plug-in.

We learned so much developing the modeling technology that's in Decapitator, and plan to take it even further with Juice. We've also collected a ridiculous amount of rare and high-end analog input channels here in the lab, and need to put those to good use.

Our plan for Juice is to develop 4 to 6 entirely new input models based on console input channels and/or mic pres, running at normal to slightly driven levels (just the preamp part, not the EQ… yet.) And with this one we're going to hold our destructive urges in check (sorry, no punish button!) to give you just the right amount of sweet juicy goodness for all of your tracks.

We'll have more to say soon, but here's a look at the first draft of the interface for Juice. Whatcha think ?"

Considering the other SoundToy's products, it looks promising, doesn't it ?

Pricing and availability TBA.

Focusrite is pleased to announce the addition of the Saffire PRO 14 to the Saffire range of audio interfaces. The Saffire PRO 14 is an 8 in / 6 out FireWire audio interface designed to make home studio recording and mixing easy without sacrificing audio quality.

Features :

• two Focusrite mic preamps
• two additional analogue inputs
• four analogue outputs
• S/PDIF
• MIDI
• two Hi-Z instrument inputs let you plug straight in without the need to buy additional DI boxes
• two virtual Loopback inputs are also available for routing digital audio between software applications.

Included with the PRO 14 is Saffire MixControl, an 18 x 6 DSP mixer. This software enables you to create six separate mixes with ultra-low-latency. Route any combination ...

The design of Shure's Super 55 microphone is an industry and cultural icon. Known for its excellent sound quality and natural vocal reproduction, Shure created a Special Edition Super 55 microphone that features a sharp new red and black color scheme.

The Special Edition Super 55 incorporates modern technology while paying tribute to the original Shure Unidyne – the first single-element unidirectional microphone – introduced in 1939.

Featuring a black die-cast case, supercardioid polar pattern, and striking red foam, the Special Edition Super 55 is ideal for stage, studio recording, podcasting, and other sound applications where a stand-mounted microphone with a classic look is desired. An integrated, swivel stand mount base and microphone bag are also included.

Features of the ...

UVI Sound Source introduces The Seventh.

For the first time, the last sequel - Mark 7 - of the all-time famous electric piano brand is now available as a virtual instrument. Only for UVI users.

While sharing the same electro-mechanical design with its ancestors, this great piano also brings its own soul and character along with sound and music quality.

"Thanks to the UVI radical chain of recording gear and sampling techniques, we were able to achieve certainly one of our best electric piano ever : first we took the time to carefully tweak the instruments to obtain the most homogenized playing sensation possible (voicing, tuning ...). Then we did record direct from the internal microphone to a custom Universal Audio preamplifier plugged into the Prism Orpheus converters using Vovox uniques cables. We sampled up to 14 velocity levels as well as the release sounds for every note. Everything was captured at 24bit / 96khz for a crystal clear sound quality.

The result is a very unique and expressive electric piano: a 21st century instrument with the soul of the 70s."

Compatible with every configuration thanks to the free UVI Workstation. It's also fully compatible with MOTU BPM, Beat Production Machine and MachFive2.

The Seventh is available now for $79 as digital download.

MeldaProduction has released MUtility, a free plug-in which provides many elementary actions often useful by every engineer as well as more scientific features.

This consists of volume, panorama, phase inversion, stereo swapping, DC blocker, delay in samples and milliseconds, RMS and envelope, a few mathematical functions, expression evaluator and mono-stereo (de)encoder.

Features :

• Up to 8 channels surround processing.
• Easy-to-use user interface. You can easily change all values, fine-tune each control in multiple ways. Easy orientation in a standardized GUI, textual editing and smooth visualization with almost unlimited zooming are standard. • Resizable and stylable GUI.
• MIDI controllers with MIDI learn - you can map any parameter to any MIDI controller or MIDI keyboard and control it realtime or record and automate it.
• Optimized for SSE and SSE2 processors.
• Global preset management - using a title button you can save your settings (which are shared on the computer) so you can easily access these in other songs.
• Fully automatable.


The free MUtility plug-in is available now for Mac and PC in VST and AU formats.