Native Instruments: New Maschine Expansion – Astral Flutter

I just got a new Maschine MK2 (finally!!) and next day they release a New Expansion: Astral Flutter, I’m thinking of getting it to celebrate my new purchase as I have always been a NI fan.

Astral Flutter

The demos are really good, but sometimes they are very processed and you cannot hear the true sound of the kits, I think they should use their new stem file system in their demos to give it more exposure and to have a better listen.

This expansion is about 200mb so its not a big download, but it brings a lot of elements and the Massive presets are interesting enough to give it a twist to your old projects.

Astral Flutter may be suitable for some hip hop, indie rock/pop, ambient, and to my taste it can work in some psychedelic/post rock setup. But remember its about you, and can work outside this genres for sure.

I might give it a try as I have a coupon to spend in the store, I won’t promise a review because I still don’t have my other equipment with me but I will manage my time to make my first review.

You can hear the demo and buy here. I don’t like to copy paste info, so click to get official details.

Free Trial: Cakewalk – SONAR X2 Producer

I got an email from Cakewalk asking to try their new SONAR X2 Producer for 30 days…

I got it (1.3GB), BUT I found it too cluttered for my laptop screen, I can’t even see one track volume/pan/name on full without taking a huge part of the screen from top to bottom, and its worst when you turn the channel strip on…

I will try it with an external monitor to see if that fixes the problem…

Here is the video showing its capabilities, but I noticed they focus on a single item, not on the full cluttered screen, maybe I am the only one having this problem…

So feel free to try it and comment your thoughts on it.

Check the full set of new features at: Cakewalk.

 

Update Day 1:

I played with it for a while and I could fit 5 tracks, 3 bus channels and the piano roll, on one screen and its not very confortable…

And on the 2nd screen I got the 5 tracks but only 2 expanded, 3 bus and the master fader.

 

BTW the ProChannel Channel Strip don’t fit vertically with all the modules expanded on the external monitor on the recommended resolution for my screen… I know its not a major problem but it affects a little on the workflow until I learn all the shortcuts… wich I still have 27 days left…

.

Free Sample Kit from: Bass Kleph – Make Me Forget

Hello!

I found this free sample kit from Bass Kleph; the samples are taken from his single Make Me Forget

It has 14 samples including the drum kit, bass, leads and some FX, and if you have a NI Maschine it is already mapped to it, but don’t worry if you don’t have one, all the samples are ready to import them on every DAW/Sampler/Pad as 44kHz 24 Bit .WAV files.

Here is a video from Bass Kleph showing you how to play the song with the samples:

You can download the kit at: http://bit.ly/TJqRfn

If you liked the song you can get it at Beatport.

And follow Bass Keph on Facebook and Twitter.

Have fun!

WaveShaper: Modulok Sample Pack – Review And Demo

Modulok is one of the entries of the KVR Developer Challenge 2012 and my favorite so far, Modulok is a sample pack by WaveShaper, made with a couple of vintage synths, two semi-modular synths and some analog effects. It features more than 360 unique samples and are really well organized into categories and subcategories, and then labeled to give you an idea of the sample. Sample quality is 44Khz 24 bit stereo WAV.
If you don’t know what a sample pack is, is a collection of sound files recorded and/or sythesized, and put together so you can integrate it into a song, beat, video or anything you want.

The highlight in this library is that is really original, extremely easy to use and the sounds are REALLY useful, its not one of those packs full of crap-samples.

 

 

 
Ease Of Use

I was impressed with this pack, it was so easy to start working and I got everything done in minutes, I usually spend 30 seconds to 1 minute choosing the right sample, and with this pack, I got them ready really fast and I only changed a sample once after choosing my kit.

The labels on the kit are a feature that nobody seems to care, but that can make your workflow really smooth, these aren’t your kick_01, kick_02 … kick_32 kits, you actually get a hint of what the sample will sound like, we have to agree that [Deep Smooth Kick], [Driven Kick] are more likely to be remembered and define the sample better than kick_03 and kick_44. Some are really funny like [maxiweirdo deceleration], [abstract perc nice] (my girlfriend and I, label files and photos with cool, nice, yeah, etc. So that one got a laugh out of me).

