Plogue today released its new soft-synthesizer, chipsounds.

“Quite simply put, it beats the s*** out of any other single chip emulation VST currently available,” says 8-bit artist nitro2k01. “chipsounds is a must-have for anyone who’s seriously interested in chip sounds but don’t have access to the real hardware.”

chipsounds is designed to faithfully reproduce the sound and style of vintage video game music and sound effects in plugin format, usable inside any sequencer or DAW, or as a standalone virtual instrument.

Plogue chipsounds will be offered at an introductory price of 75$ until November 1.

chipsounds simulates the following sound chips:

• 2A03
• AY-3-8910
• DMG-CPU
• P8244
• POKEY
• SID
• SN76489
• TIA
• UVI
• VIC-I

chipsounds reproduces the idiosyncrasies of the most sought-after classic sound chips, including their most well-known variations, as sonically accurate as possible without adding any non-authentic aliasing or DSP artifacts. Research and analysis for this project has been made in house on Plogue’s large collection of cartridges, modified consoles and classic computers and also on the chips themselves using custom made circuit boards and low level 8 bit software code.

Last week, we brought you the news of Plogue’s new 8-bit style software synth, Chipsounds.

According to Plogue, Chipsounds emulates more than eight vintage 8bit-era sound chips (on top of their variants), down to their smallest idiosyncrasies.

Now you can decide for yourself:

chipsounds EP by chipsounds

These tracks were made by the chipsounds beta team and show the
variety of styles and sounds that can be achieved with the software.

The only guideline given was that the music’s chip content had to be made using chipsounds.

Check out the demos and let me know what you think!

Applied Acoustics Systems has released Strum Electric GS-1, a guitar track production plug-in for music producers and composers.

Strum Electric GS-1 runs on both Mac OS X and Windows, as a standalone application as well as in host sequencers supporting the VST, Audio Units, and RTAS plug-in formats.

You can preview Strum Electric GS-1 below:

Strum Electric GS-1 is available now at a retail price of $229.

If you’ve used AAS Strum Electric GS-1, leave a comment with your thoughts!

Description:

Strum Electric includes a collection of classic single coil- and humbucker-fitted guitars, a two-channel amplifier with spring reverb, a speaker cabinet, and effects all featured in a ready-made preset library. It also includes an elaborate voicing module which automatically voices chords played on the keyboard as a guitar player would on the fretboard.

Techniques such as down- and up-strokes, slides and bends, hammer-ons and pull-offs, palm muting, muffled strings, and arpeggios are triggered by special strumming keys. Strum Electric also ships with an inspiring MIDI loops library which provides rhythmic figures, strumming patterns, and chord progressions in various musical styles.

Note that demo versions and sound samples are also available at :

• The Saxophones 1 collection, based on the traditional quartet, contains 12 instruments—three each of baritone, tenor, alto, and soprano saxophone.
• Saxophones 2 expands the timbral range with 15 instruments—three each of bass, C melody, mezzo-soprano, C soprano, and sopranino saxophones.

The synthesis technology that powers WIVI (Wallander Instruments Visual Instrument) is ideally suited for instruments, such as Saxophones, that respond continuously and dynamically to the player’s input. Unlike traditional sampled instruments, WIVI instruments allow the player to alter timbre and dynamics throughout the entire course of a note.

WIVI solves many of the problems associated with sample-based instruments. For example, divisi is automatic, spatialization and environmental control are handled at the instrument level, making it easy to create the performance soundstage without the use of additional reverb and, since no samples are involved, CPU and hard disk requirements are minimal.

WIVI works on Mac/PC and is AU/RTAS/VST capable. Saxophones 1 and 2 are available with street prices of approximately $399 and $299, respectively.

2009 Winter NAMM Show: SONiVOX announced the release of Playa – a Hip Hop Virtual Instrument for MAC and PC. Playa’s user interface is designed to bridge the gap between MPC style beat creation and computer based virtual instruments.

