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Did you hear this ? - The Music Composition & Sound Design Newsletter, Issue #002 December 05, 2010 |
December Audio News 2010Hi there ! Here are the December audio news, carefully selected just for you ! Once again, a big thanks to all the nice readers for their feedback and encouragements. I wish all of you a very nice & happy end of year, merry Christmas and everything... May the " music composition & sound design " force be with you ! Peace. Sam. Music Composition
For what I've heard, it's intense and inspiring... from the author's website : "For the first time in sampling history, Sonokinetic is proud to present this unique and one of a kind female vocals sample library. FIlled with intriguing, mysterious and authentically sung traditional jewish music. Performed by one of the greatest contemporary classical Jewish singers of our time; Hadass Pal Yarden. Her musical talents, professional and impressive sound and specifically specialized musical style makes these captured performances stand out from any other previous Sonokinetic projects. This library offers you chants, improvisations, poems and songs in one of the numerous classical Jewish traditional styles namely; “Sephardic” music. This first volume of “Voices of Israel” also includes improvisations on western harmonics which complements music written in western musical root harmonics, which makes this library very flexible and versatile to implement into your musical projects."
Zero-G and Xfonic present ANIMATO String & Flute FX for Cinema- 4.5Gb of 24bit cinematic audio inspiration! Animato contains 3000 samples and 139 separate Kontakt instruments each with its own custom GUI created especially for this project. Featuring world-class instrumentalists from the renowned Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, Animato is a uniquely realistic, expressive and playable Orchestral Effects library. With a wide sonic range from chaotic, tense effects to beautiful undulating pads. Distant pianissimo sirens can shift seamlessly to fortissimo ungodly screeches all at the simple command of your Mod Wheel.
Alien Skies - Cinematic Ambiences 2 is a 2 DVD set from Zero-G and the sequel to our critically acclaimed library Dark Skies: Cinematic Ambiences. Alien Skies is a vast collection of ambient soundscapes, textures, drones, hits, and special FX designed to suit the needs of professional media producers such as TV, cinema & game score composers, music producers and web designers. Extending on from the cutting edge sound design techniques showcased in Dark Skies, this fantastic new library utilizes the most innovative, modern studio technologies to provide a vast range of emotional and evocative timbral experiences.
Directly from the author's site : "Produced specifically with the big screen in mind, Cinematic Drums contains loops and samples that will quickly conjure up specific moods and imagery in your tracks. From thunderous walls of pounding toms, to angst-ridden, heart pulsing beats, this collection is a must-have for anyone who composes for the moving picture. We also meticulously sampled every individual drum, cymbal and yes, pot and pan, allowing you to quickly program your own grooves using the exact same sounds from the live loop sessions."
RapidComposer LE is available now (for the fair price of 99 $) ! RapidComposer is a rapid music prototyping software designed for composers, song-writers and musicians of all musical styles. RapidComposer features :
Virtual instrument "Garritan World Instruments" makes me think about other virtual instruments like Silk or RA from East West or Ethno from MOTU, but this one is very huge, quite sounding and for instant download at 149$ (not so bad uh ?)... Garritan World Instruments is a new collection of over 350 expressive and exotic instruments from around the world. The world has such a beautiful and rich music heritage expressed through a myriad of diverse instruments. Here is a world of instruments waiting for you to explore and take your music in new and exciting directions. The Most Comprehensive World Instrument Collection With over 350 individually sampled ethnic instruments, Garritan World Instruments offers more individually sampled instruments than any other ethnic sample library. Create various sections and groupings - Oriental orchestras, Ewe ensembles, Taiko ensembles, drumming circles, or many groupingss and ensembles of your choosing.
Cinematic Impacts Vol. 2 is a 1GB library of ultra-dynamic 24bits percussion loops, arranged into 25 epic rhythm construction kits, suitable for music productions & soundtracks in many genres such as classical, acoustic, ambient & lounge, downbeat, TV, film & soundtrack and more !
Woodbox is a virtual instrument that reproduces a regular sized cajon.
