Platinum Pro 6.0 is the latest version of this virtual studio from Synapse. This has the expected sequencer, effects, plugin support, audio editing and so on, but the big new feature is a built-in impulse response processor — the trendy convolution reverb. As they say, this lets you “apply the sound of real rooms, halls, cathedrals etc on your mix — in realtime.” There’s also automatic plugin delay compensation, new effects and a bunch of other improvements.

The website has all the details. Their description says: Orion Platinum is a complete virtual studio, including multitrack audio recording, a mixing desk with sub busses and effect returns, as well as powerful sequencers, generators and effects. All common interfaces, ReWire2, VST and DirectX are fully supported. Orion Platinum ships on CD with a 600 MB library of more than 800 royalty-free presets and high quality multisamples. Demo songs and tutorials are included as well.

Using the four-bus Mixer and Master Section, you can build advanced mixes in no-time, and the MultiFX control lets you create complex effect routing. High resolution post-production is made possible by the enhanced WAV exporter, which supports up to 32-bit / 96 kHz resolution and can render instruments or channels to multiple WAV files.

Orion Platinum comes with a selection of 37 internal effects – including reverb, delay and chorus effects, a full parametric equalizer, and more. Additionally, there is full support for third-party VST and DirectX effects, as well as for third-party VSTi and DXi instruments.

The Minimax ASB (Authentic Sound Box) is a Minimoog synth in a retro box. Apparently the emulation is really very accurate, and Creamware, the manufacturer, has added a few modern extras like polyphony, a USB interface and a software patch editor in case you’re overwhelmed by all the knobs. And it sounds as if they had fun making it: “when the eye candy met the excellent tone, they decided to setup a family and are expecting offspring already in autumn”. The last time I heard wonderful English like that was when I was living in Tokyo.

I usually don’t talk much about hardware synths on Laptop Studio, but I just like this one for some reason. It’s a nice mix of old and new, and I like Creamware’s attitude. “We had a lot of fun developing this product and we are sure you will sense when you experience the Minimax ASB.”

The Creamware website has more details of the MinimaxASB. They write: You will know at first sight the synth legend that inspired the creation of the Minimax. It is one of the most famous and most popular synthesizers ever. Its sound is matchless – the powerful oscillators, the punchy filters, and the ultra-fast envelopes. The fully storable 12-voice Minimax is the perfect companion for rock and pop as well as for producing cult sounds for sound cult!

Specifications and Prices
Virtual-analog synthesizer (desktop unit),
6 voices, 128 factory presets and 128 user presets,
analog stereo input and outputs, MIDI In/Out/Thru,
USB-to-Host/MIDI interface, external power-supply unit
(12 VAC), plug-in like Windows remote control software

They also will be releasing the “Profit-5 ASB” (presumably a Prophet clone) in the next month or so. Soon you too will be able to produce cult sounds for your own sound cult.

Computer Music magazine is the best print magazine for computer-based home recording. If you’re reading this website, that means you! This magazine has excellent in-depth coverage of music software, including reviews and regular tutorials of all popular programs — everything from FruityLoops and GarageBand to Cubase and Reason. (more…)

Mix magazine has a review of the new Kontakt 2 sampler from Native instruments. They list the new features of this program, then prasie its overall usability. They think the quality of the sound library is excellent, and even better is the responsiveness when playing samples using a keyboard.

Kontakt 2 also scores highly on ease of use: “I was easily able to sequence music, and Kontakt 2’s multitimbrality enabled me to literally put together an entire piece using nothing else. Sometimes, when using a “be-all/end-all” module, I find myself wishing for a slightly better synth sound or maybe a punchier drum kit. Not in this case. For me, Kontakt sounds were pretty much grab-and-go; I didn’t have to do a lot of deep parameter tweaking to put together a piece of music. This is an instrument that is clearly intended for musicians to be able to sit down and compose and play. It’s also satisfying for tweakheads such as myself.”

Overall they rate Kontakt 2 very highly: “Kontakt 2 resides proudly in the very short list of virtual samplers worthy of consideration by serious users.”

U & I Software have released version 4 of the very cool MetaSynth sound design program. (Actually it was released a few months ago, but I wanted to mention it here because it’s so nifty.) This new version moves MetaSynth more towards being a real-time sound creator, rather than something where you design a sound and then push a button to gererate the sound file. The Image Synth is pretty neat — you can turn a sound into a picture, and then edit the picture (using MetaSynth or even something like Photoshop) and then turn the picture back into a sound. Bizarre, but fun.

The U & I website has the details. They say: MetaSynth is a revolutionary electronic music and sound design environment. We have released a major new version: 4.0 and 4.0 Pro. MetaSynth now features full-fidelity preview, realtime editing, and capture-to-disk recording.