Features:

• Over 400 SONiVOX Instruments, including fat synths, basses, drums, leads, orchestral instruments, ethnic instruments, guitars, strings and brass.
• 16 User Programmable and Assignable Pads for quick and easy MPC style beat construction.
• Over 50 Pad Presets designed to get the producer going instantly with various construction kit layouts, diatonic chord mappings, arpeggios, chord progressions and motifs.
• User Definable Layouts - Make original pad mappings and assign pads to midi keys using the “map” and “learn” modes.
• MIDI Functionality - Playa is instantly compatible with any MIDI controller.
• Independent Zone Tempo-Synched Variable Resolution Roll/Retrigger Mode.
• Onboard FX and Graphic Equalizer.
• Keys Mode - For standard keyboard play/performance.
• User Editable Envelope Controls.
• PC Standalone, VST and RTAS Compatibility.
• MAC Standalone, AU, VST, and RTAS Compatibility.

Playa will be available February 1st, 2009 with a MSRP of $149 and a street price of $99.

Koblo Audio Software announces the official release of the Vibra3000 polyphonic, multiple oscillator mini-synthesizer plug-in. The Vibra synthesizer line was known for its unique filters and sound, and was originally part of the Studio9000 bundle distributed by Digidesign.

Koblo’s sound can be found in many trance, breakbeat and techno compositions, but for years, you could only experience this sound on Macintosh’s OS 9 format. Some users have even kept OS 9 systems around to continue getting that Koblo sound!

The Vibra3000 features polyphonic Multiple Stacked Sawtooth Oscillators, A noise generator with sample rate control, a lush filter, and MIDI automation. The Vibra3000’s easy to use interface allows for quick programming of rumbling bass sounds, sizzling synth leads and psychedelic effects.

The Vibra3000 is available in RTAS (Protools), VST and AU formats, and can be used in all major host programs. It retails for $19.95.

Omnisphere is cross-platform, compatible with Apple Macintosh OS X 10.4 and higher as a native Universal Binary and also with Microsoft Windows XP/Vista. Audio Units, VST, and RTAS plug-in formats are supported for compatibility with all major host software.

Here’s their description:

This epic ‘Power Synth’ breaks completely new sonic ground by combining a wide variety of hybrid realtime synthesis techniques, an epic library of remarkable ‘Psychoacoustic’ sounds, and many innovative features that have never been seen before in any hardware or software synthesizer. The new instrument is the first to be based on Spectrasonics newly developed STEAM Engine.

“This is truly an Epic project,” said Eric Persing, Founder and Creative Director of Spectrasonics. “We have been working for many, many years; sampling unique sounds, experimenting, specifying the synthesis features and building the STEAM Engine to run it all. It’s been a very exciting process involving our team of software engineers, sound designers, musicians, and graphic artists from all over the world. We’ve been very deliberate in making it easy to use, and yet extremely powerful. Omnisphere is our new flagship synthesizer, and points the way to all our future virtual instruments. We are thrilled to offer a new product that will have a host of expansion capabilities in the future.”

Omnisphere offers a host of hybrid synthesis and new control capabilities including Variable Waveshaping DSP synthesis, Granular synthesis, Timbre Shifting, FM, polyphonic Ring Modulation, high-resolution streaming Sample Playback, Harmonia, Dual Multimode Filter structure, Chaos Envelopes, an advanced Unison mode, and the innovative Flex-Mod™ modulation routing system – to name a few.

The huge core library of Omnisphere is filled with years of creative sampling experiments and thousands of inspiring patches. Spectrasonics has pioneered several brand-new types of sampling for the core library of this instrument, including unique “Psychoacoustic” sounds and soundsources created with a new Composite Morphing Technique (CMT) – which morphs the harmonic characteristics of one instrument to another. As a bonus, a section of the core library is also devoted to representing the best of Spectrasonics award-winning sample libraries. When all of these organic core library soundsources are combined with the synthesis power of the STEAM engine, the sounds become “alive” in a truly dynamic and expressive way.

