Developer Dan Nigrin has announced that his software Klee Sequencer is now available. The app, available for Mac and Windows, is a software version of the Klee step sequencer.

Features:

• MIDI output to any hardware or software synths
• Internal or MIDI clock control
• 10 preset slots for instant recall of parameters
• Presets can be saved to and loaded from disk
• Built-in clock divide capability
• Synchronous load – loading of pattern happens on clock pulses, and not in between
• Load on Play feature to allow for loading of pattern each time clock started
• MIDI-controllable baseline note
• Custom definable note range allows for alternative scales

Klee Sequencer retails for $40. 15% of the net proceeds go to support electro-music.com. A demo version is available.

WOK has announced ClockWOrK, a MIDI step sequencer plug-in for Windows that promises to let you create hypnotic sequences like Klaus Schulze or Tangerine Dream.

Here’s an audio demo:

ClockWOrK Features:

• Clear and easy interface
• Number of steps selectable (up to 16)
• Note per step selectable from 3 octaves with display
• Additional row for velocity or MIDI CC
• Each step can be muted or skipped (!)
• Sequence transpose by MIDI input
• Selectable speed (clock divide)
• Manual step thru the sequence with button or MIDI key
• Reset to a specific step manually or on bar start
• Play only when MIDI key is pressed
• Random play
• Supports automation by your host (like “Learn” in Reaper or Energy or Novation Automap)
• MIDI-ouput; any plugin or synthesizer can be used as sound source

ClockWOrK will be available as a VST instrument plug-in for Windows PC. No release date has been announced.

via rekkerd

Five12 has released v2.2 of Numerology, their software step-sequencer for Mac OS X.

Updates include a Pitch Glide option for easily adding pitch bends to monophonic sequences, access to the OS X speech synthesizer and expanded support for the Audio Unit plugins Volta from MOTU and Silent Way from Expert Sleepers.

Numerology retails for $119.

Details:

The Pitch Glide feature in Numerology’s MonoNote sequencing module lets users easily add pitch bends to acid-style monophonic sequences.

The new speech synthesis option in Numerology 2.2 gives users direct access to OS X’s built-in speech synthesizer. Implemented through a new “Speak” option on the Audio Sample module, users can enter the text to be spoken and choose from any of the twenty-four built-in voices in OS X.

Numerology 2.2 adds built-in support for MOTU’s Volta and Expert Sleepers’ Silent Way by providing expanded audio routing options and direct conversion from Numerology’s internal CV signals to the automation inputs of each plugin. The ability to directly pipe CV signals from Numerology to analog equipment, without the resolution and data-rate limitations of MIDI, expands the compositional options available to analog synthesists.

This video demos 12Step – a neural sequencer developed by Ted Hayes at the Interactive Telecommunications Program (ITP) for New Instruments for Musical Expression (NIME).

Software used: Puredata 0.41.4-extended, Ableton Live 8, Native Instruments Akoustik Piano.

via Tedb0t:

first iteration of software model with manual (software) input, demonstrating high-weight selection, multiple concurrent sequences, weight randomization and mode changes.

Philip Glass & Steve Reich, eat yr heart out X-)

Part 2 below.

Click here to view the embedded video.

First step: You have to admit you are powerless over hypnotic minimal musical sequences….

Sony

Update features include event-based editing, the élastique time stretch and pitch shift plug-in, interactive tutorials and a mastering effects bundle.

Details below.

If you’ve used Sony Sound Forge Pro 10, leave a comment with your thoughts!

