Producerino

Another sweet freebie from Sample Science: Rusty Piano, a free lo-fi acoustic piano plugin (64-bit VST/AU).

Rusty Piano is a lo-fi acoustic piano with a lot of character and charm. Recorded hot on purpose, Rusty Piano has a very saturated and thick sound. It’s the perfect piano sound for “rougher” music genres like indie rock, lo-fi hip-hop, free jazz, rock’n’roll, etc.

So you get a nice lo-fi, one-sample-per-note, multi-sampled acoustic piano tweakable with multi-LFO, hi/lowpass filters, reverb, amplitude range controls and the ability to switch between polyphonic/monophonic and legato all for the nice price of nothing.

Download Rusty Piano from Sample Science ($0)

Here’s Arturia MicroLab, a small and portable MIDI 25-key controller targeted to anyone looking for something with either a small footprint or just being able to bring your controller wherever you go.

Besides the 25 velocity sensitive keys it got smart features like a small dent around the rubberised casing where you can safely store the usb cable when not in use, chord mode and touch strips for pitch bend and modulation.

Read more about the MicroLab at Arturia.com ($89)

Envision Sound has started a Kickstarter crowdfunding campaign to make Strata a reality. They call this controller a control system more than just another MIDI controller since it has two parts: the MIDI controller (with plenty of pads and knobs) and the nativeKONTROL scripting which handles the midi data between the controller and Ableton Live.

Envision Sound asserts that Strata’s unique approach improves the fluidity and possibilities of music creation and performance in ways otherwise not currently available.

The Kickstarter campaign is set to start at October 1st.

Read more on envision-sound.tech

Plogue – makers of the incredible Chipsounds plug – announced a new synth plug, the Chipsynth MD. It’s a 16 bit four operator polyphonic FM synth that’ll bring back the sounds of the classic Sega Mega Drive / Genesis as it emulates the classic OPN2 (YM2612) with a SN76489 compatible square wave core.

‘The Mega Drive™ – also known as Genesis™ – is a much beloved console system that brought the bright and sparkly sound of FM to the masses. It resulted in the creation of numerous fast paced and exciting soundtracks, and it still drives the creativity of composers to this day.

Since Plogue promises this thing to be bit accurate it also comes with a complimentary VGM file player so you can load up those classic Sonic tunes and see how exact it is yourself (and maybe rip some classic presets out… who knows).

Read more about the Chipsynth MD on Plogue.com

Now this is interesting! Native Instruments teases us with a new generation of their incredibly popular synth Massive dubbed Massive X. The new version will co-exist with the current Massive plug and will be released in February 2019.

Massive X will sport a new sound engine that takes advantage of modern CPUs, a big modular engine, plenty of effects and new subtractive filters. Judging by the quick view we get of it in the video below it looks like the UI is completely revamped and probably a bit more user friendly.

The current version of Massive will continue to get updates though, so don’t fret if you don’t want to upgrade.

With a next generation sound engine, state of the art components, and new effects, MASSIVE X will ensure your music stays on the cutting edge for the next decade.

Read more at native-instruments.com

KORG’s nanoseries celebrates ten years with a set of limited edition controllers (nanoKEY2, nanoPAD2, and nanoKONTROL2). The blue and yellow models are meant to fit perfectly with Korg Gadget (their iOS/Mac DAW software) and the brown/yellow are meant to fit Ableton Live users.

Besides color matching nicely with your daw they come with downloadable codes for the Korg software bundle and a 20% discount coupon for Korg Gadget for Mac OS X.

Read more at Korg.com

Zero-G just released Hauntology, a 3.2GB sample library filled with organic electronic samples created by composer/producer Si Begg.

Read the whole post “Zero-G Hauntology: Organic Electronica Sample Library”

Soundtheory just released Gullfoss (named after that huge waterfall in Iceland btw), an intelligent automatic equalizer plugin that uses “unique computational auditory perception technology” to identify and resolve problems in your track or mix.

Read the whole post “Soundtheory Gullfoss: Intelligent Automatic Equalizer Plugin”

Step aside, Nintendo Labo, here’s KAMI-OTO; a DIY midi keyboard you fold yourself out of prime cardboard.

The KAMI-OTO is the brainchild of Reo Nagumo who created Beatmania 20 years ago, these days he runs a company called Yudo and this project is now up on Kickstarter (it still needs a few bucks to reach the goal though). Based on Japanese origami you get the cardboard body and keys ready to be folded, then just add the silicone contacts and main board and you’re ready to go.

Read the whole post “KAMI-OTO: A DIY Cardboard MIDI Keyboard”

Serato has changed the name of their flagship DJ software, going from simply Serato DJ to Serato DJ Pro.

So, basically, Serato DJ Pro is a free update if you already got a Serato DJ license – all supported hardware will still work and so will your existing expansion packs. What’s new is that they reset the trial period, so if you tried it before and want to have a go again you’re all set to do so, added 64-bit support (better performance and no limit on library size) AND they’ve added a new mode called Practice Mode (ta-daaa!).

Read the whole post “Serato Updates DJ Pro, No Need For Hardware”