Latest Music Software News
- Nassen RaX'n'TraX 1.4.9 2 Sep 2010, 4:35 pm
Nassen has updated RaX'n'TraX to version 1.4.9. - Kuassa Amplifikation One Update 2 Sep 2010, 4:33 pm
Kuassa has updated Amplifikation One to v1.1. - Plektron Guitar Amp Update 2 Sep 2010, 4:32 pm
Plektron has announced an update to its Guitar Amp amplifier simulator and multi-fx plug-in for Windows. - Hidenori Matsuoka Guitar Kit 2 Sep 2010, 4:31 pm
Hidenori Matsuoka has announced the release of Guitar Kit, a tool for searching guitar chord fingering patterns on the iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad. - Peavey AmpKit, AmpKit+ & AmpKit LiNK 2 Sep 2010, 4:22 pm
Peavey Electronics and Agile Partners have announced that the AmpKit and AmpKit+ Apps are available now on the Apple iTunes App Store. - Ohm Force Studio Teaser 4 2 Sep 2010, 2:31 pm
Part 4 of a 5 part series demonstrating Ohm's Studio- an online collaborative sequencer. - AudioSpillage updates DrumSpillage to v1.1 2 Sep 2010, 7:54 am
2nd September 2010: AudioSpillage has updated its DrumSpillage percussion synth plug-in to version 1.1. New Features: Improved support for automation recording and editing. Choke groups (12 groups ava. […] - Nassen updates RaX'n'TraX to v1.4.9 2 Sep 2010, 7:49 am
2nd September 2010: Nassen has updated RaX'n'TraX to version 1.4.9. Changes since v1.4.1: Drag "Key"-event to MONO panel. Extended window to draw Notes/Velocities in MONO panel (double-click on Note/V. […] - Sonic Reality releases Neil Peart Drums Vol. 1: The Kit 2 Sep 2010, 7:35 am
2nd September 2010: Sonic Reality has announced the release of Neil Peart Drums Vol. 1: The Kit, a music software recreation of the massive DW drum kit of legendary drummer of Rush, Neil Peart. It com. […] - HyperSynth releases SIDizer 2 Sep 2010, 7:30 am
2nd September 2010: HyperSynth has announced the release of SIDizer, a new emulation of the legendary SID chip in the form of a modern software synthesizer plug-in. Using circuit modeling technology,. […]
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Audacity is a free, easy-to-use audio editor and recorder for Windows, Mac OS X, GNU/Linux, and other operating systems. You can use Audacity to:
- Record live audio.
- Convert tapes and records into digital recordings or CDs.
- Edit Ogg Vorbis, MP3, and WAV sound files.
- Cut, copy, splice, and mix sounds together.
- Change the speed or pitch of a recording.
Features:
Recording
Audacity can record live audio through a microphone or mixer, or digitize recordings from cassette tapes, vinyl records, or minidiscs. With some sound cards, it can also capture streaming audio.
- Record from microphone, line input, or other sources.
- Dub over existing tracks to create multi-track recordings.
- Record up to 16 channels at once (requires multi-channel hardware).
- Level meters can monitor volume levels before, during, and after recording.
Import and Export
Import sound files, edit them, and combine them with other files or new recordings. Export your recordings in several common file formats.
- Import and export WAV, AIFF, AU, and Ogg Vorbis files.
- Import MPEG audio (including MP2 and MP3 files) with libmad.
- Export MP3s with the optional LAME encoder library.
- Create WAV or AIFF files suitable for burning to CD.
- Import and export all file formats supported by libsndfile.
- Open raw (headerless) audio files using the “Import Raw” command.
- Note: Audacity does not currently support WMA, AAC, or most other proprietary or restricted file formats.
Editing
- Easy editing with Cut, Copy, Paste, and Delete.
- Use unlimited Undo (and Redo) to go back any number of steps.
- Very fast editing of large files.
- Edit and mix an unlimited number of tracks.
- Use the Drawing tool to alter individual sample points.
- Fade the volume up or down smoothly with the Envelope tool.