New Features:

• Event-based editing is ideal for precise audio mastering, assembling project sketches, or laying out tracks for authoring disc-at-once CDs. In Sound Forge 10, users can quickly move, split, slip, and trim events, create fades, apply ASR envelopes and crossfades within in a single data window for more precise audio control.
• Integrated disc-at-once CD burning results in time savings and provides a more efficient workflow when generating Red Book compliant disc-at-once premasters of music suitable for professional replication. Perform full PQ code editing, create live-style CDs, add CD text and metadata, and use high-resolution source audio with precise conversion to Red Book audio.
• The élastique time stretch and pitch shift plug-in provides better sounding audio when processing audio files. Users can also monitor and adjust settings while previewing in real-time, and select from various stretching methods that are tailored to their source audio including Pro, Soloist, and Efficient modes.
• The iZotope 64-bit SRC utilizes a hybrid low pass filter design, resulting in pristine audio with less aliasing converting material from one sampling rate to another. The iZotope MBIT+ dither employs psychoacoustic methods to distribute noise into less audible ranges, resulting in improved audio and smoother fades when converting the bit rates of audio files.
• Musical instrument file processing (.DLS, .SF2, .GIG) – Sound Forge Pro 10 software opens, processes, and saves DLS, GigaStudio/GigaSampler, and SoundFont 2.0 musical instrument files. Users can view bank, instrument, note range, and sample information. Effects and processes can easily be added directly to samples.
• Customizable window layouts are designed to maximize productivity by allowing users to create and save multiple unique interface layout configurations for single and dual monitor systems, and recall a window layout for specific editing tasks such as audio editing, CD layout, and multichannel file editing.
• Mastering Effects Bundle 2 powered by iZotope – The powerful bundle of audio mastering tools included with Sound Forge 10 is valued at over $200 and includes six professional plug-ins to expertly master and enhance audio production: Mastering EQ, Mastering Reverb, Multiband Compressor, Mastering Limiter, Stereo Imager, and Harmonic Exciter.
• Interactive tutorials – Sony Creative Software’s unique interactive tutorials provide walkthrough demonstrations of common features and functionality, including DAO CD burning, vinyl recording and restoration in order to help users spend less time learning and more time editing and mastering audio projects.

Price and Availability

The Sound Forge Pro 10 digital audio production software is now available in English and Japanese. The Manufacturer’s Suggested Retail Price (MSRP) for Sound Forge Pro 10 software is U.S. $499.

We have been collecting free or demo Reason Refills for over 7 years and of course we are happy to share them with the rest of the world.

All Reason Refills you will find on this site are non-pirated this means that they are free to use in your music production, however we of course encourage you to visit the orginal sites for more information where available.

They’ve already published a couple dozen files, so check them out if you’re a Propellerhead Reason user.

Apple

Like the new version of Logic Pro Studio, Logic Express 9 adds a variety of features for guitarists and flex time, Apple’s tools for editing the timing and tempo of recorded audio.

Features include:

• More than 70 studio-quality effect plug-ins, including vintage and modern compressors, delays, reverbs, and more;
• New Amp Designer plug-in to help you re-create the sound of 25 legendary amps and 25 speaker cabinets;
• New Pedalboard plug-in with an assortment of 30 virtual stompbox pedals inspired by the classics;
• 36 software instrument plug-ins, including the Ultrabeat drum synth and beatbox, ES2 synth, and EXS24 sampler.

At$199.99, and featuring most of the power of the very competitively priced Logic Pro, Logic Express 9 may be the best deal in entry-level DAWs.

If you’ve used Logic Express 9, leave a comment with your thoughts!

The d-touch sequencer and the d-touch drum machine are tangible instruments that you can print from your Mac or PC and then play.

About D-Touch Instruments

The audio d-touch interactive surface consists of a simple printed piece of paper. The movable physical objects are marked using labels, also printed on normal paper. The computer observes the blocks and the paper through a low cost web-cam, and thanks to the d-touch marker recognition algorithm it can localize them precisely. The information about the position and orientation of each block is used to control a digital audio synthesis process. The system was designed to be extremely low cost, robust and easy to set up, which makes it possible to fully and freely release it for download.

he instruments are fully and freely available for download (Registration needed).

Audio d-touch is a collection of applications for real-time musical composition and performance, with very special user interfaces. The collection includes a drum machine and a sampling sequencer, both are controlled by spatially arranging physical objects on an interactive table surface. Each object represents a sound, and its position with respect to the surface is mapped to certain playback parameters. For example, the horizontal position of an object represents the timing of the sound.

