Cycling ’74 have released Pluggo 3.5. In their own words: Pluggo 3.5 is an extraordinary collection of more than one hundred audio plug-ins that work with sequencers and audio applications that support Audio Units, Steinberg’s VST plug-in format, and Digidesign’s RTAS plug-in format. Version 3.5 is available for Windows XP and Mac OS X.

Pluggo is built on Cycling ’74’s Max/MSP platform, an unusual graphical music and multimedia development platform. i remember reading a review of Mode, another Cycling ’74 plugin bundle, in Grooves magazine a while ago. Mode is a smaller collection of more full-featured plugins than Pluggo, but even so I was intrigued by the review’s conclusion: “As always, Cycling ’74 has come through with a value-packed bundle at an impossible price. And, as always, the focus is on the strange and unusual. In other words, the sort of things that can quickly find a home in the plug-in folder of any musician who likes to dabble in the more experimental side of things.”

Pluggo looks to be in a similar vein — a few of the usual arpeggiators, LFOs, reverbs and so on, but also lots of wacky experimental things that you won’t find anywhere else. Here’s some information from their website:

There has never been anything close to the selection of plug-ins assembled in pluggo. With its range of sound design possibilities, pluggo 3.5 is more than just a few effects-it’s a real-time interactive audio processing, modulation, and synthesis environment that works right inside your favorite audio application. Effects categories include delays, filters, pitch effects, distortion, granulation, spectral effects, modulators, multi-channel effects, synthesizers, audio routing, reverb and dynamics, and visual display. It’s easy to see why pluggo has been winning rave reviews from critics and users since its release.

Originally just 74 eccentric plug-ins such as the legendary Feedback Network, Tapped Delay, and Swish, Version 3 added over 19 Essential Instruments–tasty and nourishing instrument plug-ins in a variety of flavors for your Audio Units, VST, or RTAS host application. These elegant and immediately effective instruments were created by eowave, the developers of the iSynth, and make full use of award-winning Max4/MSP2 audio programming environment for OS X. While space only allows us to tempt you with a few descriptions, you’ll find something for every palate, from the characteristically midwestern self-effacement of the Pretty Good Synth, to additive synths, analog-modeling drum and percussion synths, sampling, granular synthesis, FM synthesis, and some lovely waveshaping for that little sonic something extra. And you can seamlessly combine these exciting new instruments with pluggo effects plug-ins and modulator plug-ins for a world of sonic possibilities you’ll never exhaust.

We started developing pluggo with a breathtakingly simple yet radical concept: lots of interesting plug-ins for a modest price. We wanted people who would never consider paying hundreds of dollars for a single plug-in to find the pluggo deal impossible to resist. Since Max/MSP allows you to make so much cool audio stuff so quickly, we could prototype an effect in minutes and then ask, “Would we pay a buck or two for this?” The result is that ideas that would been rejected by other plug-in developers have become the stars of the parade. Raindrops? Sine Bank? Phone Filter? Then there’s the stuff that is simply unlike anything you’ve ever plugged in, like Spectral Filter, Feedback Network, Granular-to-Go, and Noyzckippr.

pluggo includes MIDI support when used with Audio Units, VST, and RTAS host applications. pluggo plug-ins can send and receive MIDI information, and Max/MSP developers can now develop their own MIDI processor plug-ins and virtual MIDI instruments.

Pluggo 3.5 includes support for host synchronization for Audio Units, VST, and RTAS host applications. pluggo plug-ins support beat-synchronized parameter changes, sample-accurate tempo sync for a plug-in’s modulating LFOs, and tempo-relative settings for plug-in parameters such as delay time.

AudioWarrior have released Banghis Khan, a “Premium Natural-Akoustik Reason Drum Kit Module”. This is almost irresistable because of the name alone. The sound samples of the kit do sound nice, though they seem to concentrate on cymbals and hand drums. Here’s their information on this kit — it sounds like just the thing if you really want to have a realistic ashiko sound in Reason.

