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Native Instruments today released Urban Arsenal, a collection of production-ready sound material for contemporary hip-hop and similar music styles.

Created in collaboration with established urban music producers and sound designers, the latest entry in the Kore Soundpack range provides an assortment of hip-hop grooves, drum kits and instrument sounds for use in Kore 2 and the free Kore PLAYER software instrument.

Description:

At the heart of Urban Arsenal is a comprehensive collection of authentic hip-hop grooves and drum kits, which can be easily tweaked and transformed through the sound shaping and control features of the Kore platform. Over 1,000 sampled drum sounds form the basis for 40 groove sets and 32 drum kits, including a “human beatbox” kit from beatboxing champion Mando.

With over 15,000 overall groove variations, an “Instant Remix” function and many other creative features, Urban Arsenal is designed to make it easy to create the sonic foundation for contemporary hip-hop tracks. Read more…

Back In Time Records has released several new sound libraries for the Alesis Fusion Workstation.

You can preview a couple of the new sound libraries below:

 

 Fusion Presets [5:57m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

 

 Fusion Samples [5:03m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

11 Titles Are Available

1. Fusion Presets by kpr
2. Fusion SYNTH Presets by kpr
3. Fusion ULTRA SYNTH Presets by kpr
4. Fusion ULTRA SYNTH II Presets by kpr
5. Fusion OTHERWORLD Presets by kpr
6. Fusion SAMPLES by kpr
7. Fusion SAMPLES 2 by kpr
8. Fusion SAMPLES 3 by kpr
9. Fusion ORGAN by kpr
10. Fusion GRAND PIANO by kpr
11. Fusion MyMoog by kpr

Wire to the Ear’s Oliver Chesler put together a nice screencast that shows the features of Ohm Force’s OhmBoyz plug in:

I really think OhmBoyz is the best delay I own. After watching the video I encourage you to head over to the Ohm Force website and download the demo.

This screencast covers: Installation, Presets, Multiple Knob Control, LFO, Automation and Sustained Loop.

He hits testing this out in live at about 1 minute in.

If you liked this screencast check out the other Wire to the Ear videos.

Aaron Rutledge, the guy behind Tweakbench synths, has announced that he’s updated all of his free VST synths and effects:

all the plugins have a point release, updating many little things, and keeping things up to date. all of the cycler series, and everything using any granular processes should perform a bit better now, and i’m just a few days away from the newest addition to the family

If you’re a PC user and you’re not familar with the Tweakbench line up, this could be a great time to check out the nearly two dozen free synths and effects that Rutledge has put together.

Akai has announced that they are now shipping the MPC5000.

Akai’s MPC5000 is the first MPC to permit eight-track streaming hard disk recording for real-time capture of individual tracks or even entire songs. A 20-voice, three-oscillator analog synthesizer with arpeggiator, a new sequencing engine with 960 PPQ resolution, pad and track muting and mixing, 64 continuous sample tracks and 12 Q-Link controllers highlight just some of the features that make MPC5000 Akai’s most advanced MPC ever.

An optional CD/DVD drive permits usage of audio on CD or DVD in songs, and also records compositions. 650MB of sounds from Loopmasters are included with the MPC5000, so it’s ready to go straight out of the box.

Best of all, it’s got an “old-school” mode, for that vintage sampler sound!

The MPC5000 lists $3,499.00. Read more…

Jooris Benny has shared some great pictures of an ARP 2500 synthesizer.

The ARP 2500 is a synth classic, and it was the first synth I ever used, at the University of Kansas, before I could afford my own!

It uses a combination of patch chords and matrix switches to create connections. Each module’s panel has signal path lines that make it easy to identify how to patch things together. This makes patching fairly clean, but as you can see from the picture, it takes up an unholy amount of space.

The ARP 2500 was also the synth used to communicate with the aliens in the movie Close Encounters Of The Third Kind!

Puremagnetik has released Metalsphere, a sound design toolbox of intense soundscapes, suspenseful textures and horrific environments.

Description:

Metalsphere contains a huge array of sonic possiilities. With up to four individual distorted and layered sound sources, users can easily tailor their individual textures and signal levels. Sound designers, film composers and producers alike can each find something in this colorful palette of ambiences.

The Ableton Live and Kontakt versions contain easy sound shaping controls to morph between signal sources. The Kontakt version includes customized KSP menus for easy access to filters and amplitude envelopes. The Ableton Live version is preprogrammed with effect macros and advanced Live Rack controls.

Modular Components

Metalsphere for Ableton Live and Logic contains individual “modules” for layering sounds. Each module comes from a completely different sound source and can be layered together or individually. Load up only the needed modules or combine multiple modules for a huge sound.