MetaSynth 4 features six rooms, each of which is a fully-featured application in its own right. MetaSynth’s rooms are:

Effects Room – envelope-controllable DSP Effects

Image Synth – paint sound using any imaginable-tuning. The new MetaSynth instrument architecture makes the Image Synth more powerful than ever. Paint scores where color is translated to spatial position and brightness is translated to amplitude.

Image Filter Room – use an Image Synth-like interface to create extraordinary dynamic stereo filters. Many users tell us that the Image Filter Room alone is worth the price of admission.

Spectrum Synth – a new paradigm in synthesis: spectral granular sequencing. Analyze sounds into a sequence of events that you can transmogrify in ways you have never imagined.

Sequencer Room – lightweight non-MIDI composition room for composing melodies, phrases and loops.

Montage Room – the mixing room. 16-track audio sequencer. In MetaSynth Pro, you can also record audio in sync with your tracks.

Since this website is called Laptop Studio, I thought I should give Laptop a mention. Jesse Hartman used to direct music videos, but now he records music under the name Laptop. He recorded the first Laptop album entirely on his IBM Thinkpad laptop PC — a perfect illustration of the Laptop Studio philosophy.

The music itself is synthesizer-driven pop music, but with a heavy sense of sarcasm. The first Laptop album includes a retro-’80s style synthesizer cover of Billy Joel’s It’s Still Rock ‘n’ Roll To Me, and one of the hit songs from that album is called I’m So Happy You Failed. All very droll. You could compare it to the Future Bible Heroes, the side project of the awesome Magnetic Fields — both bands have a similarly jaundiced view of the world.

You can read more about Laptop and buy Laptop’s music at Amazon.com.

I have been a keen reader of Future Music magazine since it was launched many years ago. “Making music at the cutting edge of technology” is their tagline, and that describes the content pretty well.

The magazine contains reviews of new gear, both hardware and software. The reviews always make good reading — they’re quite in-depth and really give you a good feel for the product. The magazine also features news roundups, interviews with professional musicians, competitions, and so on. They also have a “Changing Music” feature every month, where one reader receives a music makeover from a pro musician. You can also submit demos of your own music — if they like it, they’ll review it and even include it with the magazine so you can receive the wider exposure and recognition you deserve.

In the early days, the magazine included a CD. More recently this increased to two or even three CDs, but now they have finally moved to DVD format. So every month you get a boatload of sound samples, reader demo tracks and sound demos of new synth hardware and software. There’s also lots of software — both full versions and demo versions of all kinds of music software. It takes me more than a month to explore the contents of the DVD, so I’m already falling behind.

The Future Music website contains a handful of older articles, and is not really kept up-to-date. They obviously spend all their effort on the print magazine. The website does contain some errata for the magazine, so it’s worthwhile looking if you do buy it.

FM is a British magazine, but they seem to have launched an American version recently. I haven’t really looked at it much — it seems thinner than the UK version, and doesn’t come with a DVD. Update: It comes with a CD. There is a website, but it’s nothing but an advertisement for the magazine.

You can subscribe to Future Music at Amazon.com. You can also subscribe to the US version (which is cheaper, but doesn’t come with a DVD).

Korg are releasing a teeny tiny recording studio in a box. The D4 records onto CompactFlash cards and features 32 virtual tracks, a whole bunch of onboard effects, built in microphone as well as inputs, USB interface and other goodies. And the whole thing is the size of a VHS videotape.

The Korg website has details. Here’s their overview: Welcome a new member to Korg’s lineup of D-series recorders – acclaimed for their superb audio quality and intuitive ease-of-use. About the same size as a VHS video tape, the D4 Digital Recorder contains built-in effects, rhythms, and a tuner, everything needed to plug in a guitar or mic and start recording right away. Five real-time knobs provide immediate control over numerous functions, including a full array of Korg’s proprietary “REMS” modeling effects. These same knobs perform double duty as Pan knobs and Record Select buttons; an informative backlit LCD screen keeps it all together. Inside, you’ll find powerful recording and sophisticated editing functions that rival high level models. There’s even a USB connector that makes it easy to transfer song data to a computer. With enormous potential packed into its small size, the D4 is the ideal partner for your creative music life.

Main features

• 4-Track digital recorder features 8 virtual tracks per track, for a total of 32 tracks.
• Two tracks of simultaneous recording.
• High audio quality with extended recording times using MPEG1 Layer 2 compressed recording format.
• XLR and 1/4 inch inputs accommodate both a microphone and/or guitar.
• Intuitive user interface provides plenty of knobs for easy operation.
• Instantly recall frequently-used effect settings, including custom-tailored settings, using the Favorites knob.
• Five knobs (with push-button function) allow for easy effect editing and pan control.
• Full suite of non-destructive editing tools includes punch-in/out, bounce, copy/paste, delete – even pro-level functions such as time compression/expansion are provided.
• Korg’s proprietary “REMS” modeling technology delivers 93 effect types that can be used for guitar, insert, master, or final effect processing. There are 100 preset effect programs ready for immediate use, and 100 user program locations.
• High-capacity CompactFlash data storage.
• Transfer data to a computer quickly and easily via the USB connector.
• Built-in mic allows immediate recording on the go.
• 87 Rhythm / metronome patterns and a chromatic tuner are built-in.
• The custom LCD display is backlit for easy visibility – even in dark locations.
• AC adaptor and 64 MB CompactFlash media are included.

