PC and Music News

Propellerhead released for sale today Reason 7 and Reason Essentials 2, major updates to its award-winning music software line. The latest versions inspire musicians to create more and better music with deep, streamlined mixing and a complete rack for all types of instruments.

Reason's renowned music-centric design focuses around a virtual rack of software instruments, effects and processors connected to a world-class mixing console. Users can go from ideas to music, literally in minutes, designing their of the dreams in the process while never stopping their creative flow. Now, version 7 offers integration of all instruments—in and out of the "box"—with MIDI out. Automatic audio slicing and audio quantize enable quick fixes or style changes of recorded performances—even conversion of those recordings into REX loops for further creative possibilities in the rack. For mixing, Propellerhead adds a spectrum analyzer with visual EQ controls to "see" the audio and tweak equalization settings of any tracks in mixer.

This Wednesday sees the return of Toontrack's annual Songwriter's Month celebrations and the Swedish developers are kicking things off early by offering you FREE software!
From now until 31st May, you can download EZdrummer Lite and/or EZmix 2 Lite absolutely free and get a taste for how these acclaimed plugins can make a difference to your music productions.

The Lite plugins are stripped down versions of the full software and, once you've tried them out, if you want to get your hands on the full version, you can upgrade for a great value price!

So, whether you're looking for an easy to use drum sampler or a mixing tool that delivers professional results in just a few clicks, download EZdrummer Lite or EZmix 2 Lite now.

The Midi arpeggiator StepPolyArp is updated to version 2.1 and provides compatibility with Audiobus.

It is now possible to record the StepPolyArp audio output directly into other applications supporting Audiobus, but also provides the transport commands to control other applications from StepPolyArp.

Price : $11.99.

Detunized Piano translates the spirit of a pretty old and battered Upright Piano into digital realms.
The Live Pack delivers the multi-sampled and velocity-layered Piano with separately adjustable sustain and release levels plus 7 additional instruments that push the classic piano sound far beyond the original.

- Arper adds some heavenly arpeggios
- Damped sounds like a huge piano behind a wall
- Looped introduces random patterns during performance
- Morph combines formant-shifting with interesting side-noises
- Piano is the pure velocity-layered piano sound
- Peak brings in the taste of a prepared piano
- Remember 2133 can be tweaked from Grand to Honky Tonk
- Synth is a polyphonic stereo synthesizer

Specifications
- Ableton Live Pack, compatible with Live 8/9
- 8 Ableton Instrument Racks
- 121 samples, 24 Bit/44.1 kHz
- 240 MB Sample content

- 2 pre-configured Instrument Patches
- SFZ, NKI, SXT, EXS, FXP files included
- 119 samples, 24Bit/44.1 kHz
- 233 MB Sample content.

Urban Trapz Vol 1 from EqualSounds brings a breath of fresh air into Trap and HipHop genres. This amazing and quirky collection of five construction kits redefines the oldfashion appropach to Trap, HipHop, RnB, Pop, East and West Coasts – all in one pack.

Product Includes:
- 5 Uncompressed, mixed & mastered Construction Kits.
- 20 Mixed & mastered track mixes (long & short versions).
- 5 Multi-track MIDI files with drums and melodies.
- Up To 24 tracks per Kit & variation mixes.
- Over 850 MB of Loops and Samples.

John Perry knows a thing or two about vocals. He sang with The Beatles on Hey Jude, and as a support singer, he has worked with Kiki Dee and Elton John, Roger Daltry of The Who, Leo Sayer, Elkie Brooks, Al Stewart, and many others. He knows that everything from mic placement to reverb settings can make or break the perfect vocal take. To get the best results, John likes to work with Nectar and Nectar Elements.

He now shares his knowlegde about best practices for getting the most out of your vocals. The 8 part Vocal Master Class at http://izotope.com/products/audio/nectar/protips.asp is the latest addition to iZotope's Pro Tips.