System Requirements:

• Requires Ableton Live 7, Logic 8 or Kontakt 3
• ‘500 MB of physical RAM
• 1 GigaByte (GB) of free hard disk space

Trailer for the work in progress RAYMOND SCOTT: ON TO SOMETHING, a biographical documentary by his son, filmmaker Stan Warnow, about the 20th century musician, composer, and inventor whose musical career included the swing era, electronica, and everything in between, including use of his music in Warner Brothers Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies.

For more info go to scottdoc.wordpress.com/

via StudioNebula

Dr. Earth’s plan to save the world with sex, hedonism and clubbing seems a bit out there, so I did a little digging to find out more about sustainable clubbing.

I came across this YouTube video that looks at the Sustainable Dance Club in Rotterdam (NL):

While the video is a promo for Toyota as much as the idea of sustainability, it at least highlights some of the concepts behind sustainable dance clubs.

This would be even more interesting if the motion of dancers was used to directly influece lighting and effects within the club. For example, if people move faster, it would generate more energy, making lights brighter or making them flash more frequently.

If people on one side of the club were dancing, but not the people on the other side of the club, you could play a harder mix on the side of the club with the dancers, and a more chilled out version of the track on the side with no dancers.

If you know anything more about the idea of sustainable clubbing, let me know in the comments.

Fixed Noise has announced the release of Kreate, a new sound library designed and produced by techno, dance, minimal artist Speedy J, aka Jochem Paap.

Description:

This personal collection of Speedy J’s sounds includes the dance and minimal electronic rhythms for which he is notorious as well as fluid pads that offer an atmospheric sensibility. The library is composed of drum kits, individual hits/tones, loops, sequencer-based instruments, fx and konstrukt instruments. The library is made up of over 500 instruments mapped out in Native Instruments’ Kontakt Player 2. The Kontakt Player allows the user to create with the powerful and popular Kontakt interface without necessarily owning the full version.

“My intention was to design a collection of sounds that is fun to play with and inspires the creation of music. The goal is to provide a broad set of carefully sculpted distinctive elements which can be used in many ways,” says Jochem Paap. “In my own productions I always try to use sounds in unexpected ways by pushing the limits of my tools. Kreate is designed to provide an organized and easily accessible collection of tools which will inspire users to take the same approach but make it less of a hassle.”

Kreate will be released in late July, 2008, and will retail for $199. Read more…

Alpha Juno Control is a free, open source Mac OS X patch editor for the Alpha Juno.

It will let owners of Roland’s Alpha Juno keyboard control patch parameters via MIDI from their Mac.

via Moogulator

Dr. Earth has launched a plan to use hedonism, sex and dance music to save the world.

To forward this goal, Dr. Earth’s first step has been to launch a sustainable clubbing initiative:

Working on the basis that a club should be self sufficient and not a drain on the environment, Club4Climate has come up with the varied and interesting ways to be eco-friendly.

The strangest of which have been reported in the UK press, whereby Amy Winehouse is set to headline at Watt nightclub, Rotterdam in September.

Energy will come from urine and sweat from clubbers and toilets will be flushed by rainwater. Projects Abroad, the gap year organisation recently endorsed by BBC Dragon’s Den star James Caan for their forward thinking initiatives, are working with Club4Climate to send young people to create sustainable dance clubs in New York, Cape Town and Rio de Janeiro.

Once Dr. Earth achieves his goal of sustainable clubbing through urine and sweat powered clubs, he plans to create Club4Climate Island, a sexy eco-friendly holiday destination, where “you can save the world lying down drinking cocktails by the pool.

Call me old-fashioned, but I’m a little skeptical about the idea that clubbing is going to save the world. And Dr. Earth makes me think that Mini-Earth has to be hiding somewhere.

But if Dr Earth can save the earth with clubbing, sex and hedonism, count me in.

DSK has released another free Windows virtual instrument, DSK Virtuoso.

With DSK Virtuoso you can play combinations of 6 instruments, or play a composition up to 6 different parts, through the MIDI channels selectors.

Features:

• 6 Instrument layers
• Midi channel assignable to each one
• ADSR, level and Pan control for each layer
• 40 instruments in 6 categories
• 2 Send Fx (Chours & delay)
• 1 Master reverb Fx
• Velocity response

DSK releases free virtual instruments, but is having trouble paying his hosting bills as a result. If you use DSK instruments, considering using the PayPal link on his site!

Wax Museum is a documentary view of the art of collecting vinyl.

Featuring DJ Capsize as he interviews friends and strangers on a search for the answer to “what is the future of records?”

via CrateKings

Yuri Suzuki is an artist and musician interested in “revamping and giving new forms and meanings to the turntable, a device which very few of us still have in their house.

Music is become more and more digital and abstract, and Suzuki is interested in exploring the physical, tangible representation of sound.

The Prepared Turntable, above, is an analog answer to the digitalized DJ. The turntable has 5 tone arms, each of which can have its volume controlled by its own fader. Users can make or play music with special loop groove records.

More examples of his work are available at We Make Money Not Art.