Effects
- Change the pitch without altering the tempo, or vice-versa.
- Remove static, hiss, hum, or other constant background noises.
- Alter frequencies with Equalization, FFT Filter, and Bass Boost effects.
- Adjust volumes with Compressor, Amplify, and Normalize effects.
- Other built-in effects include:
- Echo
- Phaser
- Wahwah
- Reverse
Sound Quality
- Record and edit 16-bit, 24-bit, and 32-bit (floating point) samples.
- Record at up to 96 KHz.
- Sample rates and formats are converted using high-quality resampling and dithering.
- Mix tracks with different sample rates or formats, and Audacity will convert them automatically in realtime.
Plug-Ins
- Add new effects with LADSPA plugins.
- Audacity includes some sample plugins by Steve Harris.
- Load VST plugins for Windows and Mac, with the optional VST Enabler.
- Write new effects with the built-in Nyquist programming language.
Analysis
- Spectrogram mode for visualizing frequencies.
- “Plot Spectrum” command for detailed frequency analysis.
Free and Cross-Platform
- Licensed under the GNU General Public License (GPL).
- Runs on Mac OS X, Windows, and GNU/Linux.
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Ardour is a digital audio workstation. You can use it to record, edit and mix multi-track audio. You can produce your own CDs, mix video soundtracks, or just experiment with new ideas about music and sound.
Ardour capabilities include: multichannel recording, non-destructive editing with unlimited undo/redo, full automation support, a powerful mixer, unlimited tracks/busses/plugins, timecode synchronization, and hardware control from surfaces like the Mackie Control Universal. If you’ve been looking for a tool similar to ProTools, Nuendo, Pyramix, or Sequoia, you might have found it.
Above all, Ardour strives to meet the needs of professional users. This means implementing all the “hard stuff” that other DAWs ( even some leading commercial apps ) handle incorrectly or not at all. Ardour has a completely flexible “anything to anywhere” routing system, and will allow as many physical I/O ports as your system allows. Ardour supports a wide range of audio-for-video features such as video-synced playback and pullup/pulldown sample rates. You will also find powerful features such as “persistent undo”, multi-language support, and destructive track punching modes that aren’t available on other platforms.
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NOTE: THIS IS THE ‘FREE’ VERSION, AND IS LIMITED TO 8 TRACKS.
MU.LAB is a state of the art, ultra-light music application, designed to compose & perform music of different styles and flavors.
MU.LAB does not have a complex feature set, in which you can get lost.
At the contrary, MU.LAB is an easy yet rock-solid musical tool.
MU.LAB’s core feature set:
- Audio Recording & Playback
- MIDI Recording & Playback
- Flexible Composition & Sequence Editing
- Supports Audio and MIDI VST Plugins
- Powerful Audio and MIDI Plugin Routing (up to 100% modular if you want)
- Integrated MuSynth: Powerful Modular Sound Engine
- Integrated MUX: Powerful Modular Audio/MIDI Effect Engine
- Integrated Audio Effects:
- MuVerb: Very Nice Sounding Reverb
- Stereo Echo: Very Versatile Stereo Echo
- Multi Mode Filter: Very Versatile Audio Filter
- And many more MUX patches!
- Audio Engine using 32 bit floats, all usable samplerates
- Sample Accurate Sequencing
- Multi Undo/Redo
- Available for OSX (Universal Binary) and Windows
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MRP Sequencer is a software step sequencer conceptually very similar to vintage analogue step sequencers such as the ARP 1601/1603 and Korg SQ10, and recent digitally controlled step sequencers such as the Frostwave Fatcontroller and Colin Fraser’s P3.
MRP Sequencer goes a little beyond the feature set of most step sequencers.
* sequences of up to 64 steps
* track count limited only by processing power
* output MIDI port and channel can be set per step
* select-modify paradigm enables any set of steps to be
* affected by editing operations extensive randomisation/variation functions
* graphic user interface
* text user interface enables full scripting
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Ecasound is a software package designed for multitrack audio processing. It can be used for simple tasks like audio playback, recording and format conversions, as well as for multitrack effect processing, mixing, recording and signal recycling. Ecasound supports a wide range of audio inputs, outputs and effect algorithms. Effects and audio objects can be combined in various ways, and their parameters can be controlled by operator objects like oscillators and MIDI-CCs. A versatile console mode user-interface is included in the package.
