PC and Music News

Novation have launched StepSeq, a free Max For Live Patch that turns Launchpad into a fully fledged melodic step sequencer.

Conceived as a cool but powerful sequencer to enable Launchpad users to programme melodies, leads and basslines quickly in Live, the buttons are configured diatonically (as opposed to chromatically, as with a traditional step sequencer). The degree of the scale and its tonal centre can be set by the user, meaning that, once set up, any note you trigger in your sequence will fit in harmonically with your track, making it really easy to keep within the context of the song.

StepSeq is a MIDI effect that generates a sequence of notes, which can be used to play any instrument compatible with Ableton Live (including those from third-party developers). Once inserted, StepSeq communicates directly with Launchpad, transforming its 'User 2' mode into the interface for a step sequencer, so you can programme patterns quickly and simply on the fly, while retaining control over Live from the same control surface.

Ableton Live 8.1 and Max For Live are both required in order for Novation's StepSeq to operate.

You can now download the BETA version of the StepSeq at :

In the name of the whole 440Network Team, I do wish you all a perfect, excellent and explosive New Year !!

May 2010 be full of love, joy, happiness, good health, and great musical adventures for all of us !!

Signaltonoize.com has released a new set of impulse responses which is a complete collection of impulse response samples from a TC Electronic M5000 Digital Audio Mainframe model.

All of the impulse responses were captured with the sweep method, as 24-bit, 48 kHz quality WAV files. The set includes nearly 100 impulse files, including M5000-only algorithm captures, and is organized by the following program categories: Ambience, Nonlin-1, Revcore1, Revcore2, Reverb-1, Reverb-3, Reverb-3, and tapfac-1.

The M5000 Impulse set is available as donationware, meaning that you should donate the amount you think the Set is worth or whatever you would like the maker to have.

The Monologue ReFill is a monophonic analogue synthesizer library for the Reason 4.0 NN-XT sampler. The sets include the standard sawtooth, square, triangle waves. Also included are a fixed rate pulse width modulation set, and hard sync sawtooth set. Other sources include, detuned pulses, frequency modulated oscillators, tuned oscillator layers, white noise, and sine wave samples from a self-oscillating resonant filter.

You can grab it for free at :

D16 Group has updated its phaser plug-in Fazortan to version 1.2.0.

New features:

• Full compatibility with Snow Leopard (Mac OS X 10.6.x)
• LFO sections were expanded with tempo synchronization parameters.
• Bank of presets and Midi CC mapping available at startup can be
customised (factory settings, empty slots and user defined files
are available).
• Recently used load/save directory is now stored within plug-in's ini
file.
• Presets storing method can be customised.

Changes:

• Midi learn functionality was improved.
• Preset management was improved.
• Presets and Midi CC map filenaming was changed regarding to
changes in all d16's plugins. Loading of old files is fully
supported.
• Factory presets were update ...

Ableton has released Live v8.1.1. This update addresses a long list of bugs :

• A very short MIDI note at the beginning of a clip would not be audible. [6130]
• Recording via 'Resampling' would not properly compensate latency. [6124]
Under certain conditions, it would be possible to get 2 Arranger tracks highlighted. [6144]
• Using the Launchpad as control surface and additionally for manual mappings would not always work properly.
• When installing Live Packs which have dependencies to other content, Live would show the corresponding message twice. [6153]
• Using a Rex file could crash Live. [6157]
• 'lock control surface' function would not properly work in user remote scripts. [6064]
• A particular Live set could not be loaded and would lead ...