All is needed to get audio d-touch to work is a standard computer (PC or Mac) with a webcam and a printer.

This video offers a short introduction to Eloquence, a new MIDI-Step-Sequencer from Sugar Bytes.

Eloquence retails for 99€ / 129USD. Registered ERA users will receive a crossgrade offer for 69€ / 89USD.

Eloquence Features:

Sequencer Tracks

• Pitch – The pitch sequencer works in relation to the root key and transposes it by +/- 12 semitones. It can work in chromatic mode or in scaled mode which expands the tonal capabilities a lot. In addition, the pitch sequencer has a flexible recording function.
• Lock – Lock is part of the pitch sequencer. An active step deactivates the midi transposing. This is useful for keeping important notes and chords in key while transposing the sequence.
• Gate – The Gate Sequencer creates notes and determines their velocity.
• Mute – The Mute Sequencer is part of the Gate Sequencer and mutes the selected step.
• Gate Time – The Gate Time Sequencer determines how long a note is held. Notes can be held up to four times the duration of a step.
• Octave – This sequencer moves the pitch the pitch by +/- 2 octaves.
• Pitchbend – Here you can select from 12 pitch bend figures to be engaged.
• Chord – A Chord is generated using the current note in the pitch sequencer as the root note. Six Variations and four wrap-arounds for major and minor plus six special chords like diminished and augmented are available.
• Break – This sequencer lets you set a multi-trigger at 2, 3, or 4 times the normal sequencer speed, playing the current scale up or downwards or just repeating the current note. 18 breaks are available.
• Random – Each sequencer step can be replaced by a random value. Minor and major chords can be individually randomized to maintain the harmonic structure.

Action Section

• Gatetime – The Gate Time can be increased or decreased, depending on how long you press the button.
• Velo Gate – The note will only play if it is above the selected velocity threshold.
• Looper – The selected part of the sequence will be looped.
• Slowdown – The sequence slows down until it come to a dead stop.
• Retrigger – Re-trigger the sequence by re-triggerpressing the button; upon release, the sequencer continues at its normal position.
• Halftime – The sequence will play at half speed.
• Octave Up – The sequence will play one octave higher as long as you press the button.
• Mute – Mutes all data output.

Specials

• Internal synthesizer to create patterns on the fly.
• Special workaround for sending MIDI with the AU plugin.
• Instant keyboard control for Transpose, Pattern Select, Action Section.
• Pattern Sequencer.
• Sample-accurate timing.
• Individual trigger and sync options, swing function.

Eloquence is available for Windows and Mac (VST/AU) for 99 EUR / $129 USD.

Sugar Bytes’ Eloquence is a powerful MIDI step sequencer plugin that gives you control over just about all aspects of your favorite MIDI devices.

Description:

Use Eloquence to create varied and organic bass lines, screaming leads, pulsating chords, and organic pad sounds in the studio or on stage.

For live musicians, Eloquence provides an extremely versatile palette of performance options which can be triggered right from your MIDI keyboard: you can transpose, manipulate, twist up, mutate, and mangle your patterns without even getting near your computer.

Eloquence is a plugin which can be used with any major Windows or Mac VST or AU host. This includes Cubase, Logic, Kore, and Ableton Live, among others. It is 100% MIDI compliant.

Eloquence will be released on August 15 and will cost 99€ / 129USD. Registered ERA users will receive a crossgrade offer for 69€ / 89USD.

Josh Clos produced this documentary short about John Keston and his Gestural Music Sequencer or GMS.

Of the Gestural Music Sequencer, Keston says, “I’m considering releasing a beta version of the application in a few months. Soon afterward I plan to release the code as Open Source so that the application can be developed further by artists interested in creating music through gestural input.”

Anyone interested?

See the GMS tag at AudioCookBook for more details.

