PC and Music News

Ten of Arturia's most popular Mac (OS X 10.5 or higher) and Windows (7/Vista/XP) software instruments have had a complete makeover. Slick new packaging coincides with 64-bit compatibility for all, together with MIDI assignment improvements and better performance.

But best of all... all ten titles are now €99.00 EURO/$99.00 USD, a dramatic drop to half their previous street pricing (in most cases). Titles included are the Oberheim SEM V, Jupiter-8V, Prophet-V, ARP 2600V, Mini V (formerly Minimoog-V), CS-80V, and Modular V (formerly Moog Modular V) soft synths; Wurlitzer-V EP 200A electric piano software emulation; Analog Laboratory software synthesizer workstation; and SPARK Vintage Drum Machines.

Oxium is a performance oriented synthesizer, offering both a classic pure analog sound and modern tones. with awesome real time modulations capabilities, allowing you to play a synthesizer in ways you could never have imagined.

Classic instruments : Use up to 8 Xils-lab thick and musical oscillator wave forms per patch and shapes them with the double filter structure. The main unit uses Xilslab 3rd generation zero-delay feedback filter with self-oscillation in each mode while the second offers a vocal formant mode in addition to high-pass, band-pass and low-pass modes.
Modern instruments : In addition to the cumulative waveforms LFO there are three D-ADSR envelopes, Oxium includes our brand new Le Masque modulator in its new incarnation with many additional features : It has now 16 freely drawable zones, horizontal and vertical quantize modes, two level parameters and, of course, you can save, load and exchange your patterns.
Intuitive User Interface : Oxium interface is based on a new "Flower" design and IVF (Instant Visual Feedback) concept. "Flower" design for the oscillators, filter, LFOs and glide blocks means that you can understand the structure of a whole block after a simple glance (IVF), making Oxium fun, fast and easy to understand and to master. In addition, all the modulations are all handled in a central page, with additional easy knobs, including usual musical gestures per patch: It has never been so easy to add a Vibrato, a Tremolo or an Auto Wah to your sound.
Serial only protected: Oxium is protected by a simple serial, without the need of any hardware dongle or chalenge response.

Sounds And Effects presents Rude Synths Reason ReFill - perfect for modern electronic and dance music styles. Rude Synths is based on pristine 24 bit samples from vintage analog sources - including Mini Moog, Moog Opus 3, ARP 2600 mini-modular synth, ARP Odyssey, Oberheim SEM Modules and more, which were then modified or processed to make then applicable to modern electronica, some of the patches make the sound even grittier than the originals.

Distortion, fuzz, thumping basses, bleeps and blurps, squelchy pitch rises and falls, filter effects, trills, "lasers," portamento mono leads, gritty Opus 3 strings and organs & some really annoying fart-y noises. Individual drum or percussion samples were created painstakingly one sound at a time on an ARP 2600, then processed and messed with more in Reason.

Hal Leonard Books, the musician‚s best source of books on the music business, audio technology, instrument history, and more, is now shipping Power Tools for Reason 6 ($39.99) by Andrew Eisele.

Power Tools for Reason 6 is a comprehensive book that provides a quick-start tutorial that not only gets you up and running quickly, but also delves into advanced sequencing and mixing techniques.

The popular Rhody R1 instrument, included as part of the Electric Pianos add-on, has found a replacement and successor in Rhody R2, available in the latest Pianoteq update 4.1 as a free update. The sound, presence and response are all improved with increased accuracy.

By using the new exciting effects in Pianoteq 4, such as Amp, Chorus, Tremolo, the new Tine noise parameters, or even the Blooming parameter (firstly intended for the Steelpans add-on), the Rhody R2 can be transformed into amazingly expressive variants.

Ohm Studio next collaborative event called Cheeeeeers! will hopefully heal the world after the chaos spread by the Plague.

From now on, they are looking for people interested in assisting the Ohm men organize sessions and help people on technical topics (and why not give a musical hand too).

As a company based in France, they cannot always monitor things happening at 9PM in California for example.

Ohm men don't speak all languages either and some participants are not always at ease with English.