The audio demos are just astonishing for a virtual instrument... That's what decided me to promote this new version of EW... The new voices library from 5 continents let you imagine an endless world of possibilities... It will fit very well with my voices of passion and other ethnic voices virtual instruments... It's just a little bit expensive... even if the quality is very good (449€)... Here what they on their website : " ETHNO WORLD 5 PROFESSIONAL & VOICES is by the renowned award winning film composer Marcel Barsotti (“Die Päpstin”, Deutschland - “Ein Sommermärchen” - “Das Wunder von Bern”). This composer has already won several awards. He has composed music for more than 60 cinema, advertising and television films and his musicians have been placed in the charts several times. EW5 PRO & VOICES contains more than 240 professionally recorded ethnic instruments and more than 18.000 high quality samples in the following categories: Bowed Instruments, Stringed Instruments, Woodwind & Brass, Key Instruments, Bell Type Instruments, Metal Type Instruments, World Drums, World Percussion, Gongs & Bowls and the new category of Voices & Choirs. ETHNO WORLD 5 PROFESSIONAL & VOICES contains the entire library "Ethno World 4 Professional" and an additional 10 GB with about 5.500 new samples. Thereby ETHNO WORLD 5 PROFESSIONAL & VOICES with its 20 GB content (uncompressed) and more than 800 patches is one of the largest ethnic sample libraries in the world. The latest addition to ETHNO WORLD 5 PROFESSIONAL & VOICES are 25 professionally recorded solo-voices from all over the world and an Ethnic Chamber Choir with over 3.800 new samples and phrases. You will find voices from North America, Cameroon, Guinea, China, Iran, Turkey, Bulgaria, Ukraine, North Afrika and Peru." Broadway Lites @ Sonivoxmi Broadway Lites is the light edition of Broadway Big Band... But it's not a cheap version... it's very sounding and very attractive at first listening... I might try to offer myself one...From the author's site : "Broadway Lites is a virtual instrument with an attitude. A fusion of sound, music and technology. It features 15GB of multi-sample content, with over 20,000 unique samples of saxophones, trumpets, trombone and clarinet. Broadway Lites provides an affordable introduction to the best-sounding and most realistic emulation of contemporary wind instruments to date, and is suitable for high-end studio work, as well as live shows of any scale." Pricing : 499 $
From FXpansion Website : " Sample, slice, sequence, mix, arrange, effect, resample. Geist is FXpansion's next-generation sampling drum machine, designed to create evolved, custom beats and grooves, freeing you from the limits of pre-packaged loops and over-complicated DAWs. Geist fuses creative sample-sculpting tools with fast pattern step-sequencing and arrangement. Browse through sounds with lightning speed, slice and assign loops to pads with a single click; sample, resample and build beats in a slick unified environment. Geist makes fiddly tasks with multiple apps a thing of the past." Music Production / Audio post
This new tool (toy ?) is sooo sexy, I want one. An audio interface coupled with a control surface + a monitoring section + a mixbus all packaged with pristine audio quality and dedicated buttons / (useful) functions.. that the way SSL designed their Nucleus. Here are the main key features :
One of the best mastering tool I've ever tried, finally available for public beta and free trial (14 days) hurry up and test it ! You must ! This plugin is a hit. Easy to use, efficient, reliable... everything you need, for (only) 255 $ Here what they say : "The alpha compressor plugin is the software reincarnation of our famous mastering compressor. It gives you a painstaking emulation of the sound and features the hardware is known and popular for programmed by the code experts from Brainworx. But not only the final stage of mastering will profit big time from this ultimate dynamics processor. In fact, the compression section alone is such a useful tool that we have decided to include a dedicated mixing version with a reduced interface. You might want to use this on every single track of your DAW... The plugin license includes all the important formats in one: TDM, RTAS, VST and AU. Treat yourself to a new level of dynamics processing try it now! • Integrated M/S Matrix • Auto Fast • Feed Forward & Feedback • Sidechain Filter • Parallel Compression • Soft Clip Limiter • Audio Filter • Warm Mode
Korg has a wonderful idea releasing this tool... At last DSD for the rest of us... best audio quality for every Korg's MR serie user... Take a look at their press release : "AudioGate has been the ideal partner for the KORG MR series of DSD recorders, allowing you to record in the ultra-high-resolution DSD format and then down- convert to the most suitable format for your needs. It was created to bring out the unlimited potential of a DSD master, and has become an indispensible DSD recording tool used by studios worldwide. Now, everyone can experience the advantages of DSD audio with the new version of AudioGate, which can operate as a free standalone application. Go ahead --- download a favorite song in DSD format, and enjoy ultimate audio quality and flexibility with AudioGate on nearly any computer."
