Klangstabil releasing new concept album in October
German band Klangstabil are set to release a new album, Math and Emotion, October 31 on Ant-Zen and MHz Records. The concept album about chess will be available as a standard CD and as a special edition, featuring a chess game, T-shirt and fine art print. The band have scheduled several live German dates, including a release party in Leipzig on December 5. Please follow the links for more information.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=muXG0jdEeIQ]
About:
klangstabil was founded in 1994 by maurizio blanco and boris may. maurizio blanco and boris may met in 1994. before then, maurizio blanco had already spent most of his life experimenting with electronic music and expressing his own ideas, however boris may had only been listening to music up to that point in time. both of them soon realised that they were communicating on the same level. soon, a new vision was formed: to make people see music in a different way by employing new techniques and ideas. the name, klangstabil, more or less came off the top of their heads, but it fit quite well for both of them. they started producing without ever having the intention of having anything released; in their opinion, they were merely researching personal expression. their main inspiration was and is still kraftwerk. not after long, they were performing in small live-acts which resulted in a record-label showing interest in them. their first production was released on vinyl, and you can expect to see more of the same in the future.
klangstabil’s work ethic can be accurately defined as: one step back, two steps forward. with this attitude, klangstabil is creating their own niche by taking principal elements of the very beginning of electronic music and relating these elements to the modern times today. in order to understand what surrounds us day by day, one has to see things from the perspective of creation. as more progress is made, more questions arise. to put it simply: how does a tune get created, what is its meaning and what is its sound there for? in order to understand, one has to go and live through the decades of a wide musical spectrum. klangstabil continues to give an acoustic answer to the question: “what’s next?”
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Free plug'ins for all MAC fans out there
Blue Cat Audio has announced that they’ll be making their large plugin library available, finally, for Mac OS X.
 We are happy to announce that we will be releasing Mac versions of our plugins before the end of the year. The public beta program for our free VSTs started today, while the Audio Units versions are still in work. These releases will also include updates for the PC versions.
We plan to release our freeware plugins first, and our commercial plugins will then follow, most of them being expected before Christmas. |
The first release — available now — will be a collection of the Blue Bat Audio Freeware plugs, meaning the first OS X plugin bundle will also be freeware, i.e. it’ll be downloadable at no charge.
Of course, this freeware taste is only a precursor to the “professional” plugins that Blue Cat has announced will be coming in the first quarter of 2009. “Professional” in this context means, of course, that they will be charging for them.
The Freeware Bundle will include a veritable litter of decent plugins:
- Blue Cat’s Chorus
- Blue Cat’s Digital Peak Meter
- Blue Cat’s Flanger
- Blue Cat’s FreqAnalyst
- Blue Cat’s Gain Suite
- Blue Cat’s Phaser
- Blue Cat’s Stereo Chorus
- Blue Cat’s Stereo Flanger
- Blue Cat’s Triple EQ
Not too bad I would say – go get it here >>
New stuff to download from the Refill master
eXode is definately one of my favorite Refill guys I am equally thrilled every time something new pops out from this guy, and you wont be disapointed this time around either. I have had these two refills for a couple of weeks now and they have really come to use.
Make sure to download them for free at CombinatorHQ >>
Marketing pitch from HQs below:
We are so lucky to have not one… but two offerings at once from one of the more prominent programmers of the Reason Community… eXode! These two refills are both full of Thor patches ready to be added to your latest creation. We know you’ll get a lot out of these producitons.
Voltage Controlled Vol.3. is the latest free offering from eXode! A pack of 60 high quality patches programmed for Thor exclusively. This pack contains everything from hard solid basses to epic leads and soaring pads and the sounds range from old-school analogue style to new modern digital sonic wizardry!
The eXode Moog Tribute ReFill is a FREE ReFill that was made using only Thor. A total of 50 patches that were made to stay as true as possible in design to the original Model D minimoog! This ReFill was made as a tribute to Dr Bob Moog, the minimoog synth and the impact they had on the music world.
New Steelberry Clones album available at iTunes
Hi all
Two good announcements:
1. This blog has now passed 100.000 unique vistors 
2. A brand new Steelberry Clones album is out – Dig’it.
For those of you familiar with us would most liekly describe it as pure electro ambient synthpop. Make sure to check it out on iTunes and hopefully you will enjoy it enough to sponsor it.
Cheers Ola
Don´t miss the Propellerhead battle
Got funk? Got bass? For a chance to win astonishing prizes, enter the Propellerhead 2008 Bassline Battle. Fire up Reason and put together the funkiest, illest, baddest bassline and drum beat combination possible.
The Bassline Battle is just about that – creating the grooviest, dirtiest and downright funkiest 8 bars of bass and drums possible. If your creation makes it through the public and grand jury rating, you may be the lucky winner of an outstanding Grand Prize from Focusrite, KRK and Novation.
The Grand Prize consists of:
- Focusrite Saffire Pro 40
Brand new FireWire audio interface featuring 8 of Focusrite’s legendary mic pre-amps. - Novation Remote 25SL Compact
Advanced MIDI controller featuring a 25 key keyboard, a huge LCD display as well as loads of knobs, faders, buttons and pads that will effortlessly hook up to your Reason rack using Novation’s automap feature. - KRK Rokit 5 G2 (x2) and KRK S10
The Rokit series of monitors have long been a favorite in project studios all over the world, and with the self-powered G2 version offered here, you’ll get instant great sounding monitoring for your Reason rack. Add to that the KRK S10 sub-woofer and you have a fantastic full-range system that will let your hear your productions in great detail.
The Bassline Battle opens today, October 15th, and you have until November 24th to submit your bassline masterpieces. Learn all the details about the contest, the Grand Prize and follow-up prizes by going to the Bassline Battle page.
