PC and Music News

The Grace Design m501, a 500 series module version of their m101 mic preamplifier.

While the 500 series market has plenty of colored mic preamplifier options, the natural, musical clarity of the m501 makes it a welcome addition to the field. This circuit is for engineers confident with the quality of the source, mic section and placement, and wish to capture it with as little coloration or distortion as possible.

The m501 module is a balanced, transformerles preamplifier, with 48V phantom, a 75Hz HPF and a 1/4" HI-Z instrument input. Also standard is Grace Design's exclusive ribbon mic mode, which raises the mic input impedance, bypasses the input decoupling capacitors and deactivates 48V phantom to protect delicate ribbon mics from damage.

MSRP : $625

Waves has unveiled LoAir, a subharmonic generator targeted at post-production engineers.

LoAir adds rumble to extant audio, perfect for accentuating ominous soundtracks or earth-quaking sound effects. Waves claims that LoAir is the first subharmonic generator for Pro Tools that can process polyphonic or 5.1 surround material.

LoAir will be available soon for both Mac and PC as a TDM plug-in. Pricing TBA.

The call of the Theremin has been haunting the science fiction and horror movie genres for decades. It was there when aliens came to earth in The Day The Earth Stood Still and when monsters came to life in The Bride of Frankenstein.

Now it's your turn. Moog Music is sponsoring a Halloween Theremin Video Contest. Prizes include an MF-104Z Analog Delay and a MF-102 Ring Modulator.

To participate, grab your video camera and put together your best Halloween-themed theremin video. Prizes will be awarded based on a poll of Moog Forum members and on the highest number of YouTube views.

Here's your chance to keep us as Spellbound as Hitchcock did !

Toft Audio Designs has unveiled the SA16, a brand new summing mixer.

Features :

• 16 Channels
• Fully Balanced I/O
• Aux sends
• Fader Unity switch on every channel
• LED meter on every channel
• Rack-mountable


The SA16 will cost around $3200 and should be shipping in the first quarter of 2010.

Plogue officially released its new Chipsounds soft-synthesizer. This new product allow any musician to faithfully reproduce the sound and style of vintage video game music and sound effects in a convenient plug-in format, usable inside any sequencer or DAW, or as a standalone virtual instrument.

Chipsounds simulates the following sound chips : 2A03, AY-3-8910, DMG-CPU, P8244, POKEY, SID, SN76489, TIA, UVI and the VIC-I.

Akai has just announced that the LPD8 laptop pad controller and LPK25 laptop performance keyboard controller are now shipping to retailers.

The LPD8 and LPK25 are USB-MIDI controllers for musicians, producers, DJs and other music creators. Each model is less than 13 inches across and weighs less than a pound to easily fit into a laptop case, backpack or messenger bag for extreme portability.

The LPD8 is based on Akai's MPC line of iconic music product stations. While the smallest model, the MPC500 is quite portable, many producers prefer to work with software on their computer and the LPD8 gives their laptop the controls they prefer over a mouse and keyboard. The LPD8 has eight blue light-up pads that are velocity sensitive for programming rhythmic or melodic parts. The pads can also ...