The popular app BeatMaker for iPad has been updated
“NEW FEATURES:
– Native iPad interface
– Support for MIDI controllers through CoreMIDI, with MIDI learning and templates
– Instruments parameters automations (LFOs, envelopes, pads settings, etc.)
– MIDI export improved with Control Change (MIDI CC) messages
– New Master track with volume, pan, and 3 FX slots
– Audio input monitoring while recording
– New “Note Repeat” mode
– Pad copy & paste on the drum machine
– Improved memory management
– Info window for monitoring CPU, memory usage, battery and controlling the audio device
– SoundCloud API now uses OAuth2
– Reduce application binary size
– Add support for bluetooth speakers and headphones (A2DP compliant)
– Many improvements in every aspect of the application”
BeatMaker 2: the most advanced mobile music workstation.
Combining music production tools that were behind the success of countless artists, BeatMaker 2 is a powerful, easy-to-use composition interface for amateurs and professionals alike. Build your own virtual home-studio, create multiple instruments and connect them to a full-range of audio effects.
Compose, record, arrange and transform your ideas into complete songs, ready to be shared with others. Import your own sounds or use the sound library provided: more than 170 high-quality instrument and drum presets from synthesizers to realistic orchestral sounds. You can even import songs from your iPod library! Connect your MIDI accessories for an external control of BeatMaker’s instruments, effects and mixer, ideal for home-studio productions and live performances.
BeatMaker 2 is an universal application, with specifically designed interfaces for iPad and iPhone platforms.
Being creative – Polycheesy GX-800
This guy knows how to save some bucks 
No normal man can afford to own the synth of all synths: the Yamaha GX-1. So I decided to get creative. This is what I came up with It’s a Yamaha CSY-1, Yamaha’s first organ with an integrated analog synth. It actually contains GX1 technology. I made the synth fully programmable and exchanged the lower keyboard for a Korg Poly 800 . So now this isntrument contains an organ,a fully programmable monosynth with aftertouch and a polyphonic synth! This is just an improvisation but it gives an impression of what the isntrument can do.
The Polycheesy name comes from the row of yellow modulation wheels on the programmer. Bad joke, I know.
The GX-1 on the other hand was Yamaha’s first big polyphonic analog synth, and it was a beast! Considered the predecessor to the CS-80 (another huge poly-synth), the GX-1 featured a triple-tiered keyboard, pedalboard, ribbon controller, eight polyphonic voices, chromed pedestals and a $50,000+ price tag! OK, so it wasn’t designed for your everyday musician – less than 10 were ever made and have been owned mostly by legendary synth/keyboard players including Keith Emmerson, John Paul Jones of Led Zeppelin, Stevie Wonder, Rick Wright of Pink Floyd, George Fleury, Richard James of Aphex Twin, Benny Andersson of ABBA, and Hans Zimmer who bought Keith Emerson’s.
Although it may look like an organ at first glance, it’s all analog heaven inside! The two main keyboards have 61 (velocity sensitive!) keys each, and are supplemented by a smaller (3/4 scale, pressure sensitive) 37-note keyboard and a 25-note pedalboard at your feet – 184 keys total! Eight voices of polyphony plus an additional monophonic are available and can be shared and layered or split up among the different keyboards. There are also organ-style drawbars and a ribbon controller for tweaking the sounds. Additional programming buttons are hidden away under drawers and panels on the front-panel.
The GX-1 used two analog oscillators per voice which are pretty much the same one’s used later in the CS-80, along with a mild 2-pole VCF filter, standard LFO and some ADSR envelopes. The GX-1 also had two “swell” pedals and a spring-loaded knee controller. It was truly a lush synth for its time, and its frequent use by many rock-legends helped cement its place in history as well as pave the way for the legendary CS-80.
Please note that there are no built-in speaker in the GX-1 as with many other organs, they are external. See the speakers on each side on the photo.
Demo of the KORG VC-10 Analog Vocoder 1978
The Korg VC-10 vocoder came out 1978 together with the MS-synths. The VC-10 also contains a full polyphonic keyboard and a dynamic microphone. It has a switchable “ensemble” effect. Vibrato. It also have a (noisy) noise generator for reproducing consonants.
The VC-10 has the same casing as the Korg MS-10, the VC-10 is just heavier (and this is not because its microphone).
