News Archive for November 2001

SynthEdit has been updated to v0.45, check out what's new here... [Win VSTi Host]

Tobybear has updated Deconstructor Pro to v1.3, both the VSTi and FX, in case you haven't noticed he's on a bit of a mission this week, to supply us all with a new free VST FX every day! Go on boy!

He's also updated his VST Development FAQ, hosted by the Bluelife Audio Zone.

pHATmatik from Bitshift Audio is a new REX File Player VSTi for Windows, featuring an ADSR amp envelope and selectable High Pass or Low Pass filter. A public beta is available here so go try it out!

We've got some more info on the forthcoming "The Grand" piano VSTi from Steinberg and Wizoo. Wizoo now have a product page up here. It costs $199 and will be shipping from the 5th December for Windows and MacOS. They say "It is not a digital piano, nor is it a ROM player that reels off piano sounds. It is, in fact, a grand concert piano, based on an intelligent VSTi engine - the first of it's kind." Be warned it requires 1.2 GB of free hard disk space!!

• Top-drawer grand concert piano
• Superior sound quality
• No loops, no compromises
• Unequalled dynamics
• Authentic sostenuto pedal action with real re-pedalling resonance
• Authentic-sounding damper and hammer action
• Intelligent VSTi Engine
• Freely editable velocity curves, easily and swiftly adaptable to every keyboard
• Four master timbres: Natural, Soft, Bright, Hard
• Integrated, variable room simulation (Ambience)
• Tempered and grand concert piano tuning

More information and screenshots here...

VAZ 2001 is now available for all to buy at a special pre-release price of only £89 ($109 US), this price will rise to £129 upon release. VAZ 2001 is 16 Analogue Synthesisers each with Sample Playback facilities, 16 Polyphonic Sequencers, 16 Channel Mixer with Real-time Effects and supports VST and DX plug-in effects. The Stand-alone version is emailed to you immediately, after which you can download or be emailed the VSTi version from the support area, and you'll get the DXi version when it's ready! [Win VSTi]

• Check out VAZ 2001's specifications and features here
• Buy VAZ 2001 at the special pre-release price here

Massiva has been updated to v0.67, as ever this update includes several new features and bug fixes, check what's new and fixed here [Win VSTi Host]

Everything on the site should now be working correctly and mail to the kvr-vst.com domain is now being delivered! If you e-mailed anything to ANYTHING@kvr-vst.com over the last 3 days chances are I didn't receive it so please send it again!

If you find any problems/errors please let me know!

LoftSoft have updated FMHeaven to v1.3.7 [Win & Mac VSTi]

• Fix some problems with Cubase
• Implements the High Quality voice mode (The High Quality mode improves the sound quality of the output from the synth, but at the cost of some additional CPU overhead)
• Fixes some DX7 import problems

Native Instruments FM7 is now shipping for Windows, the Mac version is due to follow in December. More info here...

Sonic Reality/eSoundz have announced the imminent release of Sonic Synth and Omni Synth, both VSTi and MAS compatible Sound Module/Sample Playback instruments based on IK Multimedia's SampleTank engine. Sonic Synth ships with SampleTank LE which has most of the features of Sample Tank XL excluding only the Akai import feature and it only has 4 midi channels/1 stereo output per instance. Omni Synth is a similar package but featuring a much smaller 600MB sound library, apart from that the specs are the same! They are due to ship during the last week of November/first week of December. More info here...

• Over 2 GB of sounds including pianos, strings, guitars, bass, drums, vocal, orchestral, ethnic, modern and vintage acoustic, electronic, electric and synthetic instruments
• Compatible with both Mac and PC - VST and MAS
• Sampler/Synth synthesis engine with 32 bit floating point processing
• 128 notes polyphony (CPU dependent)
• 4 midi channels per instance
• 1 stereo output per instance
• 4 effects per voice selectable among 20 DSP effects including Reverb, Delays, Chorus, Distortion, EQ & Compression, Wah Wah, Auto Pan, Tremolo, Rotary Speaker Simulation and more!
• Expandable with any Sample Tank format sound libraries or ST modules, including a new range of low priced value packed "Sonic Synth Expansion ROMS soon to be released from Sonic Reality and IK Multimedia
• Fully compatible with any other Sample Tank product including Sample Tank XL for expanding your Sample Tank system
• Sonic Synth costs $249
• Omni Synth costs $129
  

You may have noticed the new yellow Sample Farm logo up above! Sample Farm is a new Sample Player/Sound Module VSTi for Windows and MacOS from Sound Burst. Supporting 24-Bit/96KHz sampling it will ship with a professional quality sound library containing over 2.6 GB of samples. It also supports loading of external SoundFonts! The release date is scheduled to be before the end of the year and it will cost $199! More info and screenshots are available here...

