PC and Music News

"MOTU is a company that has an uncanny ability to jam pack every single audio-visual in/out you can think of into a neat little portable Swiss-army-type black box. They're also known for their excellent digital converters and flagship sequencer, Digital Performer. Electric Keys is a sample-based vintage keyboard player, adding to their growing line up of software instruments, such as the MX4 synthesizer, Ethno Instrument, Mach Five, and Symphonic Instrument. Adding a vintage keyboard emulator to the list seems like a practical next step to help round out things."

Stanton unveils the SCS.3d a.k.a. DaScratch, the latest addition to the Stanton SC System control surface line. Basically DaScratch is a new touch sensitive MIDI controller especially designed for DJ. Long story short, if you want to learn more about this strange unit, better watch this video on 440tv.

DaScratch will be available soon at an estimated street price of €250.

De la Mancha has just released bathtub, a new dynamics plug-in for Windows. bathtub is more than just a simple compressor: it does multi-band compression, multi-layer parallel compression, series compression, mid/side compression, Left/Right compression, RMS/Peak detection, side-chaining, look-ahead, limiting & maximizing and has comprehensive metering and clip counting.

bathtub is really two flexible and configurable stereo compressors that can be routed to be in series or parallel, can be fed the input signal split into high/low frequencies or full band, and can perform as different styles of compressor, limiter or maximizer to produce a range of flavours and effects. The metering shows you visually what is happening too, so you can see how much compression and gain you are getting.

bathtub is available now as a VST plug-in for Windows and costs $29.

Puremagnetik has released a free electronic percussion Micropak for Ableton Live 7. Kamoni's Electronic Kits is a 5 kit collection by New York sound designer and electronic drummer Kamoni. From glitchy snares to monstrous sub kicks and dark ominous basses, this Micropak contains a dynamic and experimental palette of sounds that integrates flawlessly into Ableton Live 7 drum racks.

Features :

- Integrated Ableton Live 7 effects chains and macro mappings.
- 5 Expertly programmed kits in various electronic styles.
- Raw samples can be integrated into other production environments and samplers.
- Provides a unique study of sound design techniques in Ableton Live 7.

Kamoni's Electronic Kits is available for free at :

D16 Group unveils Decimort, the next addition to its "Silver Line" of products.

Basically Decimort is a bit crusher plug-in. Electronic music producers have always been aware that classic samplers had a character and sound of their own. They added a "grit" and "colour" to the samples and loops they played back which made them sound "Fat" and sit well in a mix. This sound colouration was due to the encoding techniques, lower sample rates, lower bit rate and conversion circuits which these early samplers used. Decimort aims to recreate this colouration in order to add the vintage sampler magic to any loop, bass line or sound played through it.

Decimort will be available on the first week of October for both PC and Mac in VST and VST/AU formats respectively. It is currently available for pre-order priced at €29. Note that audio examples are available.

TL Audio has announced the release of their latest offering in the new Ebony Series : the Ebony A4.

The A4 is a 16:2 summing mixer housed in a 2U unit and features 16 balanced inputs on TRS and D-Sub with individual pan controls. All inputs are also switchable between +4 and -10 for greater flexibility.

Features :

- Discrete Class A Electronics
- Dual Triode ECC83 tube stage in master section
- Variable drive control
- Ability to switch tube in and out of circuit path
- 16 Balanced inputs on TRS / D-Sub
- 16 individual pan control
- Inputs switchable +4/-10
- Balanced inserts on master bus
- Balanced outputs
- Analogue VU metering with Peak LED's
- Sleek design and smooth precise sound
- Rackmountable (2U)
- Hand Made In England

The Ebony A4 is available at an estimated street price of €1200.