They write: Treat yourself to a punchy, highly-detailed half-gig Genuine-Vintage early 70’s Ludwig Vistalite ready to rock in Reason’s NN-XT advanced sampler as a flexible self contained Combinator module and tons of flexibility. Sampled @ 24/44.1, you’ll have in your arsenal many of the reminiscent tones made historically famous by legendary Led Zeppelin Drummer John Henry Bonham including new ones with all the nuances you’d expect from a real drum set.

Banghis Khan will be the most powerful sample based drum set you’ve ever played. AudioWarrior brings it to your desktop mapped for the easiest playability that makes the most sense whether you’re left handed-right handed, new to computer music or a seasoned pro. AudioWarrior’s Banghis Khan features a completely programmed 14+ channel personal dedicated drum mixer with separate channel strips per drum for the following:

From within Reason, users can add Reason Rack effects like Studio Quality Reverb, Compressor, Distortion, Chorus, Flanger, EQ, Delay, and adjust the individual level of each separate drum and cymbal, including outboard routing options and exportable Audio/MIDI performances @16 or 24 bit. Using any of 38 Rewire Hosts, Banghis Khan audio can be sent into your favorite multi-track mixing software including Cubase, Nuendo, Sonar, Traktion2, Sony Acid, Pro Tools, and Ableton Live.

Last but not least, play 2 Hand-Built Ashikos exactly like you would play a hand drum except now it’s mapped perfectly on 15 keys, from the center of the drum, and multi-sampled outwards to rim shots with up to 12 velocity layers.

ModernBeats has released a suite of VST plugins aimed at hip hop music production. And now’s the time to start dropping those phat beats — Undercover magazine recently reported that rapper Nas paid superstar producers The Neptunes 2 million dollars for a single music track. If that isn’t inspiration to make music, I don’t know what is.

The five plugins go like this:
WaterVerb – A liquid reverb plugin.
SubAtomik -A subbass enhancer, low band compressor, & woofer buster(!) all in one.
BlazeBox -A wah-wah, phaser, tremelo, and auto-pan effect all rolled into one.
TimeMachine – Make your pristine digital track sound as if it’s being played off a beat-up old vinyl record : “Instantly add years of damage, dirt, and grit to any & all of your samples.”
Transistor – A CB Radio Walkie-Talkie emulator.

Some of these don’t really seem to have much to do with hip hop. But hey, if you can get $2,000,000 for a water reverb-soaked walkie-talkie sound then good luck to you.

Keyboard magazine reviews Cakewalk Project5 Version 2 and gives it a big thumbs up. “P5-2 provides a toolset that’s optimized for recording loop-based music, but also allows it to serve as a live performance instrument.” They give a really good step-by-step description of remixing a track using the various features of Project5.

They like the fact that Project5 has a lot of instruments and filters: “One of P5’s selling points is the complement of software synths. These include the Psyn II subtractive synth, Velocity multilayer sample-based drum module, nPulse “analog” drum synthesizer, DS864 digital sampler, Cyclone DXi groove sampler, Roland GrooveSynth (general purpose sample playback), and the Dimension “sampling synthesizer.” The roster of signal processors includes Alias Factor lo-fi, phaser, compressor, high frequency exciter, modfilter, multivoice chorus/flanger, 2-band parametric EQ, spectral transformer, reverb, and tempo delay — all with automatable parameters.”

They also approve of the GrooveMatrix, which enables quick rearrangement of loops and samples in a track, and the Track Freeze feature, which greatly reduces CPU usage when you’re using all those fancy VST instruments.

Overall they really like this new version — they even award it a qualified “Key Buy”rating. They write: “P5’s second coming is a major update. There’s no question that incrementing the most significant digit is more than justified. It’s gotten smoother, more capable, more intuitive, and more exciting, thanks to new features like Dimension and the GrooveMatrix. … It deserves a Key Buy, but with a condition: This applies only if you make the pattern-based style of music for which P5-2 is intended.”

Project5 version 2 is a major new version of Cakewalk’s all-in-one music production suite. This new version adds a number of new features, notably the Groove Matrix. This is a graphical matrix overview where you can drop loops or samples and have them play repeatedly. This would be useful for improvisation or live performance. It’s like Ableton Live’s Session View.

