PC and Music News

Hip Hop Essentials adds 30 hip hop kits to Arturia's acclaimed SPARK Creative Drum Machine. Carefully crafted by LA- based producer and hip hop whizz Rick Stone, these deliver everything urban artists and producers need to take their tracks to the next level of genre-defining creativity — from classic rap anthems through to the most recent dance styles and beyond into rough and edgy alternative hip hop territory.

Having produced, remixed, or designed sounds for artists as diverse as Ice Cube, Snoop, Dr Dre, Lil Wayne, Whitney Houston, and Lil Kim, as well as working with Deathrow Records and Motown, Stone should know a thing or two about creative stylistic shifts — and creating hits with the finest urban beats.

LuSH-101 is a synthesizer created from modules that can be found in many modern virtual synthesizers, all combined into a single compact and logically intuitive design. This basic simplicity combined with its multilayer architecture turns it into an easy-to-use but extremely powerful instrument that can be programmed and tweaked quickly.

The multilayer architecture guarantees that both the sound design possibilities and number of unique situations in which LuSH-101 can be used are virtually limitless. Any combination of keyboard splits, layers, and
multitimbrality is possible with just a single instance of LuSH-101. Each layer working as an independent synthesizer with its own polyphony, parameters, enhanced arpeggiator, and a palette of eight insert effects.

Detunized releases "Untouchable" - a Drumbox for Ableton Live.
Untouchable is a 10-cell drumbox made of 100 touch-noises.
The noises were recorded with the built-in microphone of a vintage minidisc portable while touching, scraping, rubbing and hitting it.

specifications
- Format: Ableton Live Pack
- Compatibility: PC/Mac, Live 8 Suite
- Instruments: 1
- Samples: 100, 24 Bit/44,1 kHz
- Disk Space: 8 MB.

Line 6 announced today that the free v2.1 firmware update for POD® HD500, POD HD Pro and POD HD are available immediately for download at line6.com. This firmware update provides five new HD amps—bringing the total HD amp count to 30—as well as revolutionary performance options.

The v2.1 update features three stunning new HD amps based on* the distinctive clean, crunch and overdrive tones of the Soldano® SLO100, one of the most coveted premium amps of the modern era. Two custom-designed originals, Line 6 Doom and Line 6 Epic, round out the POD family's selection of high-gain amps.

Propellerhead Software today announced the immediate availability of the Soul School 2 ReFill for Reason, Propellerhead's award-winning music production system. As the sequel to its best-selling Soul School ReFill, Soul School 2 is an organic sounding and extremely flexible collection of soul loops and samples.

A perfect starting point for song creation, creating new instrument performances with a vintage sound, or adding "classic spice" to any style of music.

Netherworld for Reason or Kontakt is on sale -- 33% off. But only until Midnight, October 31.

....Netherworld features all new digitally created sounds that inhabit the dark places between musical sounds and digital soundscapes....