Novation are soon going to release a new range of compact USB MIDI controllers based on their more advanced (and expensive) ReMOTE Series. This is exciting — a really good controller keyboard should be all the hardware you need to make a lot of music (along with several gigs of appropriate software). And these look pretty good, especially with both a joystick and a touchpad as well as many knobs and a decent keyboard. As a bonus, you also get a copy of the Novation Bass Station soft synth. I remember the classic hardware Bass Station when it came out — beatifully designed, both in form (sexy blue keyboard) and function. I’d love a shiny new ReMOTE LE 25, but it looks as if I will have to wait till September.

The Novation website has the full story: Unsurpassed MIDI controlling technology from the true pioneers, Novation, is soon to be available in its most compact format to date. The stylish ReMOTE LE 25-, 49- and 61-key USB controller keyboards include some of the best features of the highly regarded ReMOTE Series, tailored down into a smaller, more portable package.

Amongst the features to be carried through is the extremely popular X/Y Touchpad, allowing up to four parameters (two per axis) to be modified simultaneously with just a simple finger glide. The pitch bend/modulation joystick is another of the ReMOTE’s useful tools to be featured, enabling a host of interesting performance effects. Dedicated Transport control is provided, but now with an additional Loop button.

A total of nine buttons and nine knobs can be found on the hardware, together with a Group switch that doubles this number to eighteen, so that any area of the receiving MIDI device (hardware or software) can be modified with ease. The MIDI spec enables any MIDI message to be assigned to any of the controls (buttons, knobs, X/Y Touchpad and joystick) to an unrivalled level of detail, providing endless configuration options to suit even the most demanding user’s needs.

There are 16 onboard Template memories for saving ReMOTE LE setups, 12 of which are factory preset for use with the most popular software applications, in addition to many more available for free on this site. Also featured on the accompanying CDROM is a powerful Template Editor, which makes constructing Templates even simpler and more intuitive than is possible with the hardware alone. Meanwhile, in the box there are 10 physical Template overlays, 7 printed and 3 blank, to help customise the ReMOTE LE for the software being controlled; the user simply places these over the ReMOTE LE to see what control is assigned to what parameter, avoiding having to memorise the function of each knob/button.

The keyboard is semi-weighted and velocity-sensitive, offering the highest quality action and setting a new keyboard standard for affordable controllers. This gives the ReMOTE LE more of a synthesizer feel than many other controller keyboards, which often seem more like computer peripherals than actual instruments.

And finally, as if the hardware weren’t enough, ReMOTE LE ships with Novation’s ‘Bass Station’, a VST and Audio Unit plug-in which flawlessly re-creates the warmth, character and ‘oomph’ of the enormously successful Bass Station keyboard and rack analogue instruments, which have established themselves as a turning point in synthesizer history.

The combination of funky performance tools, an unrivalled range of MIDI controls and options and a Soft Synth classic bundled for free, make the ReMOTE LE series the number one choice for musicians wanting to trigger samples, lay down bass-lines or control a sequencer with flair. Whether completely new to MIDI controlling or at a relatively advanced level, the ReMOTE LE series won’t fail to satisfy.

Pick up a ReMOTE LE from all Novation stockists in September.

Macworld has reviewed Propellerheads Reason 3. They really like the new Combinator feature, which they say “adds to the creative possibilities of Reason’s already-robust routing. The Combinator lets you combine multiple instruments and effects into a single instrument for more flexible, simple MIDI assignments and signal routing … Once you’ve tried the Combinator, you won’t want to give it up. It’s a big relief from other software and hardware in which each instrument routes MIDI differently and adds audio effects globally instead of allowing precise control over affected sounds.”

They also approve of the improved control hardware detection (while still not that comprehensive) and the new mastering suite. However, they’re disappointed about the deficiencies that still exist from previouis versions. The built-in sequencer is too simplistic and there’s no support for third-party VST or Audio Units plug-ins. The biggest omission, they say, is the inability to record external audio. If only these features were there then Reason would be closer to an all-in-one production suite.

Even so, they give Reason 3 a rating of 4.5 mice (out of five) and conclude: “If you’re already a Reason lover, you’ll want Reason 3. Expanded presets, great mastering effects, and improved integration with newer keyboards and instruments, are great, but the Combinator justifies upgrading. For newcomers to Reason, the choice is a matter of taste.”