Access Music are about to release their very interesting new hardware/software combo, the Virus TI Totally Integrated Synthesizer. The Virus TI hardware is a synth, keyboard, control surface and audio interface all in one. Nothing revolutionary there. The interesting part happens when you install the VirusControl VST/Apple Audio Unit plug-in. This acts just like a regular plug-in, except behind the scenes it uses the hardware to generate sounds. This allows some neat features. For example, the connection is delay-compensated automatically, which normally can’t be done with a hardware synth. (more…)

Manytone Music, makers of the ManyStation sample-based VST instrument, are shortly going to release ManyGuitar. A good guitar synth is a wonderful thing, so it will be good to hear ManyGuitar when it comes out. There are no details yet on the Manytone website, but an unofficial press release was posted on the busy KVR forums. Here are the details — ManyGuitar is due out next month, so that could mean tomorrow. (more…)

Computer Music reviews the Xboard 49 keyboard controller from E-MU. The most important part of any keyboard — in this case, the most important 49 parts — are the keys. The reviewers are impressed with the Xboard in this respect: “They offer a good compromise for those people who want some of the weight of a piano but the speed of a synth.” (more…)

M-Audio make the Trigger Finger, a very nice USB MIDI control surface. It’s garnered some rave reviews, so a summary of the official M-Audio information is in order. The Trigger Finger is primarily a pad controller, but also provides faders and knobs as extra control options. Even though many keyboard controllers have pads and other controls built in, it might be better having a dedicated unit like this one. (more…)

SampleRobot is a sampler designed to automatically sample MIDI instruments. It effectively lets you copy your hardware instruments onto your computer, which will save space if nothing else. Computer Music magazine reviews this program and says, “SampleRobot is like the second engineer you always wished you had. We’ve seen other programs that work along similar lines, but none of them are as complete as this one.” They like its ease of use — you connect everything up, select parameters for which notes and patches you want to sample, then “a tap of the record button sets the app to work. It tells your outboard gear which patches and notes to sound and records the results.” (more…)

Sibelius 4, the latest version of the industry-standard scoring application, is heavily praised in the latest Computer Music magazine. They give it their Editor’s Choice award and say good things about its power and ease of use: “For composers and arrangers, Sibelius works beautifully as a musical word processor. … There’s a shortcut for almost anything you might want to do, and it’s in this area that Sibelius scores (ahem) over its rivals.” (more…)

Trigger Finger, M-Audio’s MIDI pad controller, gets a great review in Computer Music magazine. They point out that this is more than just a drum pad controller — the eight rotary controls and four faders raise it up a notch or two in the MIDI controller stakes. The pads themselves are pressure-sensitive as well as velocity-sensitive, and the pressure values can be mapped to any MIDI parameter; they are impressed with this and say that it offers “massive creative potential.” (more…)

The always-good Create Digital Music website reviewed Numark’s PT01 turntable. In fact, they didn’t just review it, they took it out into the desert and played a gig with it. “Using the PT01s in the desert was a dream. The dust covers kept them clean while packed away in my tent and they were easy to grab, setup and spin due to their light weight. The sound was great, the pitch control was super-useful and the built-in cartridges saved me from near disaster when I completely forgot to bring a set.” Hmm, built-in cartridges on a DJ deck? Well, it is meant to be a cheap portable. (more…)

Camel Audio have released version 1.6 of Cameleon 5000, their additive synthesizer which specialises in pads and evolving textures. The update adds an improved noise generator with key tracking for brighter, crisper sounds, an improved reverb, key tracking on the filter, improved editing abilities as well as other feature enhancements and bug fixes. (more…)

Computer Music magazine reviews the Synful Orchestra plugin. They give it full credit for its new approach to orchestral synthesis, and say the sounds you can get from it are very good — “You can come up with realistic results in Orchestra within mninutes of firing it up.” The user interface is simple and the various parameters are preset appropriately, so “it really is very easy to use.” (more…)