Turn On
The samples are very musical and flexible, you can experiment with them by changing pitch, evelope, stacking and adding creative effects. (I didn’t apply any creative FX on my demo because I wanted you to hear the dry samples, I might try that for another review…) And they sit REALLY well in a mix, they didn’t require any EQ or compression or anything, you know YMMV but they worked that way for me.

Turn Off
I couldn’t find something negative or lacking on this pack for me, maybe some more crash style cymbals  would have made it even easier for me on this particular demo, but there are 360 samples to choose from and I quickly got something else that worked, probably if you have a very particular sound in your head it might be hard to get it, but that is one of the best features of this pack, its really original and it gets your creativity flowing.

Price

Free, but remember that this is an entry on the KVR Developer Challenge so please consider giving this entry a VOTE and checking the other kits at his site.
Demo

I made a demo (My first demo) using just samples from the pack, only that I used a the ComboV organ plugin to give it a laidback vibe. I only used a delay on the intro and all the samples are 100% dry no FX, I just added some saturation from the FerricTDS plugin (Concidentally, the winner of the KVR challenge ’09) on the master channel because I always add drive to everything. If I could add drive to this review I would.

Conclusion
This is a pack that I really enjoyed working with, I got a kit really quick and the samples are very well recorded, the sounds are really well thought and I appreciate the time spent on this, the labels are extremely helpful to get an idea of the sound, and that shows the care that WaveShaper put in this and every of his projects.

If you have to use an specific set or genre specific (808 kick, 909 hats, Trance kick, House claps) you probably are in the wrong place but there are another WaveShaper kits for that. But that doesn’t make this kit less useful I was looking for a crash cymbal style on a analog/modular pack… I just had to browse and I got something accordingly.

More info on: http://waveshaper.12r.org

Product and download page HERE!!!!!

Comment if you like it or have any other good sample pack to recommend. 🙂

 

WTF Loud Button Distortion/Low Frequency Oscillator Pedal Review by Juan Alderete

Hello, I haven’t had any time to post anything but this really amazed me today and I wanted it to share it with you.

My favorite Bass player Juan Alderete just reviewed this amazing pedal by Loud Button and I just gotta say its great, it has a tight bottom end, nasty grind and a crazy oscillator, plus a gate control for some self-oscillating-analog-madness, I still cannot describe what the pedal is but I don’t care as long as it sounds good.

NOTE: This is not your average blues/shred/metal or licks/riffs type of gear review, this is not your average knob twisting guitar player and this not your over-hyped-boutique-transparent overdrive.

This is a crazy pedal, reviewed by one of the best bass players: Juan Alderete. Yes, a bass player, showing that a great effect pedal is as good on bass than it is on guitar (or better), keys or any other instrument, so check it out for yourself:

 

 

You can see the original post by Juan here!! And you can check his awesome site right here!!!

Comment if you like it!

 

Novation: Mininova synth announced

Looks like a good week for hardware, in my last post we talked about the new MASCHINE generation from the guys at Native Instruments, and now its turn for Novation to show us their new small synth called MiniNova.

This synth its small in size, but offers a huge range of features like a Vocoder (microKorg style) but it also includes a pitch correction feature called VocalTune™. It has 256 presets ready to play and edit in real time and a 128 preset bank to save your own sounds, it also includes a free software patch editor and library to tweak your patches easily and download preset packs and share with other users.

But for me the feature that sets this apart from others is the 8 animate buttons that lets you tweak and warp sounds in realtime, and features a filter knob and 4 editing knobs to tweak any parameter that you like, and what really hook me, is that it includes 7 effects and you can stack up to 5 for each voice and tweak them via animate buttons and the 4 edit knobs, these effects are: distortion, reverb, chorus/phase, delay, compressor, EQ and a gate/stutter.

 

As you can see it integrates perfectly into Ableton Live and it will into any other DAW, and the sounds are really cool, and the vocoder works good (at least on the video), and another feature I almost forgot is that you can plug your guitar, or your bass or any instrument with a 1/4 plug, to use any of the effects, vocoder or vocaltune, sounds good right?

The price is not announced yet, but being a Novation product I expect a fair-priced high quality synth. It will include +1 GB of royalty-free samples and loops from Loopmasters, Ableton Live Lite and the Novation Bass Station synth, to take advantage of its MIDI I/O capabilities too.

