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Dankiel Franke’s One Minute Soundsculpture

Yamaha has introduced the DTX- Multi 12 electronic percussion pad, which 12 on-board pads and a built-in sound module.

Description:

The DTX-Multi 12 boasts over 1200 voices, covering drums, percussion and keyboard sounds, many drawn from Yamaha’s Motif synthesizer range and many completely new. Up to 200 custom set ups can be created and stored using all internal sounds and 42 types of effects.

Alternatively additional sounds can be loaded and stored into the onboard 64MB of memory and allocated to any pad for total customization

The unit is designed to easily integrate into an existing acoustic set up or act as a stand alone unit. DTX- Multi 12 comes with Cubase AI 5″ software .

Up to four voices can be assigned to a single pad for simultaneous or sequential playback and a wide range of dynamic options are made available.

Versatility is enhanced with 128 on-board phrase patterns covering a wide variety of styles and users can also record their own patterns and assign them to pads. A click track function also allows players to control the unit instantly, ideal for live shows.

The DTX- Multi 12 can as an excellent input device for computers. Connectivity is via a single USB cable. The included Cubase AI5 DAW software facilitates the recording and extensive editing of MIDI data, it can also function as a high quality sample playback device with 64MB of flash ROM on board.

Hi-Hat controllers and kick pedal pads can be added if you wish to use the DTX-Multi 12 as a compact stand alone electronic drum kit.

Available: Dec 2009; RRP: £685 Inc VAT

Host David Wills shows you how to use the BV512 Vocoder in Propellerhead Reason 4.

via ProAudioDVDs

DJ Tech Tools has an interesting scoop on a new DJ controller, the Vestax Spin, which they report will be carried exclusively at the Apple Store.

The Vestax Spin combines a DJ control surface, an audio interface and DJ software for $249. Read more…

If there was a musical instrument in The Matrix, it would probably look something like the Octopulse.

The Octopulse was created for the Yamaha Musical Instruments Research Lab.

Here’s what they have to say about it:

It shows that noise is music and is the principal musician of »The Alien Noise Orchestra« (work in progress), being the first of 4 different looking toy instrument characters that all produce different sounds.

With this cuddly »alien bagpipe« you can control analogue sound synthesis through unconventional means, transferring movements into information for an analogue synthesizer to convert into cacophonous noises. This unconventional soundscape alters perceptions of what music could be and allows the electronic sounds of a synthesizer to be accessed by anyone.

It’s Free Music Friday at Synthtopia – so I ask you this:

How much free music do you want to download today?

• 10 tracks?
• 50 tracks?
• 500 tracks?

It’s time to make sure you’ve got some empty hard drive space, because Synthtopia readers have uploaded over 500 electronic music tracks that you can listen to online and, in most cases, download for free.

We’re talking ambient, techno, symphonic electronica, IDM, not-so IDM, abstronica, DJ mixes, remixes, downtempo electronica and more from some the most talented electronic musicians in the world.

Click the “Listen to Music” link at the top of the page to open the Synthtopia player in a new window, or check out the most recent tracks below. If a track has a “Download” button, you can download it for free.

And don’t forget to make sure you’ve got some free space on your hard drive when you’re done! Read more…

There’s an early review of Berna – the virtual studio app that recreates a 50’s electronic music lab – at Waveformless.

They say there’s a lot to like in Berna:

The flexibility of the matrix and the vast array of unusual sound manipulators will be a breath of fresh air to those burned out on the virtual analog trance machines that seem to get released every week. The limitations present here are faithful to what the original studios were limited to, and sometimes having those kinds of restrictions can lead you down very interesting paths you might not otherwise travel.

For sure, this isn’t the most useful piece of software in the world (to most of us), but it’s really hard to find fault anywhere with the program. The sound quality is great, the tools are weird and fun to play with (it drove my cats NUTS), and you can learn a bit about the history of your craft in the process. If nothing else, it’ll certainly give you an appreciation for how easy modern electronic composers have it.

So if you’d like a break from the norm and feel up to making some crazy 1950’s sci-fi soundtrack fodder, it’s hard to go wrong for a mere 10 Euros. [9/10]

See the full review at Waveformless.

Free Music Software: Artifake Labs have released the RedTron_400, a software version of the Mellotron M400. Read more…

This video, via Tom Cosm, is the first of a series of three tutorial videos on track construction in Ableton Live.

It’s designed to teach you ways you can approach writing a track, from start to finish. It covers topics such as Sound Design, Building Loops and Section Construction, Arrangements and Progressions, and Mixing.

Explains Cosm:

In this video, I start by writing a loop, made up of pads, playing a chord progression, then percussion, bass and finaly a lead instrument. This loop becomes my first hook. From there I strip it back to create a progression from intro, to a groove, then into the first hook.

Throbbing Gristle’s Chris Carter posed this short demo of a black Gristleism.

The Gristleism is described as a “Throbbing Gristle palm-sized loop playback machine.”