PC and Music News

Flux in collaboration with IRCAM have announced the release of the IRCAM Tools product range.

The IRCAM Tools products express the result of over twenty years of fundamental research within the realms of music related digital signal processing. First out, they present a series of products evolved from two major fields of technology, Acoustic & Cognitive Spaces, and Sound Analysis & Synthesis.

Acoustic and Cognitive Spaces
The research and development activity carried out by the Acoustic and Cognitive Spaces Team (formerly Room Acoustics Team) concentrates on the analysis, reproduction and synthesis of spatially considered sound environments. In other words, the localization of sound in space, and the specific acoustical characteristics of a room or of an environment.

Togu Audio Line has released TAL-NoiseMaker which is an improved version of TAL-Elek7ro.

TAL-NoiseMaker has a completely new synth engine and a lot of improvements in sound and usability. The synth also includes a small effect section with a reverb, chorus and a simple bit-crusher effect.

A display shows the knob and slider values. This allows more control over the synth. A ring-modulator and a syncable triangle are also part of this synth. TAL-NoiseMaker includes new filter types as the self resonating 6dB low pass and a notch filter. Its improved amplitude ADSR is very suitable for slow pads as for really fast envelopes.

Free 32- and 64-bit versions are available for Windows and Mac OS X in VST and AU instrument plug-in formats.

All Brainworx plug-ins can now be tested without the iLok dongle !

All Native demo versions of the Brainworx plug-ins will run for 14 days - without any dongle - and without limitations. Just grab the installers and get your hands on the plug-ins (VST/RTAS/AU).

Try bx_digital V2, bx_control V2, bx_boom! and many more at :

Violence is the latest release from Vir2 Instruments. It's a collection of instruments focusing on extremely unusual textures, manglings, distortions, and perspectives on the solo violin.

Violence features a variety of controls which are custom-designed for each of its 82 instruments. The instruments are subdivided into four major category folders:

• Drum Kits
• Melodic
• Pads and SFX
• Tempo Synced

Depending on the instrument loaded, appropriate knobs for tweaking the instrument appear in the interface, such as:

• Quantization
• Envelope controls (attack and release)
• Stereo spread
• Lopass and hipass filters
• Layer blend controls
• Effects (reverb, delay, drive, flanger, vibrato, rotator, wobble, and others)
• Autopan control
• Repeater

Powered by the Kontakt engine, Violence is compatible with VST, AudioUnit, and RTAS (Pro Tools 7 & 8) plug-in formats and is priced at $99.95.

Hip Hop Evolution by Samplecraze is another 'Inspired By' sample pack and the artiste of today is the legendary and notable Pete Rock.

396 drum samples broken into drum specific categories and comprising: 116 deep ass kicks, 116 magical snares, 116 chunky and fizzing hi hats and 48 assorted percussive samples to help add flavour and fill your beat productions.

Treated and processed by some of the best dynamics from the Samplecraze studio these drum samples will flap the cones and cut through any club PA.

Pricing : £11.99/$23.99

BPM 1.5 is out ! This update adds many new features, plus 4 GB of additional sounds for over 19 GB of included kits, patterns, loops, and samples.

Beat Box Anthology
TR 808…LinnDrum…SP1200… Iconic rhythm machines from decades past that brought us legendary sounds that still drive today's beats. BPM delivers the sounds of 80 such classic machines from the 1970's, 80's and 90's — a massive 4 GB collection of legacy rhythm sounds, combined with BPM's updated 1.5 library, for an unprecedented 19 GB, by far the most extensive rhythm sound library available.

More musical styles
Updated soundbanks deliver kits, patterns and sounds for many additional musical styles, including big beat, dancehall, dub, electro, jungle, hard trance, house, jungle-drum bass, minimal, progressive, vinylized and others. With BPM's FlexLoop technology, you control every loop element, from individual samples to FX parameters. Combine kits and patterns from each style to quickly create unique hybrid beats.