They finally made it... A complete Protools (choose the HD version first of course) without any Avid interface... At last it is not a dream... I can't find my word. I've waited so long to see this day.. RME interface + PT9 = killer audio installation. I haven't tried it yet but if it's stable, I'll buy it asap ! Sound Design
Specially designed for sound designers and ambient music composers, I think that Morpheus will be one of my favorite metallic / glass sounds provider... I already love it... just listen to the demos... here what they say about it : " Named after the Greek god of dreams, the Morpheus is an aluminum percussion instrument made by the US company Freenotes. The instrument is modular; the keys can be rearranged in any order you like, as each metal bar is attached to its own tuned resonator. The instrument is available in several different sizes - the version we sampled is two and a half octaves, with the optional 'bass Wing' extension which offers six notes ranging another octave below that of the main unit. The keys are struck with custom mallets, also built by Freenotes, and ring freely afterwards. There is no damping mechanism. The Morpheus is one of the cleanest, purest sounds you will hear - add tremolo and it sounds very much like a vibraphone, but with an extra 'glass-like' quality. Used with subtle delay and phase effects it takes on a hypnotic quality, showing why it is often used for mediative healing. Roll-off the attack transient and you're left with an almost perfect sine-wave, but not quite ; the gloss and shimmer of the metal still remain, making serene yet characterful sustained tones. The striking clarity of tone enables the morpheus to cut any melody though any mix; but never in a brash way - making it an essential addition your sonic paint box..."
Live stage & Ipad applications
Molten is a drum machine for Ipad.... that's it. Seems friendly and easy to use...From One Red Dog website : "Molten is a powerful and intuitive tool for creating percussive sounds and rhythm sequences. Using a revolutionary approach to grid based pattern sequencing that divides time to instantly add tuplets and fills to your drum programming. Unleash the potential of your beats on the iPad..."
Midi Monitor is a free, easy to use MIDI monitor for testing MIDI Hardware compatibility with the iPad. By connecting a hardware device via USB using the USB Camera Connection Kit, you can test to see if your devices work properly and are compatible with the iPad. It can even be used as a basic MIDI controller !
Funny things these days... the mythic MS now available on Ipad ! I don't know what to say... I had the original in my hands so many times... But now you can get it with you anywhere... wow. by the way they also released the iElectribe...
I think it's the first serious ProTools controller on Ipad... It seems to have everything needed (except the so long waited surround panner...) anyway I think it's a quite good first intention (the pro version indeed...). From the author's site : "V-Control Pro provides a fully-featured, multi-touch control surface for Pro Tools on a Mac and soon for Windows. V-Control Pro uses WiFi to control transport, editing, and mixing functions with Pro Tools 9, HD, or LE. V-Control Pro provides advanced control of sends, automation, groups, auditioning, plug-ins, scrub/shuttle, I/O assignment, and other controls within an easy-to-use interface. Features: Large, touch-sensitive moving faders Free stuff of the month
GBfree Nov2010 is a small drum samples collection made using U-he's Ace synth with some analog outboard. Plus some glitchy fx made using Audio Damage plug-ins. It contains patches for Guru and NI Battery.
A nice idea... Just see what it is : Celemony is 10 ! We've been around now for 10 years; and so, for 10 years, has Melodyne. We would like to express our thanks with ten of the legendary wooden boxes in which the first Melodyne was delivered. Each box contains a license for Melodyne editor, for Melodyne studio and for all Celemony software products released in the next 10 years. Whoever gets a box will receive all the software products and updates released by Celemony until the year 2020 free of charge. Win with a birthday greeting*
Until 15th december, you can send to Waves your best mix using JPP Collection plugin and you can have a chance to win your choice of the JJP Artist Signature Collection or the JJP Analog Legends bundle, and the top three songs will be streamed on the Waves website for all to hear.
The classic Rhodes e-piano with a soft overdrive has been updated...
Just login to download. (anyway you can NOT use them for commercial projects...)
Nice videos of the month
Battery - A Sound Designer's tool. from Enrik Anton on Vimeo.
SoundWorks Collection: Gary Hecker, Veteran Foley Artist from Michael Coleman on Vimeo. Peace. Sam. |
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