This is neat — it’s a microphone that connects directly to your computer’s USB port. Samson Audio’s C01U is probably not the high-end professional choice, but it sounds pretty convenient, especially for those impromptu laptop gigs. It’s a good alternative to either a poor-quality 3.5mm microphone jack or a separate audio interface.

There are more details on their website. They say: The C01U USB Studio Condenser Mic is the first affordable studio condenser mic with a direct USB output. For the first time ever, musicians who record music on computers have a simple, affordable way to capture high-quality vocal and acoustic instrument performances.

Seamless integration was the idea, and it was obtained by creating a studio condenser microphone that can be plugged into any computer with no in/out boxes, no expensive computer pre-amps, just a USB cable.

The C01U condenser microphone is based on our wildly successful C01. It features a 19mm internal shock mounted diaphragm with a cardioid pick up pattern ensuring pristine studio quality recordings.

The C01U works perfectly on any computer, Mac or PC, and with any DAW software program. It immediately solves a huge problem for users of many laptops, many of which have no other input method for audio devices.

It’s a must for any musician on the road or in the project studio, but the C01U is going to offer solutions to more than just musicians. The mic opens up possibilities for anyone who records audio — from Podcasters, journalists, students, and business people adding audio files to websites and multimedia presentations.

CNET review Sound Forge Audio Studio 8. For creating and manipulating digital audio, they say Sound Forge Audio Studio is “perhaps the most complete and easy-to-use application for Windows PCs.”

They say the interface is a bit boring but as a result quite intuitive. As for features, there are no real surprises, but they say “what makes Sound Forge Audio Studio so powerful is the depth of its tools, such as delay and chorus effects or vinyl restoration, and the ease with which these are applied. Plus, everything is done in real time and in a nondestructive manner.”

Sound Forge Audio Studio has another unusual feature aimed more at relative beginners. “Perhaps the most empowering feature for novice users is the publishing option, which uploads musical creations to ACIDplanet.com, a vibrant online community of music makers spanning all genres. Here, members can publish their songs, bios, and commentary, as well as listen to and rate others’ compositions. Users can also download more free samples, view homemade videos, join discussion forums, and enter contests.” I like the concept of an audio application that “empowers” its users.

They rate the program highly for its compatibility with many audio and video formats; its customizable interface; excellent real-time effects; export options; and its top performance. The downside is that it is a single-track editor only, and doesn’t support third-party plug-ins or plug-in chaining. The overall rating is 8 out of ten — excellent — and the bottom line: “You can’t find a more reliable and feature-filled audio program for less than $70.”

Steinberg are due now to release HALion String Edition 2, the new version of their orchestral strings library. As the name implies, it’s based on their HALion sampling engine. The new version features more effects and, well, basically more of everything.

Here’s more information from their press release and website: HALion String Edition 2 includes 9 GB of sounds performed by one of Europe’s leading orchestras, which was recorded in 24-bit and using top grade recording equipment. Included are solo and ensemble strings in a large variety of articulations including, crescendo, trills, up and down bowing, portamento and many more. HALion String Edition 2 also features RealAmbience, a new technique that offers a full, 3D concert hall sound with no artificial reverb.

During the recording and production phases, particular attention was paid to achieving a warm and emotive yet detailed and precise sound that sits just as well in an RnB mix as in a classical arrangement. Features such as the sound browser window also make the full breadth of sounds contained in HALion String Edition 2 readily accessible, and the unique Q-Controls allow easy control of the most important sound-shaping parameters.

HALion String Edition 2 offers several technologies to maximise efficiency in its use of the computer’s CPU and RAM resources. First seen in Steinberg’s award-winning HALion sampler, RAMSave unloads unused samples from RAM, freeing up memory for other instruments and applications. The supplied ECO versions of sounds allow high levels of polyphony even on older computers, while the advanced disk-streaming mode makes HALion String Edition 2 highly efficient in its memory use.

HALion String Edition 2 supports all major plug-in formats such as VST, DXi, and AU. ReWire support offers easy integration into Pro Tools, while the standalone version allows HALion String Edition 2 to be used without a host application.

Future Music magazine have reviewed Steinberg’s HALion Player sampler. They review it largely from the point of view of a HALion 3 user, so they notice the cut-down (“minimalist”) interface and the lack of flexibility. However, they also point out that it is cheaper than HALion 3, and it is meant to be used by people who want the specific sounds in the package, rather than those who are looking for a full-on “power sampler”.

There are a number of effects availalbe, but the reviewer laments that fact that these are essentially hard-wired. Each patch has a particular set of effects available for it, and these cannot be changed. Even worse, if you use HALion Player to import sounds to create your own samples, you can’t use the built-in effects at all.

Despite these limitations, they like HALion Player in its own right as a simple sampler with excellent built-in patches — the lack of control and flexibility actually leads to more of a “fun factor” than more complex packages. They give it a ten out of ten rating for ease of use, and at least seven for their other criteria. Their overall verdict: “HALion Player is nowhere near as powerful as SampleTank, Kompakt or Intakt. However, it’s incredibly easy to use and cheap too, delivering the goods sonically.”

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.