• 128 voice polyphony (CPU Dependent)
• 2.6 GB+ of Samples arranged in 720 sound banks over 5 CD's
• 24-Bit/96KHz
• Supports SoundFonts (SF2)
• Costs $199
• Windows & MacOS compatible

Watch out for next months competition where we'll have a copy to give away, in the meantime why not enter our current competition and take home RT Player Pro and a bag load of FX?

Rhythm'n'Chords 2 is a VSTi with a difference from MusicLab, previously only available as a MIDI plugin for Cakewalk products. It offers musicians the easiest possible method for creating rhythm guitar parts in MIDI format. Simply enter chord symbols into your measures and select a rhythm pattern and your guitar part is ready. It installs in Cubase as a VST Instrument producing sound via MIDI out as well as via your favourite VST instrument.

With Rhythm'n'Chords you can:

• Quickly and easily create professional sounding guitar accompaniment MIDI tracks
• Create sophisticated harmonic progressions by performing simple actions, not being a guru in chord voicing
• Use rhythm patterns from Guitar Rhythm Pattern Library, which has been created having in mind various rhythm phrases ever played by the World's most acclaimed guitar players and bands, in your guitar tracks
• Quickly create guitar accompaniment parts letting you capture your musical ideas on the fly
• Easily fit guitar parts into your arrangements and make them more expressive and colourful
• Train your rhythmic feel and better understand the nature of guitar accompaniment parts in various styles and arrangements
• Quickly learn the sounding of various chords and main principles of chord construction and voices leading
• Explore any guitar accompaniment styles using as examples our Style demo songs created by professional musicians

LinPlug have released Public Beta 6 of daOrgan, adding the Leslie simulation to the package and fixing some bugs [Win VSTi]

They are also running a competition in conjunction with Electronisounds, offering CronoX and Electronisounds Electronica Bank #1 CronoX sound CD as prizes! Enter here...

Sonic Syndicate have released Orion Pro v2.7 today, here's the new feature list: [Win VSTi & DXi Host]

• Unlimited sidechains: Sidechain-capable effects can now select any generator channel directly
• MIDI sidechains: VST Effects can now receive notes from any generator
• Toolbar added for VST+internal effects
• 909 rewritten: completely new kick drum algorithm, rimshot improved
• 909, WaveDream, Sampler, and Effect GUI's all redesigned
• Compressor effect completely rewritten
• Copy/Paste whole pattern banks A1-H8 now possible between generators
• Arpeggiator extended: rhythmic arps now possible with step sequencer
• Delete Slice in Groove slicer did not work correctly - fixed
• Improved Sample display in Groove slicer
• Cubase programs/banks FXP and FXB can now be saved as well
• 3 new randomise algorithms added
• Randomise now creates Accents/Slides when used on the Bazzline
• Sampler filters optimised, need less CPU
• DX effect internal presets now accessible
• Dry/Wet control added to stereo delay effect

MultitrackStudio Pro is a new VSTi supporting host from Bremmers Audio Design. MultitrackStudio is an audio/midi recording and mixing environment for Windows targeted at home recording musicians. It's impressive list of features include:

• Real-time lossless file compression
• 19 bundled FX
• VST2 and DirectX FX support
• VSTi support
• A disk streaming sampler that supports .GIG and SF2 patches
• Non destructive audio editing
• Unlimited undo
• MIDI pianoroll, drum and controller editors
• Costs $69 ($59 if purchased before the end of the year)

There's also a lite version available for free so you can demo the features, it is fully functional but is limited to 3 tracks and only 1 velocity layer in the sampler. More info here...

Steinberg have released the Cubase VST Standard 5.1 update on their FTP:

• MacOS files here
• Windows files here

DashSynthesis.com have released a couple of new Reaktor ensembles, a new Infinity synth and a standalone Random Patch Generator for VSTi's, amongst other things!

• 2 New Reaktor Synths by Durk
• "Chord-Synth" for Infinity (Includes the Free standalone InfinityPlayer) by Liqih
• WaveInHead has made a Light-CPU version of his Analogon Vector Synth
• MSV20 Vocoder for Infinity got a new design by Liqih
• Simple VSTi Random Patch Generator - Free
• New site feature: DashMagazine - News and Information
• And the Rating System is fully working now!

VSamp has been updated to v3.2.4 [Mac VSTi]

• Removed need for all samples in an instrument to reside in same folder
• Increased range of filter modulation.