Other improvements are in the overall organisation and “workflow” of the program. Cakewalk say they have tried to make music production as intuitive as possible: “Blur the boundary between studio and stage, and capture the moment as it happens with Project5 Version 2.”

There’s already an update to version 2 — the Project5 2.0.1 update is now available on Cakewalk’s website. There are also more details of the new version. They say: Project5 is simply everything you need to create and perform today’s music. Straight out of the box, you get a complete set of superb quality instruments and effects; powerful recording, looping, sequencing, and arranging; dynamic creation tools; and the ultimate open synth host.

Project5 Version 2 has been streamlined to put the features you need most—and larger than life sounds—easily in view and right at your fingertips. Project5 delivers the solid real-time performance, stability, and ease of use of traditional hardware music workstations—but, with the additional power, flexibility, and portability of PC software.

And Project5 is expandable—you have the freedom to use hundreds of DirectX and VST plug-ins and instruments, and industry standard sample formats. Now as both a ReWire Host and Client, there are even more possibilities to expand Project5 and extend your music world.

Bring your inspiration to life, whenever and wherever the passion strikes, with Project5 Version 2.

Features

Inspiring Sounds

Dynamic Creation Tools

Powerful Sequencing and Recording

Open Host Environment

Keyboard magazine calls the Nostromo SpeedPad n52 game controller from Belkin “the hottest new secret weapon at laptop gigs — on both sides of the Atlantic.” This gadget is just a video game controller — but a very fancy, programmable, ergonomic game controller. It has rows of keys, a few buttons, a joystick and a click wheel literally at your fingertips. (Your left fingertips, that is. If you want to wear it on your right hand then you’re out of luck.)

The programmability extends right through to a macro facility — you could probably use this device to control 90% of your computer use, even apart from your highly-acclaimed laptop music performances. You can program different key assignments to different computer applications. This could lead to Byzantine complexity if you’re not careful. But if you are careful it could open up new worlds of intuitiveness (intuitivity?).

Belkin’s own blurb from the Nostromo Speedpad website makes the device sound exciting — maybe a little too exciting. They say it “puts keyboard and gamepad functionality into one small and easy-to-use device, delivering more tools for customizing your game than ever. Using feedback from hundreds of gamers, our engineers designed the n52’s intuitive nature and stylish versatility to give you easy access to your arsenal of deadly maneuvers. So start programming up to 104 functions now-and watch how dangerous you become.”

Back to the review itself. It raves about the Nostromo Speedpad’s “sexy sci-fi design” and its “truly intuitive functionality”. It sprinkles around words like “brilliant”, “breathless”, “amazing”, and even “wow”. Yes, they love it: “Despite the lack of marketing outside the game universe, the n52 is so flexible that it’s making waves far beyond the gaming, music, and media scenes and breaking through into the medical and rehabilitation industries for use by differently-abled folks. Yeah, it’s that cool.”

Well, that’s enough from me. Time for a bit of shopping, I think.

Bias Peak Pro 5 is out. This new version of the Mac sound editor has the expected raft of features, including a convolving reverb. This is turning up everywhere these days — I fully expect the next version of Microsoft Word to have a convolution reverb function too.

The Bias website has more details. They say: BIAS Peak — the industry standard stereo audio editing, processing, and mastering application for the Macintosh — is now better than ever.

From serious sound design for film, video, or multimedia, to rapid-fire broadcast editing, to music production and mastering limited only by your imagination, Peak Pro 5 does it better than anything else. Create unique dance loops and remixes. Optimize audio for Podcasting and Internet streaming. Dust off that pile of vinyl records or analog tapes and convert them to CDs, ultra-portable AAC (MP4) or MP3 files, or to just about any audio file format on Earth. Craft soundtracks or fix audio problems for digital video. Maximize your music’s sonic quality — and then burn your final masters directly to CD — with 100% Redbook compatibility.

Here’s a full list of features of this new version of Peak Pro.

