PC and Music News

Avid has announced the release of the Pro Tools Instrument Expansion Pack, featuring all five Digidesign's virtual instruments - Structure, Strike, Velvet, Transfuser and Hybrid.

This pack is available now and carries a USMSRP of $499. Upgrade options for existing customers are also available.

ESI unveils the KeyControl 25 XT and the KeyControl 49 XT Controller Keyboard. Here is what they say about it :

"KeyControl 25 XT and KeyControl 49 XT have an exceptionally stylish aluminum cabinet and white solid glossy plastic side panels. They provide four fully programmable endless encoders, function buttons as well as a pitch bend and modulation slider. The keyboards work without the installation of any drivers under Windows XP, Window Vista and Windows 7 as well as Mac OS X.

KeyControl 25 XT and KeyControl 49 XT are bundled with Cubase LE 5 from Steinberg, the amazingly powerful multitrack audio & MIDI software for Mac and PC."

Ohm Force is announcing the first real collaborative music workstation in the history of music production: the Ohm Studio — a project with which they aspire to redefine the meaning of online music collaboration.

We're talking about real time collaborative MIDI/audio editing, envelopes, a piano roll, audio effects, and virtual instruments: the very same tools we computer based musicians already enjoy, but that you'll now be able to use with your friends, online.

How is this possible? Using an audio core made from scratch, of course, an adaptive audio transfer protocol, a transactional document management engine, some Ohm-style interface innovation, an integrated web Cohmunity, server based projects and much more…

Maizesoft has released Maize Sampler v2.0. For the record, Maize Sampler is a cross-platform tool for sound developers to create sample-based virtual instruments, it's a stand-alone application for Windows and Mac OS X that enables you to create VST and Audio Unit instrument plug-ins.

Feature highlights:

* Group selections by key / controller / MIDI channel.
* Disk-streaming / Memory reading mode.
* Poly / Mono / Legato voice mode with glide time.
* LFO, ADSR envelope and reverb effect.
* Round-robin / Random overlapped sample trigger.
* Load EXS24 sampler format.
* Sample loop, Choke cluster, Release trigger.
* Big sample mapping area and sample table view.
* Export .mse compact instrument file.
* Generate VST and Audio Unit plug-ins.
* User defined UI backgrou ...

SoniqWare VST plug-ins are now available for both Windows XP/Vista/7 and Mac OS X 10.5/1.6 Intel:

MT-1 Multiband Transient Processor:

* Increase or decrease the impact of percussive sounds.
* Lengthen or shorten the decay or reverberation.
* Multiband design means tremendous versatility.
* Quickly set the overall effect with Link button on.
* Apply finer adjustments of each individual band.
* Linear phase adjustable crossover filters.
* Fast detectors.
* Controls for both attack and release.
* Graphical display: crossover filters and make-up gains.
* Load and save programs and banks.
* Two channels (stereo and M/S encoding).
* Wide range of supported sample rates.

SG-1 Spectral Noise Reduction / Noise Gate:

* Capture noise profile from audio data.
* Adjust using noise profile parametric EQ.

IZotope has updated its virtual Drum Machine iDrum to version 1.73.

Changes :

• VST 3 support.
• 64-bit iLok support on Windows.
• 64-bit Audio Unit support.
• Software update notification.
• Minor bug fixes.
• OS X 10.4 no longer supported.

This update is free for all registered users.