Wantech/Aska have updated their free VSTi's to v1.11, adding knobs to the interface much improving usability of many of the features (AskaAyum, AskaSwitch, AskaDraw) [Win VSTi's]

Drum Dragon has also been updated, to v1.01 [Win VSTi]

LinPlug have released beta 5 of daOrgan [Win VSTi]

• Fixed the unintended noise
• Prepared for Leslie (not yet activated)
• Percussion adjusted

rgcAudio have finally released Pentagon I v1.0. This synth has been creating quite a stir in recent weeks and is well worth checking out if you haven't already (Why not?). The price is now $99 and it ships with 300 presets, these are also available in the demo version so you can get a good taste of what to expect. More info and download here...

Outsim Synthmaker is a new DXi Modular Synth, just updated to v0.2 beta. More info and download here...

IK Multimedia have released some new instruments for SampleTank Free v1.1. SampleTank Free is a fully working freeware version of the powerful SampleTank sound module for VST and MAS offering all the advantage of the full version (including 16 channels multitimbrality, up to 128 notes polyphony and 4 effects per voice selectable from amongst 20 DSP effects) that is able to play a range of free instruments that are published and updated monthly on the SampleTank website.

This month IK have added two new rhythmic instruments: Small Drum, a complete acoustic drum kit with a pop-rock character and fast (controllable) decay; plus a beautiful sample of stereo-miked Bongos with full hits and plenty of ghost-notes to add more realism to your percussion performances.

Big Tick have updated EP-Station beta demo to v0.4, they've also announced the price, it will cost €40/$35 when released:

• Improved note stealing algorithm
• Even better sound
• Other bugfixes

Cubase VST Score users can now get the 5.1 update from the Steinberg FTP:

• Windows files here
• Mac files here

AnaMark is a new virtual analogue VSTi for Windows:

• Monophonic
• 2 Oscillators with several combination functions (Mix, Ring Modulation, Diff)
• Oscillators have a choice of 24 basic waveforms
• Real-time Controlling (Graphically or via MIDI controllers)
• Resonant filters (3 types)
• Loads of modulation options synchronizable to the MIDI clock
• Screenshot
• Costs €18

The day dawned and Cubase VST 5.1 was upon us, desperately we all scrambled for our FTP clients, logged into ftp.steinberg.net just waiting, and waiting, and waiting and then suddenly there it was!! A directory named Cubase51x! Sweaty palmed we looked inside and what did we find? Another directory named 51r1! OK we think, we're getting close now so on we go, double click, the directory list refreshes and....... setup files for Cubase VST 32 only!!! aaaarrrrggghhhhhh!!!!

OK, you lucky gits with Cubase VST 32 can download your free 5.1 update for Windows HERE and Mac HERE. There are 8 files for Windows and 6 for Mac, coming to a total of around 30MB. Cubase VST Score owners will have to wait until 9th November and us lowly Cubase VST Standard owners will have to wait until 14th November.....

A quick refresher of the new instruments included in 5.1:

• JX16
• CS-40
• LM-7

LinPlug have released daOrgan Beta 4. More info and download here...

Big Tick have released EP-Station, an electric piano modelling synth VSTi for Windows. While its main strength is in emulating the classic Rhodes sound, it can also be used to generate rich synthetic pads, or
more modern electric piano sounds.

EP-station generates sounds by mixing 3 different raw electric piano models. The mix output is then processed, in this order, by the following effects: Tremolo, Phaser (Classic 6 stage Analog Phaser), AutoPan, Stereo Chorus.

EP-Station v0.3 demo is available for download, it works as both a VSTi and standalone. No price had been announced for the full version yet. More info...

Time for a new competition, this time we've got a fantastic prize selection from DSound. Fancy getting your hands on RT Player Pro, and Stomp'n FX Volumes 1 & 2? See the info on the left for how to enter «««

Wantech/Aska have updated their VSTi plugins to v1.10 [Win VSTi]

A demo of their new shareware Drum Dragon is also now available - Download here...

Cubase users check out this article at the Bluelife Audio Zone, or this thread at Cubase.net - Cubase VST v5.1 leaked release info that details 3 new instruments and 11 new effects! If its real all this should be available as a free download on November 7th!

We'll just have to wait and see if we get this early Christmas present!

Turntablist Pro public beta 1 has been released. TTP is a VSTi (for Windows) that can load a sample and perform turntable style effects on it. This way you can put weird scratching and other effects into you songs with any sample you have. It is mono-timbral and monophonic.

• Screenshot
• Download and more info

LinPlug have released a public beta of daOrgan, their new Windows VSTi. daOrgan is a collaboration between LinPlug & Wellington and WilliamK from Dash Synthesis and is, as you may have guessed, a drawbar Organ emulation!

• 24 voice polyphonic (CPU dependent)
• 9 drawbars
• Percussion
• Adjustable KeyClick
• Adjustable motor noise
• Distortion that ranges from warm to dirty
• Fully recognized Velocity
• Full integration in VST environment: Sample accurate timing, full automation and settings are saved with your song
• Costs $29
• More info and download here