• Fastest and most powerful nondestructive & destructive sample accurate mono and stereo editing, processing, and CD mastering application for OS X
• Simultaneous document viewing with window tiling
• Multithreaded processing and MP optimized
• Unlimited Undo/Redo with graphic edit histories
• Customizable display, key commands, tool bar
• Reads/Writes AIFF, SDII, QuickTime, MP3, MP4, WAVE, AU, Sonic AIFF, JAM Image, Raw, DDP (optional), and more
• Supports built-in Mac I/O and Core Audio compatible hardware
• Read & write region, loop & reference markers
• Integrated DSP Toolset, including Fade In/Out, Normalize, Gain Envelope, Reverse, Invert, Harmonic Rotate, ultra-accurate POW-r dithering, Convolve, Mix, Change Pitch, Panner, Find Peak, Invert, Strip Silence & more
• Professional 100% Red-Book CD Mastering playlist featuring advanced waveform views, crossfades, real-time effects, PQ sub-codes, ISRC, CD Text and more.
• Ultra high quality real-time and of-fline SRC (Sample Rate Conversion)
• Up to 32-bit 10MHz, including 24 bit 96KHz (HD)
• Advanced looping tools— including the highly acclaimed Loop Surfer, LoopTuner, Crossfade Loop & Guess Tempo
• AU and VST effects & instrument support with ALC (Automatic Latency Compensation)
• Dozens of high quality VST audioeffects plug-ins free and AU effects from OS X
• Includes BIAS Sqweez compressor/limiter plug-in and BIAS Freq 4-band paragraphic EQ
• Includes SFX Machine LT plug-in with 21 real-time special effects
• Advanced VST/AU plug-in routing matrix via integrated Vbox SE
• Automated Repair Clicks & Remove DC Offset
• ImpulseVerb — applies real room ambiance to any audio file — includes over 150 spaces (requires a G4 processor or faster )
• Supports all SMDI hardware samplers
• Integrated Batch Processor
• Change Duration DSP with Tempo Envelope and Transient mode — high-quality time compression/expansion without affecting pitch or smearing attacks
• Recording notepad & timer
• Threshold function automatically divides files by amplitude
• Trigger playback & cueing of up to 10 audio documents using Mac keyboard
• Advanced QuickTime/DV support with sample accurate synchronization
• Auto-Define Tracks — divides LP/Tape recordings into single tracks for easy CD burning, export to iTunes and more
• Use stand alone or integrated as an external editor launched from Deck, DP, Live, FCP, and more
• Over 300 MB of high quality loops from PowerFX and Sound-FX-Design

Steinberg have released Studio Case II, their all-in-one music suite. They’ve just bundled together cut-down versions of their other products — the Cubase sequencer and six VST instruments. This is one more instrument than the original Studio Case — they’ve added their new Virtual Bassist to the mix.

It all looks like a decent deal, especially if you’ve already used Cubase and want a complete studio package. However, everything in Studio Case II is a “special” (i.e. simplified) version, so you might outgrow it after a while. The appeal of an “all-in-one” package is pretty strong though — it’s nice to have everything in one box.

The full description on Steinberg’s websitegoes like this: Studio Case II is a complete music production package, which includes a high-performance sequencer and six fantastic-sounding VST instruments: Cubase SE3 (the new music production software based on award-winning Cubase SX3 technology, featuring 48 audio tracks as well as full VSTi support), and SE versions of 6 great VST instruments: HALion, The Grand, Virtual Guitarist Electric Edition, D’cota, Groove Agent and Virtual Bassist. This software collection is available for Mac and PC users at an unbelievable price.

Cubase SE
The complete music production suite for your studio! Cubase SE3 is based on the latest VST 2.3 audio engine (32-bit floating point) and offers full delay compensation. SE3 combines powerful audio and MIDI features with professional editing and effects. Start creating your own music with a system that is fully compatible with the Cubase family of products that are used in high-class studios around the world.

Groove Agent SE
Forget about tedious drum programming. Groove Agent is your personal virtual drummer, providing you with ready-to go drum tracks, live feel and extraordinary real-time control.