New from Reaktor – really good stuff
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REAKTOR ANIMATED CIRCUITS provides a world of new sounds from the outer reaches of the sonic universe. Based on five exceptional REAKTOR 5 ensembles including the unique, new Spiral sequencer, this KORE SOUNDPACK explores the world of endless, self-generating ambient soundscapes, textures and rhythms. Perfect for various electronic music styles, movie and game scoring, art projects, and more, REAKTOR ANIMATED CIRCUITS invokes a future that ranges from dystopian paranoia to abstract, meditative electronic states.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b1vxeBzDay0]
Nintendo KORG – now in Europe :-)
Finally
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rorBOzwR3Tc]
KORG, maker of some of the world’s finest musical instruments, takes their legendary MS-10 synthesizer, adds tons of modern features, and combines it with the accessibility of the Nintendo DS Touch Screen. No effort was spared in creating the awesomely portable and powerful, yet incredibly easy to use, music creation software for your Nintendo DS.
KORG DS-10 Synthesizer offers two dual oscillator synth parts and four synth/drum parts to accommodate your hit. Sculpt your own sounds with expansive on-screen controls, or start from a preset template and get straight to writing. Create synth and drum lines using KORG DS-10 Synthesizer’s on-screen touch keyboard and drum pads, or engage the elegant 16-step sequencer. Employ KORG’s KAOSS technology to add astonishing custom modulations to your tracks in real-time. Tighten the mix with KORG DS-10 Synthesizer‘s full featured mixer, then polish that next big groove with multiple effects. Chain patterns to create complete songs and save it all right on the spot.
The Stylophone in action
The Stylophone appears on a few commercial recordings, most notably David Bowie’s “Space Oddity” and “Slip Away” and the commercial rave single “Stylophonia” by Two Little Boys in 1991. Kraftwerk used the Stylophone on the track “Pocket Calculator” from their album Computer World.
[youtube=
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gR34vQDSoNA]
The Dubreq Stylophone is a miniature stylus operated synthesizer invented in 1967 by Brian Jarvis. It consists of a metal keyboard played by touching it with a stylus – each note being connected to a cheap voltage-controlled oscillator via a different-value resistor – thus closing a circuit. Some three million Stylophones were sold, mostly as children’s toys. Rolf Harris appeared for several years as the Stylophone’s advertising spokesman in the United Kingdom.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zZt64_XOflk]
Read more here about the Stylophone >>
Mopho – with some weird new stuff
Synth mofo (in the best possible way) meets Mopho synth
This latest synth, the monphonic MoPho is based on the voice architecture of the Prophet 8 and the parameter access of the Evolver series and turns it yellow. The user interface has been paired down to give access to the most commonly accessed parameters, Pitch, Cutoff, Resonance, Attack and Decay/Release, with a further four assignable controls – which can be programmed from the front panel – you can fully program the synth from there, or via the Mac/PC basic editing software. There’s also the intriguing looking button labeled ‘Push It!”
Mopho is a compact and affordable—but powerful—monophonic analog synthesizer. The voice architecture is identical to a single voice of the Prophet ’08, but with a couple of unique twists to distinguish it from its award-winning sibling. We have added two sub-octave generators—one per oscillator—for additional girth and crushing basses. It also has an audio input that lets you process external audio and mix Mopho’s own audio output back in pre-filter for feedback effects that can range from subtle distortion to extreme skronk. The Push It button is a manual trigger that lets you play a specific note or latch notes and sequences on. It can also step through a sequence to play short melodic lines without a keyboard. Of course, Mopho can also be used with a MIDI controller or external sequencer.
Listen to it:
A Multi-Touch Interface for Ableton Live, with the New Lemur Firmware
If you haven´t seen this great article already!
If you could control your music with all of your digits, and get interactive feedback on a display, what would your setup look like? Expert Lemur user and software engineer Bryant Place has one such answer. It shows off just how much the Lemur’s software has evolved over a series of revisions, and reveals a bit of what can go into performing with Ableton Live.
Side note: for a look at live touch interfaces with Native Instruments’ Reaktor, see our story for our NI minisite. To really understand how touch is impacting live playing, I think it’s helpful to see what’s going on with different software platforms.
Multi-touch, Lemur, and Going Live
Part of the appeal of Ableton Live is that it behaves as a hybrid between arrangement software and musical instrument. Early versions even carried the tagline “Sequencing Instrument,” but that sums up the problem: instruments generally aren’t sequencers, and visa versa. To “play” your sequencer live is challenging enough, but added to that is the fundamental mouse-pointer interface that’s been in the marketplace for over twenty years. To really control live, you need more direct access.
The Lemur multi-touch hardware promised just such control when unveiled. In an early review, I saw this as promising but cautioned that the custom software the Lemur runs was overly rigid. Since then, firmware updates have gradually added more custom features.
On a recent trip to Los Angeles, I got to watch as Bryant showed off a set of templates he’s been developing that exploit these features for deeper, more interactive control of Ableton Live. Bryant’s session was brief enough that you could blink and miss it, but an awed crowd of assembled Live gurus revealed that he’d showed something really special. It’s a dream multi-touch setup. He’s using the new v2 firmware for Lemur, which we see in a screenshot from Jazz Mutant has also been used in their own template for Live. Not all the features come from v2 firmware, but those tabs make a big difference, and I can imagine continuing to go hog-wild with envelopes and such.
The basic idea: set up effects for live performance and make them readily accessible from the futuristic-looking, multi-touch, colored Lemur control surface. With a few compact screens, and interface elements that respond dynamically to what’s happening in software, it’s possible to use touch gestures to control elaborate effects arrangements in ways that would be very different than the results you could get from conventional knobs and faders.
DATAMASKIN
