PC and Music News

Native Instruments today introduced THE GIANT, a new instrument based on the world's biggest upright piano.

For use in KONTAKT 5 or the free KONTAKT 5 PLAYER, THE GIANT features the intense sound of the Klavins Piano Model 370i, a super-sized instrument delivering a colossal sonic spectrum equally well-suited to urban pop projects, soft piano ballads, driving rock riffs and jazz numbers, as well as providing a separate 'Cinematic' version of the piano for darker, atmospheric projects and sound design.

Produced by sampling expert Uli Baronowsky, the creator of the 'Galaxy' piano series, THE GIANT captures the sound of the original instrument in meticulous detail.

Vienna Symphonic Library announces the release of two new Collections for their entry-level orchestra packages, the Vienna Special Editions.

The Special Edition Volume 3 – "Appassionata & Muted Strings" and Volume 4 – "Special Winds & Choir" are now available for download. As an additional option to downloading, customers may order a 64 GB USB flash drive for a nominal fee. Coinciding with this announcement, the Austrian company introduces a new modular system to the Vienna Special Editions, based on Sections, Collections, and new Bundles, with lower prices and new upgrade paths. All of Vienna's previously existing Special Edition products remain available, with some minor naming adjustments.

Pianoteq STAGE (formerly known as Pianoteq PLAY) is based on the award winning physical model, offered in Pianoteq 4 Standard and PRO, praised by many musicians for its close intimacy and responsiveness.

Pianoteq STAGE includes the same instruments, sounds and playability. It is the choice of budget-minded musicians who do not need to modify the sound. The new stunning Grand Piano D4 is included as well as several new features such as convolution reverb and a set of new effects.

The main goal while designing DC8C was to get a very clean compressor action without unwanted and often almost unevitable artefacts/distortion. This way you can achieve almost invisible compression for your most demanding mastering sessions, when you want to avoid coloration.
If you aim for colour you can choose between two saturation models.
From opto style, peak compression, external sidechaining, RMS compression, Feedback, Feedforward compression (and everything inbetween) to negative ratios, zero latency brickwall limiting, from snappy transient treatment to smooth transient rounding - everything is possible.

New in V 1.2:

- VST3 support on OSX and WIN 32 & 64bit
- Zero latency switch removed
- Fixed: MIX knob in easy mode is working now as expected.
- External sidechaining in EASY mode.

Alva, a partner of RME, Announces Nanoface.

The analog gains for the four inputs, all output levels and special features, like phantom power and hardware monitoring will be controlled with the big silver rotary encoder directly on the Nanoface.

All mixing, channel routing and digital levels will be controlled by your individual audio software.


What can be controlled with the Encoder:

- Output 1/2: gain
- Output 3/4 (Phones): gain
- Route output 1/2 to Phones output
- Output 1/2 on Phones output: gain
- Input 1/2: gain (mic/instr. preamps)
- Input 3/4: gain
- 48V for inputs 1 and/or 2
- Switch input 2 to Hi-Z input
- Hardware monitoring for inputs 1/2
- Reset to default values

Voxengo CurveEQ update version 3.1 is now available
for download. Voxengo CurveEQ, available in AudioUnit and VST plug-in formats (including native 64-bit support), for Mac OS X (v10.5 and later), and Windows computers, is a spline equalizer plugin for professional music and audio production applications.

Version 3.1 update includes the following changes:

- Spectrum matching is now working correctly in all groups.
- The "Load CSV" and "Save CSV" text file functions added.