The VC-10 sounds quite good. It sounds typically analog. Digital vocoders sound different. Of course the VC-10 is not a Sennheiser or an EMS, but the Korg was also much cheaper. The pitch can also be controlled by an external voltage.
For some reason, the carrier signal is to be heard even without talking in the microphone – almost everytime I press the keys (as you can see in the video). If someone exactly knows the responsible trimpot inside, please let me know.
At the end of the video I played the VC-10 with a delay from Roland DEP-5.
The VC-10 was used by Jean-Michel Jarre.
Badlion’s Garage Synth for the iPad and iPhone
Here’s a little demonstration of the various sounds and features of Badlion’s Garage Synth. It is a universal app for both the iPad and the iPhone and costs $0.99.
“With Badlion’s Garage Synth anyone can be a musician. Just pick a beat and play some tunes over it, add some effects and you already have a hot track to listen to. Selectable keyboard – flash & rainbow / basic minimal. 48 beats – changeable volume and tempo. 8 samples – 4 octaves. 44 fx – loop or stop (once) functions. Tilt – you can pitch notes by tilting the phone.” – itunes.apple.com/the-badlions…
Brand new material from Ladytron
Listen to the new songs from Ladytron below:
Ladytron – New Single “Mirage” by nettwerkmusicgroup
As we have reported on earlier Ladytron’s highly anticipated fifth studio album “Gravity the Seducer” is due for release in just under a month. At the same we are presented with the fourth digital single release – “Mirage”.
‘Gravity The Seducer “is the follow up of their latest album” Velocifero “which was released three years ago (2008). The album is released on CD, digital download and on vinyl September 12 via Nettwerk.
A sneak preview of the new version of IanniX
IanniX is a graphical open-source sequencer, based on Iannis Xenakis works, for digital art. IanniX syncs via Open Sound Control (OSC) events and curves to your real-time environment.
Crossfade Loop Synth Demo
A demo of Expert Sleepers plug-in “Crossfade Loop Synth”, a sample playback synth and live resampling effect.
From version 3, Crossfade Loop Synth is actually two plug-ins: Crossfade Loop Synth and Crossfade Loop Synth Effect. The effect version takes the power of Crossfade Loop Synth and turns it into a live sampler, a looper and a very unusual and powerful delay effect. Version 3 is a major upgrade from version 2, adding many powerful means of shaping your sound, whilst maintaining the simplicity and CPU efficiency that made version 2 so popular.
Crossfade Loop Synth
Crossfade Loop Synth is at heart a simple sample playback synth plug-in. It plays samples in the classic sampler manner – by simply altering the playback speed according to the desired note. No fancy timestretching or pitchshifting is applied. You can control how the sample is looped as it is played. An adjustable amount of crossfade can be applied to the loop endpoints to smooth the transitions. This makes it extremely easy to produce glitch-free pad sounds. The loops can also be played backwards and alternately forwards and backwards (pendulum-style).
Further sound processing can be applied in the form of overdrive/saturation, filtering, envelopes (for amplitude and filter), pulse-width modulation, oscillator sync and LFOs (one each for filter, pitch, PWM and sync). The synth is 32 note polyphonic, and all parameters can be controlled by MIDI controllers.
Crossfade Loop Synth Effect
Crossfade Loop Synth Effect is the same as Crossfade Loop Synth except you can record live audio to use as the sample, rather than just loading it from disk. You can record continuously, even while playing back. This allows you to use the plugin as an extremely unusual and creative delay effect. For example you can have the delays played back at double the pitch/speed you played them. Or at double the pitch and backwards. Or as a chord. Or repeat the first beat of every bar… the possibilities are legion. You can save the recorded sample to disk as an AIFF/WAV file for later use.
http://www.expert-sleepers.co.uk/xfadelooper.html
Introducing the SampleRobot 4 Sampling Suite
Skylife has announced SampleRobot 4 Sampling Suite, a collection of applications designed to automate sampling tasks.
SampleRobot 4 Sampling Suite contains the following products:
- SampleRobot 4
- WaveRobot 4
- Camel Audio Alchemy Player 1.2
- Awave Studio 10.4, and
- more than 1 GB of premium samples in Soundfont 2 file format.