Mrac Labs has launched Symbolic Composer 6.0.5 Mac and Symbolic Composer 6.0.1 Windows – now with support for making music from the signals from NASA satellites.

Symbolic Composer 6 is one of the largest high-level music language available, and it is context-free, which means it suits any style. It is based on a written language based on standards, and it also includes a complete collection of mathematical libraries, together with integrated LISP programming environment to make hacks.

Recent additions include musical Space-Weather Monitoring, H1N1 sequence handling and eval-definition & process-evaluation.

“Now SCOM includes NASA Satellites in the composer’s toolbox. The interface functions enables you to read realtime data from NOAA, Space Weather Prediction Center. Values are returned as vectors, that can easily be converted to melodic lines, and other compositional parameters”, explains composer Janusz Podrazik.

ACE Satellite Solar Wind Electron Proton Alpha Monitor interface reads solar wind proton density and speed. ACE Satellite Magnetometer interface reads x, y and z component strengths of earth’s magnetic field.

What does it mean for a composer not familiar in Astronomy?

“Solar Wind and Earth’s Magnetic Field protect our planet from Cosmic Radiation. Sun modulates everything on Earth, no matter if it is a Revolution, or a War triggered by Sunspot Activity, or increase/decrease of activity causing Ice-Age, or Climate Warming or Evolution Jumps, not to mention Potential Catastrophic Plasma-Eruptions as warned by NASA, historically documented in the cave-art in ten thousands of years ago”, developer Peter Stone comments.

“Set your controls to the sun. If you look for novelty ideas for music, specially if the target is in 2012-boom/doom new-age scenarios.”

Other realtime sources of interest are 3-5 minute captures of Moscow Neutron Monitor, Sweden Kiruna Magnetosphere, global economy stocks, or H1N1 genetic sequences.

Details on this release of Symbolic Composer below.

SCOM The Music Language

• Music Language, that allows composing music of any style and complexity.
• Historical & Contemporary Music functions supply the classic compositional tools.
• Complete Chord, Scale and Microtonal libraries, and you are free to discover your own ones, too.
• Mathematical Generators & Processors provide advanced fractals, chaos and number-theory functions.
• Symbolic Generators & Processors allow recursion, l-systems, fibonacci, and other special solutions.
• Programmable Neurons supply added intelligence to instrumentation.
• Programmable Phrase Library allows sequential drum and chording pattern generation.
• Standard MIDI file output. This makes SCOM a perfect partner no matter of the software and hardware you are working with.
• Build-in HyperHelp & Search helps using the system.
• Over 1000 Algorithms included, each freely combinable to each other for exponential creative freedom.
  System Requirements

Mac OS 8-9, OSX, PPC and Intel Mac, 1024-4096 MB RAM
Windows 1024-4096 MB RAM

Authorization

SCOM runs first on Demo Mode, which cancels most functions. Full interface and documentation can be browsed. Authorization restores full functionality.

via Thomas Dolby

Experimental Scene has released DarkWave Studio, a Windows app designed for the composition, synthesis and recording of digital music, as a free and open-source application.

Details below.

Features:

• Virtual Studio – Wire Machines Together As If You Were Using Real Hardware
• Pattern Editor – Quickly Create And Modify Musical Notes In A Piano Roll Interface
• Sequence Editor – Arrange Patterns Into A Song
• Multitrack Hard Disk Recorder – Record Multiple Tracks To Disk For Post Production
• 32-bit Floating Point Internal Audio Path – High Quality Sound Processing
• SSE and SSE2 Optimizations – Blazing Performance On Recent Processors
• Assembly Language Optimizations – Blazing Performance Even On 32-bit Systems
• Native 64-bit and 32-bit Platform Support
• VST PlugIn Support – Limitlessly Expandable With Virtual Instruments and Effects
• ASIO Audio Driver Support – Low Latency Output For Live Performance

Bundled PlugIns:

• MIDI Input – Play Instruments From A Music Keyboard
• ES Mixer – 8 Track Stereo Mixer With 2 Auxilary Tracks, For Mixing And Production
• ES DGenR8 – Synthesize Drum Beats With Roland TR-909 Flavour
• ES BassHead – Top Notch Virtual Analog Subtractive Synthesizer
• ES SpatialVerb – Realistic Reverb Effects With The Smoothest Sound
• ES Stomp – Synthesize That Classic Techno Thumping Kick Drum
• ES AntiAlias – Filter Digital Audio To Make It More Like Analog
• ES QuadDelay – For Trippy Echo Effects

Download here.