Among the many unique features this new multitimbral synth offers are its flexible arpeggiators with the innovative Groove Lock integration with Stylus RMX – allowing the arpeggiator’s pattern to instantly groove with the feel of the RMX drum loop; Live Mode for transitionless patch switching and layering, Stack Mode for powerful performance mapping; and integrated modulatable FX Racks.

Omnisphere is also the successor to Spectrasonics’ popular Atmosphere instrument, and contains enhanced versions of all the classic Atmosphere sounds. However, the brand new core library in Omnisphere is 10-times the size of Atmosphere and features thousands of completely new and different sounds.

There is an upgrade for all Atmosphere customers, available from Spectrasonics Techshop.

Description:

Bitter Sweet II is especially active on loud percussive tracks.

Turning the central button on the sweet side, decreases the transients amplitude. On the bitter side, the transients amplitude is magnified.

Bitter-Sweet also features a control for the signal to be processed. When the main position is engaged, the process affects the stereo signal. If Center is engaged, only the M signal of the internal MS matrix is processed. If stereo is selected, only the S signal from the MS matrix is processed.

As all Flux:: plug-ins it features 64 bit floating point processing, up to 8 channels and up to 8 FS (384 KHz). Center and Stereo Mode are only available in stereo (2 channels) processing.

Softube is now shipping the Tube Delay plug-in for VST, AU and RTAS.

Description:

Tube Delay is a marriage between analog and digital, combining the warmth and natural compression from tubes with the features and versatility of a digital delay. The effect is designed to be perfect for fattening vocal tracks, adding slapback echo to drums, getting a gritty delay for guitars or using it as a dirty tube preamp.

Features:

• Up to 1000 ms delay
• Sync tempo to host
• Vintage style passive EQ
• Tube preamp simulation
• Gritty, distorting feedback

Tube Delay is available now for $99. A fully functional 10 day demo is available.

Digidesign has announced the immediate availability of its Transfuser virtual instrument for Pro Tools.

Transfuser comes with nearly 2 GB of loops and phrases to get users started quickly. By combining a series of modular drum machine/sound generators, dedicated sequencers, loop manipulation tools, and effects with an intuitive drag-and-drop composition/editing interface, users can easily create, manipulate and perform loop- and rhythm-based music on the fly.

“Transfuser is an incredibly fun and creative way to quickly make and manipulate music right in Pro Tools,” says Digidesign’s Dusty DiMercurio. “Many people today rely on audio loops and phrases to create music. Transfuser offers user-friendly tools and a simple workflow that enables anyone to easily remix grooves and create original music from these building blockss.”

Transfuser is available now in RTAS format for both Mac OS X and Windows at a price of $295 / €282.

EZplayer pro is a VST, AU and RTAS plug in for Mac and PC with extended Map Wrapping capabilities between major drum sampler formats in the market. (FXpansion’s BFD 1&2, Digidesign’s Strike, NIs Battery, EZdrummer and Superior Drummer in addition to others).

The new multi track MIDI clip arranger offers time stretching, editing and multi layer arranging of MIDI files. EZplayer pro also has hardware learn features enabling live triggering of MIDI arrangements.

With the release of EZplayer pro Toontrack also starts working more closely with 3rd party MIDI content creators. First out is Groovemonkee that can be easily reached through the help menu in EZplayer pro.

EZplayer Pro is available now for $49 / €39.

Devine Machine has released Krishna, a new virtual synthetizer. It includes a frame-oscillator, 2 analog-oscillators, filters, LFOs, envelop, a sequencer, various effetcs and play-modes, MIDI functions, a preset-manager, and l1146 audio presets, including acoustic bass, World sounds, guitars, leads, pads, sequences, strings and voices.

The price is : 259 euros (box and online version ), 199 euros for online purchase, 35 euros ( 6 months credit), 19 euros (for 12 month credit).

This software will be soon available in AU and RTAS formats.

The synth’s author offers this note on Krishna Synth’s name:

I deeply respect any religion, or belief system. Originally called ‘Krishna’, I added ‘Synth’ to the name to distinguish the synthetizer from Krishna. Even if Krishna is mostly represented with a flute, I hope believers will forgive me to offer him a synthetizer.