Description:
With the Sampling Suite you can easily do automatic sampling of acoustic and electronic instruments. Remote control your MIDI gear and sample all sounds automatically. Integrated WaveRobot software lets you find loop points for whole multi-samples with different velocity layers during recording.
Import older sampler formats like Ensoniq, Kurzweil, Roland and Yamaha or even use original AKAI S1000 series CDs with Awave Studio and export them with SampleRobot to various software sampler formats. Or send new multi-samples back to your old hardware. You can convert about 290 audio file formats.
Alchemy Player is a powerful sampling synthesizer that offers a broad range of high end effects and sample playback features. With the newly created Alchemy Export Bridge you can export samples from SampleRobot directly to Alchemy and Alchemy Player. Play and shape instruments and samples instantly within your favorite DAW both on Mac and PC.
SampleRobot 4 Sampling Suite comes with new export options like “Export all Projects at once” and “Export to Waldorf Blofeld”. SampleRobot and WaveRobot are optimized for Windows 7 and offer better Win7 performance than previous versions.
Features:
- Turn acoustic and electronic instruments, voices and noises into virtual instruments fast
- Fully automated sampling
- Intuitive project assistant
- Sophisticated auto-loop processing and editing
- Alchemy Export Bridge
- Sampling of virtual instruments
- Direct sample playback on Mac and PC, edit effects, modulation and envelopes
- Convert about 290 audio and multi-sample formats
- Import formats like AKAI S1000, MPC, Kurzweil K2xxx, Roland S, Ensoniq and MIDI Sample Dump
- Extract samples from sampling CDs
- Audio batch processing, auto-loop for all, resampling, normalizing, gaining, fading
- Export samples directly to Steinberg HALion 4, Logic Pro EXS24, NI Kontakt 4, Reason NN-XT, Waldorf Blofeld, Soundfont2 and many others
- Import and export for Yamaha Tyros 2+3, Motif XS+XF
- Full MIDI remote control, incl. program and bank changes, multi-velocity layering
- Release-Sample editing
- Optimum loop handling incl. forward-backward loop with 2 independent crossfades and auto-gain functionality
- Sample and export whole synthesizer sound bank in one go (equipment copier)
- Premium multi-samples from classic synthesizers included
SampleRobot 4 Sampling Suite is expected to be available in August 2011, priced at US $399.
Time for some Moog Slim Phatty Jam
Quick demo of the You Rock MIDI guitar triggering a Moog Slim Phatty. Monophonic fun!! The Little Phatty is a true analog monosynth in every sense: it’s a monophonic, monotimbral, monaural subtractive synthesizer with analog circuitry throughout. Ideal for beginners and pros alike, the LP puts every parameter right at your fingertips…
Based on the powerful Little Phatty sound engine, the Slim Phatty is the latest descendant of the iconic Minimoog Model D and features the classic Moog Ladder Filter, the touchstone of analog sound design.
In addition to shaping the sound of its on-board oscillators, the Slim Phatty’s filter is a valuable production tool that can be used to process external audio, sweetening your favorite audio source with everything from smooth analog warmth through wet, resonant filter sweeps.
The Slim Phatty’s convenient size makes it an ideal voice expander for your existing gear, with two oscillators of massive Moog sound that are always just a MIDI cable away. A new Tuning Scale feature and editor allows easy exploration of alternate scales and tunings. Microtonal, just intonation, quarter-tone, world music scales and more make the Slim Phatty an international traveler. Good thing it has a universal power supply!
In addition to the world of MIDI and USB gear, the Slim Phatty’s Control Voltage inputs give it unlimited realms of expression and sound design possibilities. “Modular synth” style patching with Moogerfooger effects processors, the CP-251 Control Voltage Processor and other Moog synths (even The Moog Guitar!) creates soundscapes previously available only on large modular systems. Connecting to the Etherwave Plus Control Voltage Theremin or the MP-201 Multi-Pedal adds unique and intuitive new modes of expression.
The new video from ex-And One members PAKT
“Freihet” is the name of their debut, enjoy
The first video clip from Electro-veterans Chris Ruiz and Gio van Oli, now better known as PAKT.
Director Golo Schultz
AD Max Nadolny
DoP Garth von Glehn
Producer Lasse Scharpen
Production Design Jan Reider
Make-up Simi Schuchert
Model Charmie Pfeffer
PAKT Chris Ruiz & Gio van Oli
DATAMASKIN
