PC and Music News

CME has announced that the Neosynth24 expansion board for their keyboards (UF and VX series) is now shipping. It provides high quality audio instruments and effects and adds great sonic possibilities to CME keyboards.

NeoSynth24 features a built in sound bank (64 MBytes/256 Mbits) that can be updated at your convenience. All instruments can thus be updated in order to create completely new sounds from the same keyboard. Various sound banks are available (General MIDI standard instruments set, Grand Piano style, Hip Hop style, Techno/House style, R&B style and much more …), these multiple sound banks are available on SD Cards that can be ordered separately. These SD Cards are then used to upgrade the on board instruments, once upgraded the SD Card can be removed from its slot. All available sound banks are high quality sampled instruments, from 16 to 24 bits resolution, up to 96 kHz sampling frequency. NeoSynth24 on board powerful DSP allows up to 124 voices of polyphony.

Features :

- MIDI / USB expander
- Up to 124 voices of polyphony
- Built-in FX engines
- Up to 64 MB sound bank
- Updatable sound banks from SD Card
- Various music styles available
- USB MIDI class compliant (no driver)
- 24 bits / 48 kHz audio paths
- Main stereo audio output (24bits D/A)
- Auxiliary stereo audio output (24bits D/A)
- Headphones output
- Analog stereo audio input (24bits A/D)
- S/PDIF stereo audio input/output
- Available for both UF & VX keyboards
- Large MIDI implementation

Blue Cat Audio has announced a massive update of all its commercial EQ plugins. The new versions are now available for Mac in VST and Audio Unit formats, and also bring multiple improvements to the existing Windows plug-ins. The Liny EQ series have been completely redesigned for this new release.

The Blue Cat Audio EQ plug-ins include the Liny EQ series (linear phase graphic equalizers), Parametr'EQ series (digital and analog parametric EQs) and the Triple EQ plug-ins (semi-parametric visual EQs). They all come in three flavors, offering a wide variety of capabilities. In particular, the Widening versions propose mid/side processing for frequency selective stereo narrowing or widening.

New for all plugins :

- Mac Audio Unit support.
- Mac VST Support.
- New Windows installer (you should uninstall any previous version before installing this new one).
- New documentation.

New for the Liny EQ series :

- New user interface design.
- The plug-in now offers two types of EQ curves.
- EQ range is now customizable.
- Undo/Redo support.
- Preset import/export in a host independent format.
- Window opacity control for plugin transparency.

The plug-ins are available in several bundles or separately, with a temporary special offer on bundles. Existing customers can update most plug-ins for free, except the Liny EQ series for which a special upgrade price is available.

Pricing :

- Blue Cat's Liny EQ Pack (3 Plug-ins) : €99.96 (instead of €119) or $133.56 (instead of $159)
- Blue Cat's Parametr'EQ Pack (3 Plug-ins) : €99.96 (instead of €119) or $133.56 (instead of $159)
- Blue Cat's Triple EQ Pack (2 Plug-ins) : €42.14 (instead of €49) or $59.34 (instead of $69)

The pre-release phase of the Detunized.com site has begun.

Detunized.com offers extensions for Ableton Live, Propellerhead Reason, FL Studio and their respective devices - Simpler, NN-XT, Directwave. Sample-based libraries will contain patches and sounds that cover an extensive variety of ready-to-use, but fully customizable presets, ranging from discreet timbres up to droones and soundscapes of detailed complexity. Releases will be purchasable via Paypal-Subscription or Paypal-Instant-Buy, based on a monthly release cadence.

Until the final starting date - 1st of April 2009 – the puplic is kindly invited to download freebie „dtn000 - Grandpa's Piano" and to subscribe to their newsletter.

Audio Damage is about to release bigseq2, a new version of its effect and gate sequencer.

BigSeq2 is a massive extension to the feature set of the BigSeq gate effect. With twelve sequencers controlling ten effects in six blocks, BigSeq2 is capable of everything from short staccato gate sequences to long, evolving filter sweeps and frequency shifts, and everything in between.

The six effect "Blocks" contain ten effects in total, and these Blocks can be re-arranged simply by dragging them, giving you full control over the routing of the effects. Each effect Block has a gate sequencer and a modulation sequencer. The gate sequencer turns that effect on and off (or in the case of the delay Block, activates the "send" control), while the modulation sequencer can affect any and all parameters in that block.

Features :

- Ten effects in six blocks, each with its own step sequencer, modulation sequencer, and time base.
- The gate and modulation sequencers for each effect block run on their own time-base, allowing different time signatures and step times for each effect.
- Each block has several parameters which can be altered via the modulation sequencer for that block.
- The effects blocks can be re-arranged in any order.
- Each sequencer has three independent modes of operation: forward, reverse, and random step. In addition, each of the twelve sequencers can be completely randomized at regular selectable intervals, for interesting modulation and gating possibilities.
- The included effects are VCA, pan, multi-mode filter, fuzz, sine warp, delay (with chorus and flanger modes), frequency shifter (also providing ring mod and phasing), sample rate reduction, bit depth, and our own "Error" effect.
- MIDI Learn on all published parameters for external hardware control. (VST only.)

bigseq2 will be available for both Mac and PC in VST and AU formats. Note that audio examples are available at :

Mathew Lane releases version 2 of the DrMS spatial processor plug-in. Build on a completely new internal algorithm, this version allows to create wider and deeper soundstages while, of course, maintaining the excellent mono compatibility DrMS is known for.

DrMS v2.0 is familiar in operation to v1.1, with some cosmetic enhancements made to the GUI. The new algorithm however makes it easier and faster to achieve the desired results, with great sounds already when using just the 4 central green rotaries.

DrMS v2.0 also features a new installer, making installation a breeze.

Features :

- Completely new & improved soundengine
- Enhanced GUI
- MS encoding & decoding
- Spatial audio processing: Zoom in, add Depth, change Width or any combination and more
- Resonant HPF, TiltEQ and ...

Togu Audio Line has released a new free VST plug-in called TAL-TiltEq.

TAL-TiltEq is especially designed after some tilt eq's from the 70's. This type of eq allows to adjust the audio material without changing the character of a sound to much. It's an easy way to make an audio signal sound darker or brighter with only one knob. The bass lift knob is a special addition that boosts or attenuates bass frequencies below 300Hz.

Features :

- 8 dB low / high shelf filter.
- 12 dB bass lift filter at 300 Hz.
- Variable center frequency (100 - 10'000Hz).
- Adjustable bandwidth (q: 0.1 to 2.0).
- Volume knob.
- On/Off switch.
- Very easy to use.
- Low CPU.

TAL-TiltEq is available for both Mac OS X and Windows as a free VST plug-in.