Key Features:
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Novel user-interface concept
- What makes Ecasound unique is its non-graphical user-interface. The basic working principle of ecasound is similar to the widely used gdb (software debugging) and mysql (database admin) tools. Ecasound allows the user to perform most common tasks directly from the terminal console. Repeating or otherwise complicated tasks can be easily turned into shell scripts or ECI apps. Ecasound tries to follow the time-tested UNIX design practises - see for example The Art of UNIX Programming by Eric S. Raymond.
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Highly optimized real-time engine
- Ecasound’s engine has been developed with real-time reliability as the top priority. The engine clearly separates real-time safe subsystems from non-RT subsystems such as storage access, user-interface code and memory management. This allows Ecasound to deliver reliable playback and recording in all circumstances - even under significant system load.
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Ability to adapt to runtime environment
- Ecasound will automatically adjust buffering parameters and other performance related options based on analysis of runtime environment and the requested task. Ecasound does not require you to run it with special privileges, but if available (for example the permission to utilize real-time scheduling), Ecasound will take full advantage and choose more aggressive parameters allowing to further minimize processing latencies while at the same time not risking reliability.
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Support for new Linux audio technology
- Ecasound has mature support for JACK audio server (including full transport support), LADSPA effect plugins and ALSA kernel sound subsystem. Ecasound developers are active members of the Linux audio development community.
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Portability and minimal external dependencies
- Ecasound runs on various operating systems (GNU/Linux, FreeBSD, Mac OS X, Solaris, Cygwin/win32) and architectures (IA32, PowerPC, ARM, SPARC). Ecasound implements most of its core functionality without relying on external packages. Although Ecasound can utilize numerous external packages, they are all optional. As a mimimum, Ecasound needs POSIX (with 1003.1c thread support) and ANSI C++ runtimes.
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With the Finale Reader you can:
- Open and view any Finale family or MusicXML file
- Play the file with more than 128 built-in sounds
- Print engraver-quality sheet music
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Monkey Machine is an online drum machine intented for music practice purposes. It has sample accurate timing, online beat database, and tap tempo.
Drum samples have been acquired from the excellent nskit7_free drumkit by Natural Studio.
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Denemo is a music notation program for Linux that helps you quickly prepare notation for publishing with Lilypond. Denemo does NOT strive to display all notation graphically or be the most complete graphic enviroment. Denemo is a front end to Lilypond. If you are looking for a WYSIWYG editor Denemo may not be for you. If you are looking for a way to quickly prepare scores for final editing in LilyPond give Denemo a whirl
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VirtMus (virtual music) is a free application that allows the user to display sheet music and turn pages without removing the hands (or feet) from the instrument the music is performed on. This feature is very useful during concerts and practice sessions as it allows the musician to focus on performing the music without interruption. The software also allows the users to store and organize their entire sheet music collection on a laptop, making it fully portable and available at a click of a button. See the ScreenShots if you want to see how it looks, or have a look at the DesignPrinciples to see some of the distinguishing features.
Music stands are usually able to accomodate at most a single book or 2-3 pages of loose leaf music at once. When performing a longer piece of music, the musician must often move one of the hands away from the instrument to turn the pages. This interupts the performance and breaks the flow of music especially when the page turn occurs during a musically demanding passage.
This software allows the user to create “songs” out of sheet music images obtained from a scanner, digital camera, or pdf, and “PlayLists” out of the “songs”. During a performance, the user can simply press a mouse button to move to the next / previous page or press various keyboard keys to advance the music.
USB foot switches are available which emulate mouse button presses thus freeing the hands to play the instrument. Even without a FootSwitch, using a laptop display avoids the problem of books that don’t stay open, or loose leaf pages that fly off the music stand when the wind (or HVAC unit) blows.
