PC and Music News

M-Audio unveils two new sets of Active Studio Monitors : the Studiophile CX-5 and CX-8.

The CX-5 and CX-8 have 5-inch and 8-inch Kevlar low-frequency driver, respectively; and 1.25-inch silk-domed high-frequency driver. Both speakers feature a number of "room tuning" controls on the back for combating the ill-effects of placement within less-than-ideal acoustic situation. LF Cutoff, MF Boost and HF Trim switches provide attenuation along specific bands, and an Acoustic Space control. They offer RCA inputs and Neutrick combo connectors.

The Studiophile CX-5 and CX-8 are priced at $399.95 and $499.95 respectively.

TC Electronic will be launching BMC-2 at the 2009 Frankfurt Musikmesse, a dedicated Digital-to-Analog Converter and high quality Monitor Control that is suited for use with digital and analog speakers.

BMC-2 is a self-contained desktop unit and can be operated without a Mac or PC, putting instant control of sound levels within easy reach – no matter what. As well as controlling the listening level, BMC-2 can also switch between three digital input sources – S/PDIF, AES3, TOS and ADAT, and confirm if inputs are synchronous or not.

UVI SoundSource introduces Baby Grand Piano. Here is the official press release :

" We are proud to introduce a new beautiful sounding piano for an incredible price, this 6 GB library brings up a very unique and rare instrument with an exceptionally warm and emotional sound, something hard to find with old pianos." said Alain Etchart, Founder and Director of Marketing at Univers Sons / UVI Soundsource.

After the success of our UVI SoundPack Acoustic Grand Piano, we felt it was time to come up with something slightly different. So back in the road we were looking for a piano with sound and history. We did visit a serious amount of ancient piano addicts. As for the Acoustic Grand Piano, the alchemy is not easy to find, and we did try several models and places until we found the right one. During our investigation we fell in love with a gorgeous baby grand piano built in 1930 by the manufacturer Erard. This is one of the "smallest grand piano" ever built, and it sounds incredibly large in regard to its size.

This time, to capture the heart of this lovely piece of musical instrument history, we didn't bring the piano to a big studio, but came up with our own gear to record the piano in place. As usual, our gear consisted in extremely good microphones, excellent sounding mic pre and insanely good analog to digital converters. Every single note was carefully multi-sampled in multiple (up to 8) velocity levels; we did also introduce a new special technique to capture the true sound when playing with the sustain pedal, to add another level of realism.

Thanks to the UVI Engine advanced keygroup layers and rule switching, the sustain pedal and release samples perform and "feel" like a real piano.

Baby Grand Piano is available now for $69 as digital download and is compatible with every configuration thanks to the free UVI Workstation. It's also fully compatible with MOTU BPM, Beat Production Machine.

UVI Soundpack Baby Grand Piano

Prosoniq announces that it will discontinue development of its Windows products starting June 1st, 2009. Existing Windows products will continued to be sold until that date, and updates will be available until the end of 2009. Users who wish to crossgrade from the latest version of their Windows product to the Mac counterpart can do so for free by contacting Prosoniq via its contact form.

Bernhard Bouché, CEO at Prosoniq says that the Windows platform, though having a larger market share, has become increasingly unattractive due to the widespread availability of pirated Prosoniq products.

Frankfurt Musikmesse is a little late this year... Anyway, if you are just as gear enthusiast as we are it will definitely be the place where to be from 1 to 4 April. As usual there will be a complete range of products with everything required for making music, not to mention innumerable workshops, concerts, demonstrations and discussion events.

Of course the whole 440Network team will keep you informed about this major trade show in a Special Report, so stay tuned !

Audiokinetic Inc. and McDSP announced today that they have entered a technical partnership.

Audiokinetic is a leading audio solution provider for the video game industry. Its flagship product, Wwise, revolutionizes the traditional game audio development process and allows users to audit, profile, and modify sounds in real-time within the game itself.

As part of the partnership with Audiokinetic, McDSP will provide Wwise users with a selection of effect plug-ins, which will be accessible directly in Wwise's user interface. Details about the plug-ins that will be available, as well as licensing particulars will be made public shortly; the plug-ins will be available in Wwise later in 2009.