The links is here.  You can leave your thoughts and comments about it 🙂

Do you think this will be the microKorg killer? I do.

 

Native Instruments: New MASCHINE Generation (MASCHINE MK2)

Native Instruments is about to release their series of renowned MASCHINE controllers: MASCHINE MK2 and MASCHINE MIKRO MK2; and they will release the software version to 1.8.

 

 

The first think you will notice is that you can choose between black or white hardware, bright multicolored pads and now besides the 6+GB Library it also includes the MASSIVE synth with more than 1,300 presets, ready to be browsed within your MASCHINE.

Also we get the option of customizing your MASCHINE with custom kits on different colors!

 

 

And now the great Mr. Jeremy Ellis with both the new MASCHINE and MASCHINE MIKRO making it look easy…

Nice, right?

 

Well for more info on these great controllers, go to the official site where you can pre-order to get your hands (or fingers) on this before October 1st.

Do you pre-order your gear, or buy without trying? Or wait until the reviews come out?

 

 

 

Mostly Robot – Supergroup

Lots of good things came in the mail today, first the Ableton 8.4 Beta with 64-bit support and now this: Mostly Robot.

This is a new supergroup that just debuted at Sónar by Day festival and it features my favorite electronic musician Tim Exile along with Jeremy Ellis another musician that I find very inspirational, but thats not all! Here is the full Line-up:

Tim Exile – Effects and Sound Mangling

Jeremy Ellis – Finger-drums and Percussion

Jamie Lidell – Frontman and Singer

DJ Shiftee – Cuts and Turntablism

Mr. Jimmy – Harmonies and Keys

Pfadfinderei – Visuals

Wow, It looks like thats going to be lots of fun to listen (and watch!), 5 amazing musicians and a visual design collective onstage…

Just as a preview for whats coming on the future here you have a small fraction of cover of Aphex Twin’s Widowlicker performed by Mostly Robot:

I hope you liked that and here is the Official Site to get more info.

 

 

 

Ableton Live 8.4, Now in Beta, Introduces 64-bit Support

Finally!!!!!

Just got this on my email!

“Ableton has released a beta version of Live 8.4, which introduces native 64-bit support. The 64-bit version of Live will allow you to use more than four gigabytes of RAM. This means you can work with Live Sets (including Sets using third-party plug-ins and ReWire configurations) that are much larger and more memory intensive than in the 32-bit version. Registered users of Live 8, Suite 8, Live Intro and Live Lite 8 can download the beta now.

Note: The 64-bit version of Live 8 does not support Max for Live, video, or The Bridge. We are currently working with our partners to add support for these features. For more information and system requirements please see this Knowledge Base article.”

Everyone join in!

http://www.ableton.com/login?url=/live-8-beta (you need a valid Ableton Login)

Sonic Charge Permut8 (Preview)

The guys at Sonic Charge left this message at their blog regarding their new product “Permut8”:

Unfinished Permut8 Puzzle

“In an attempt to make life a bit more exciting we are currently beta testing two new releases simultaneously. One is a VST/AU called Permut8. You can see and hear it on our home page if you manage to solve the puzzle first. We don’t give anything for free here at Sonic Charge, not even screenshots or demo tracks : ). ”

All right… So I did had an exciting moment solving the puzzle but when I did get to hear what this exciting toy* is capable of doing I had to make a video:

So that was really cool! It seems to be a really powerful tool, and we still have more stuff to hear from this full-of-awesomeness-machine.

I already have some questions and comments for the Sonic Charge team:

1. How did you manage to do something that cool?
2. What does the bottom panel its supposed to be?
3. The integer, fraction, step mask, substract  labels probably scares you if you’ve only used “traditional” plugins… but I’m just trying to figure out what will they do…
4. The NOP, AND, MUL, OSC, RND, OR, XOR, MSK, SUB labels makes me think that you will summon little aliens by their names and you’ll be able to control them via MIDI!
5. Those switches makes me want to play and tweak the damn thing right now!

Permut8 Sexy Screenshot

Visit the sexy** guys/aliens at:
http://soniccharge.com/

*Just kidding its not a toy, but I really wish that I had one like that…

**Just kidding again…

Suscribe for more exciting news!