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Here is a bit more on the much awaited Roland TD-30KV Electronic V-Drums Kit. I can’t wait until we see this in the shops to try out. I am sure it won’t be long now. In the meantime drool over this massive sound and feel demonstrated by the talented Craig Blundell:-

Here is something close to my heart as I remember how Bass Drum Pedals used to be and how they are today. Jojo Mayer has invented the Perfect Balance Bass Drum Pedal and Sonor Drums have put it into production for his excellent idea. It has taken Jojo quite a few years to design this as he wanted to achieve perfect swing balance of the beater.

His experiece of today’s pedals are that drummers demanded more thrust forward with the beater in order to achieve greater power. The problem with this is that it would need to be out of balance to achieve this and what you had coming back would be a bit “sluggish” as Jojo puts it. I most certainly agree with this because nearly every pedal I have ever owned, I have ended up changing the spring mechanism in order to achieve the feel and response I am seeking. Some pedals give you quite a range of adjustment but somehow they still do not achive that ‘Perfect Balance’

So it is ‘Well Done’ to Jojo for devoting such time to achieve this, perhaps other manufactures will sit up and take note of what drummers really need rather than what they think they need. Have a look at Jojo’s YouTube clip to give you some idea:-

The famous and talented Scott Tibbs performs and shows off the The New Roland Jupiter 50. He makes it look so easy and demonstrates the need to be a technician and not solely a skillfull keyboard player. The sound of the Jupiter 50 sounds very 2012 as it combines synthesis and acoustic instruments with SuperNATURAL sound and Scott uses the on-the-fly controls to show its capabilities. I am looking forward to test drive one of these 76 note keyboards with its user-friendly interface with colour-coded buttons and sliders. I think cost-wise and weight-wise it may well do better than its bigger brother the Roland Jupiter 80. Hopefully we will not have to wait long now before they start showing up in the Music Stores. Excellent demo Scott.

Those clever guys at Crysonic have just released the SPECTRA C2 for Mac and Windows which is a Wideband Audio Compressor Plug-In. They are absolutely convinced that this plug-in is going knock you out and provide you with outstanding results. This Non-Transparent Compressor gives you subtle but exactly the analog characteristics that you want on any signal being processed. It is Zero latency and is ideal in all music production.

With so much going on in the background that you don’t notice with its very fast and user-friendly interface giving you the results you demand instantly and suprisingly, it doesn’t drain too much from your CPU.

You can get it for an incredible $55 if you are very quick but it is going up to $159 from 16th May 2012. More info can be found at www.crysonic.com

New Synth App for the iPad desined by Waldorf and Rolf Wöhrmann

This has made my day – Waldorf who have made some great hardware synths like the Blofeld and the new Pulse 2 as well as Software Synths like the Largo and Lector have now joined up with Rolf Wöhrmann to make a fantastic App for Apple’s iPad, iPad 2 and now iPad3 that should be available to you this Summer.

The iPad is an ideal  platform for wavetable synthesis and will more than likely take it up a notch  to a new level. This will  make it possible to go deep into wavetables and show the sound in 3-D and offer completely new ways for sound creation and manipulation.

This new approach to wavetable synthesis allows for the transposition of the spectrum and the balance of periodic and sound spectra entirely independent from a wave’s position extending the wavetable technology  we have now by two new dimensions. It also allows for formant shifts as well as numerous other unheard sounds and as well as this the number and length of waves in a wavetable will no longer be restricted – Wow

Musicians are MIDI mad and this application will cater for many MIDI interfaces from IK Multimedia, iConnectMIDI, MIDI Mobilizer II by Line6, Alesis ioDock or the Camera Connection Kit by Apple and the SynthStation by Akai. App collaboration standards like Sonoma‘s Audio Copy/Paste, Intua‘s Audio Pasteboard and Virtual Core MIDI will also be supported like the upcoming AudioBus standard and KORG’s WIST synchronization technology.

I am really looking forward to trying this out as I am the Pulse 2 – keep an eye on http://www.waldorfmusic.de/for further information.

Steinberg Cubase 6.5

Things do not stand still and that is true of DAWS. We now have a new release of the famous Cubase. No it is not Cubase 7 (yet), but 6.5. It comes with two new Synths – Retrologue which gives you that old school analog synth sound with 300 presets and Padshop which has two independent layers that are based on an individual oscillator source and generate up to eight different grain streams armed with over 400 presets. This YouTube clip should show you what they are about:-

Musikmesse International Press Award 2012

Here is a great collection of Music Magazines all together. Well this lot do have something in common ……………………..

……………………. they have all voted for the best musical instruments and audio equipment of 2011/2012 in more than 40 categories of the Musikmesse International Press Award (MIPA). The awards have been awarded to some great products, here are just a few :-

Best Workstation – Korg Kronos
Best Synth – Roland Jupiter 80
Best Electronic Drums – Roland TD-30
Best Stage Piano – Clavia Nord Piano 2
Best Controller keyboard – Akai MAX49
Best Software Instrument – Native Instruments Komplete 8
Best Organ / Portable keyboard – Hammond SK-Series
Best Live Perfomance Tool – Native Instruments Maschine
Best Studio Microphone – Microtech Gefell M930TS
Best Studio Monitor – Focal SM9
Best Recording Software – Avid Protools 10

For the full list please go here:- http://www1.mipa-award.de/

Tom Oberheim Two Voice Pro Synthesizer

Yes it looks like something from the 70s but infact it is new for 2012 from the legendary Synth pioneer Tom Oberheim. He has just announced the Oberheim Two Voice Pro Synthesizer, which is a 2012 recreation of the 1975 classic synthesizer.

It features a Mini-Sequencer which has been enhanced, two sequences can be played simultaneously, sequences can be chained into songs, and each step in a song can be programmed for sequence number, transpose amount and number of repeats, the Sequencer syncs to Midi Clock, keyboard outputs velocity and pressure and each module (both SEMs, Mini-Sequencer, Keyboard Control) has mini-jack patch points. You can get more info from Tom at http://www.tomoberheim.com/

Audacity Audio Editor Version 2 – Free

Well here is something that you just got to read. If you are like me and have been using an excellent free piece of software called Audacity, then you will be thrilled to find out that it has just been upgraded to Version 2. Did I also mention that it is free? Those guys on the  Audacity Team deserve a very big “Thank You”

You will probably know that you can do many things with Audacity such as :-  Record live audio ,  Convert tapes and records into digital recordings or CDs ,  Edit Ogg Vorbis, MP3, WAV or AIFF sound files, Cut, copy, splice or mix sounds together,  Change the speed or pitch of a recording and much more.

Some of the major changes in 2.0.0 over 1.2.6 are:

Go on download Version 2 now – you know you want to:-
http://audacity.sourceforge.net/

Musikmesse Roland Jupiter 80 Version 2 and Jupiter 50 and iPad

Here is a great You Tube clip that achieves quite a bit. For a start it provides you with seeing the Jupiter 80 side by side with the new Jupiter 50. It explains what all the fuss is about with Version 2 which is a lovely free update for Jupiter 80 owners and it also highlight the editing capability of an iPad App for use with these monster synths. I must say that I got a feeling of how big the sound can be with these synths. I am looking forward to try out the Jupiter 50 and to see if it meets my live – playing requirements. The keyboard player from France in this clip is excellent, see what you think but I certainly enjoyed this one:-