HALion SE
The backing part specialist. This 4-way timbral version of Steinberg’s HALion Sampler includes the Wizoo Composer Library and features HALion and Soundfont import, letting you play literally millions of sampled instruments.

The Grand SE
The Grand SE is a great-sounding acoustic grand piano with 4 characters (Natural, Soft, Bright and Hard) to suit any musical style.

D’cota SE
Steinberg’s next-generation multiple synthesis VST instrument supplies punchy basses, biting leads and massive pad sounds.

Virtuel Guitarist EE SE
Virtual Guitarist Electric Edition SE is a professional electric guitarist ready to play perfect funk, pop and rock styles with unbelievable sound and playing technique. Best of all – he’ll never argue…

Virtual Bassist SE
With version 2 of Studio Case you also get a special SE Version of Steinberg’s new virtual bass player, the latest addition to the virtual band. Virtual Bassist SE provides real bass parts with authentic sound character.

MetaSynth Pro 4 has received a review in Keyboard Magazine. They really like it, but they emphasize that it’s a completely new way of making sounds, not just another slight variation on a waveform editor: “MetaSynth is all about transforming your entire approach to music and sound with tools that are as mind-altering as they are useful.”

The review gives a very useful explanation of the major features of MetaSynth, including the almost indescribable Spectrum Synth, the “mindboggling” Image Filter, and the very unusual Sequencer (what, no MIDI?)

The bottom line: “Despite a few bugs and eccentric design oddities, MetaSynth Pro is a one-of-a-kind sound design tool. With a bit of practice, you can create textures and patterns that would be impossible without a serious investment in a high-end system like Symbolic Sound’s legendary Kyma environment. If you’ve conquered the universe of soft synths and are ready to create textures that will amaze and astound even seasoned vets, MetaSynth is a wormhole into an alternate dimension of sound.”

Sound Forge Audio Studio 8 has been released. This is the cut-down version of the full Sound Forge 8 audio editor — fortunately the price is cut down too. This new version has a few new features, but nothing really amazing. Probably the best is support for VST effects and ASIO drivers, so you can take advantage of all those third-party plugins out there. This new version also has built-in “Show Me How” interactive tutorials — looks as if they’ve taken a leaf out of Ableton’s book here.

There are a bunch of other new features in Sound Forge Audio Studio 8. This version can import Flash files, and also has a number of user interface tweaks. And it still has the same extras as before, such asAcid loop creation and support for video soundtracks. Here’s an overview from Sony’s Sound Forge Audio Studio 8 website.

Sound Forge Audio Studio software is an easy-to-use home version of our Sound Forge professional software — the industry standard for audio editing and mastering on the PC platform. Built on award-winning technology used by recording studios and musicians worldwide, Sound Forge Audio Studio software brings the editing power of the pros to your home computer.

Learn as You Go with Amazing Tutorials
Sony Show Me How tutorials go beyond the booklets and basic tutorials that other solutions provide. These extraordinary helpers are built right into the software — just click Show Me How to access simple, interactive help on 15 topics.

Capture Audio from Any Source
Plug a microphone or instrument into your computer’s sound card and start recording directly into Sound Forge Audio Studio software — capture instruments, vocals, keyboards, and more. You can also import music from your own CDs and MP3s for immediate mixing and editing.

Powerful Editing Tools
Enjoy pro-level control over audio editing, EQ, volume, and effects processing. Mix audio tracks, balance sound levels, and create custom fades. Perform precise, real-time editing of audio files with simple drag-and-drop operations. Expertly balance sound levels, trim unwanted sections, and synchronize audio with video.

Unmatched Effects Processing
Customize your creations with studio-quality effects such as EQ, delay, chorus, and reverb. Liven up presentations, recordings, and music using the included 1,001 Sound Effects. Sound Forge Audio Studio software also includes support for DirectX and VST audio effects to further enhance your mix.

More Ways to Share
Powerful encoding tools let you save audio in popular formats including .mp3, .wav, and .wma. Burn your own CDs, export to your MP3 player, or upload songs to the Web.