If you’ve used DarkWave Studio, leave a comment with your thoughts!

This video explains how to chop up vocals for dance music production using Propellerhead Reason 4.

This demo video introduces SONAR 8’s TS64-Transient Shaper and the effects it has on various instrument loops.

The above video demonstrates the $.99 SonicLife (App Store Link) application for iPhone / iPod Touch, triggering drum samples in Ableton Live with the help of OSCulator.

SonicLife is a creative, interactive controller for iPhone / iPod Touch that sends Open Sound Control messages over a Wi-Fi network using the UDP protocol.

The application runs a simple cellular automaton on a grid of cells. The cells can be interacted with by touch and triggers of three different colors can be placed on the grid. The automaton can be set to five different rule-sets, from classic Game of Life to simple horizontal or vertical stepping. Triggers are fired by “alive” cells and send their state as OSC messages to a configurable host on the same Wi-Fi network. Cells and triggers can be randomized by shaking the device.

More information here.

2008 Summer NAMM Show: MOTU has unveiled version 6 of Digital Performer.

Digital Performer 6 offers new features, enhanced operation and improved performance at all levels, from hundreds of small enhancements driven by user requests to major new features and plug-ins.

Features like track comping transform everyday work, while DP6’s new Final Cut Pro integration “could very well transform the way film scoring is done”, according to MOTU.

New features include:

• New user interface
• Streamlined operation
• Track comping
• MasterWorks Leveler plug-in
• ProVerb plug-in
• Film scoring enhancements
• Final Cut Pro integration
• Expanded audio file support
• Enhanced Pro Tools | HD support
• Enhanced plug-in operation
• Enhanced softsynth operation
• Direct audio CD burning
• DP6 productivity enhancements

Upgrades start at $195.00; competitive upgrades are $395.00.

Details are available at the MOTU site.

Frankenloop is a “step sequencer with a twist” — probability settings for each step so that it sounds different each time.

It’s created by Peter Dines, and it’s released a ShareAlike Creative Commons license. Download at the Noisepages site.

Atomic is a 16 step sequencer composing tool with a built in synth that also has the ability to control other softsynths or even hardware via its MIDI out function.

The design is circular, inspired by step sequencers such as the Buchla Arbitrary Function Generator and Future Retro Revolution.

You can preview Atomic below:

Sequencer:

• 16 step sequencer in a circular design with 3 rows: seminotes, velocity
• and gate.
• BPM Rate with 5 modes including random.
• Separate rhythm grid.
• Advanced arpeggiator with separate rate, 5 modes with gate and octave controls.
• Latch mode for continuous play.
• MIDI Out for use in modular hosts which also includes LFO’s and
• step modulators to control external vst’s or hardware.

Synth:

• 2 Oscillators with 14 waveforms including additive partials.
• Separate phase controls, detune and octave as well as harmonic tuning mode.
• VCF with 4 filter types with velocity control.
• 2 dedicated envelope generators, one for amp and one for filter.
• 2 LFOs, Sub Oscillator, Step Modulator, Random Generator and Keyboard control
• with zone and mod wheel assign which includes sequencer controls for step and
• rate.
• Comprehensive mod matrix.

Effects

• X-Y delay with separate multimode filters which can be modulated via mod matrix.
• Spacial stereo reverb
• Phaser with wide sweeping range.
• Master section with volume, pan and tuning
• CC map for hardware MIDI knob controllers.