Rhythmic Robot has released the Loopscape Tape Loop Synthesizer, a sound library for Native Instruments Kontakt.
Inspired by the experimental soundscapes produced by 70s pioneers like Brian Eno, Loopscape is a synthesiser that creates endlessly modulating, evolving complexities of sound from raw waveforms recorded onto looped sections of audio tape.
It is richly warm, thoroughly analogue, and every sonic inch of it has been printed to oxide and passed across the playback heads of vintage tape gear of the past. This is the sound of science meeting art: the depth of analogue synthesis run through real tape spools. And look – it’s covered in knobs and sliders, too!
Loopscape creates a sound so dense, rich and evolving that one single held note will quite simply not repeat its sonic fingerprint for thousands of years.
Loopscape features
Three virtual Tape Loops running 24-bit recordings of real analog tape.
Each Loop can be loaded with Saw, Double Saw, Triangle, Square, Sine or Noise waveforms.
Each Loop can have its length chosen from 0.5, 0.66, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13 and 17 seconds.
Each Loop has a switchable High / Low pass resonant filter.
Each Loop has four LFOs: Filter, Amp 1, Amp 2 and Pitch.
LFO wave shapes can be chosen from Sine, Triangle, Sawtooth, Square and Random.
Full AHDSR envelopes for each Loop.
Global tape-based Effects section with Saturation, Chorus, Flanger and Delay.
Loopscape for Kontakt is available to purchase for £34.95 GBP.
Roland Kuit has announced SoundLab II, a new e-book on modular sound design.
New tools to individualism. While making these patches I became aware of the fact that there are so many fields, like e.g. astronomy, mathematics, DNA research, IT development and neurotransmitters, with comparable functionality. It is in the way these fields are organized that we can recognize patterns.
What amazes me is the connectivity and parallels, in so many fields finding its way into modular sound design now, by cabling these findings into patch architectures. It was a challenge and especially fun to bring and connect this fields together. Certainly it will be a challenge for everybody’s creativity in finding new ways in modular sound design.
This e-book is not for lower level users. The modules are not going to be explained. The patch structures with accompanying text and order explain a way of thinking by themselves. You always can consult the G2 Editor help-file. Patches, or parts of patches can be copy/pasted to new patches and/or performances to get new structures.
SoundLab II features
Book chapters:
Oscillators: New structures to create sound. Extended and constructed oscillators.
Filters: Extended and DIY filters.
Shapers and audio: New forms to shape your audio.
Logic: All kind of logic experiments. From 1D to 3D ON/OFF architectures and logic sound structures.
Patterns and sequencers: Extended and DIY stuff, all you missed till now.
Miscellaneous: A lot of thoughts about a lot. DIY Lfo’s, EG’s. granular, Sync, RM, FM and much, much more.
Audio processing: New structures to remodel and mangle audio. From soft to hard distortion. Extensive echo-reverbs, mangling- and Glitch architectures.
All DIY ways to construct your own audio context.
Over 700 patches.
In HTML/PDF.
G2Demo software included.
And probably a few free future updates.
The SoundLab II e-book is available to purchase for 125 EUR. SoundLab I users get a 20% discount, and bundle of SoundLab I and II is available at a 20% discount as well.
LOM has released JONO, a software musical instrument inspired by modular synthesizers.
By providing mixture of classical and experimental elements it can serve as an interesting addition to your setup or as a standalone tool.
JONO virtual Max/MSP synthesizer programmed by Jonáš Gruska.
JONO features
Two oscillators, modulated by the layered LFO and the sequencer.
Each oscillator has a couple of ranges and waveshapes, and LFO modulation, which allows you to mix three different LFOs into patterns and rhythms in a very simple yet powerful interface enhanced by the oscilloscope.
State-variable filter, modulated by another layered LFO, offering three standard filter functions – lowpass, highpass and bandpass.
Stereo echo and a recorder – for recording short bits of your work right away, without connecting additional software.
Sequencer provides control over the amount of steps, variable loop length and the speed for each sequence (two sequencers for two oscillators).
Includes a set of presets, but also allows you to save your own.
‘RANDOMIZE’ button, which randomizes the whole setup.
MIDI support, both for classic pitch control from a MIDI keyboard as well as for control of the main parameters with knobs or sliders.
JONO is available to purchase as a standalone application for Windows and Mac (includes full source code in MaxMSP language), priced at 15 EUR.
Chris Carlson is working on an iPad version of Borderlands, an interactive granular sampler instrument.
Demo video for the soon-to-be-released interactive granular sampler: Borderlands
This project is a mobile version of an audiovisual granular synthesis instrument that I built as my final project for Music 256a at CCRMA. The inspiration behind the original version along with early concept sketches and design details are presented here .
While the laptop version provides a large canvas and a great deal of RAM for audio files, the iPad’s multitouch capabilities offer a much richer interactive experience. I extended the instrument to take advantage of these resources and added a social/networking component to allow users to share their “scenes” and download the work of others.
Chris aims to have Borderlands for iPad available through the App Store by late spring 2012.
Soniccouture has updated its Glass Works sample library for Kontakt to version 2.0.
Glass / Works is a Kontakt player instrument which collects together 3 extremely unusual and rare musical instruments which use glass to generate sound : Le Cristal Baschet, The Glass Armonica, and a set of Cloud Chamber Bowls.
Changes in Glass Works 2
New instrument / samples: Bowed Chamber Bowls. An airy, ethereal sound with realtime harmonic control via velocity or modwheel. 5 round robin samples per note.
New instrument: Cristal SFX. The SFX sound set from the v1.0 instrument rehoused in its own custom interface with the great new KSP ‘FOCUS’ function : map any sound across the entire keyboard with one click.
New GUI: each Glass Works instrument gets its own unique control interface with custom KSP options setup, dedicated effects page and more.
New Preset Library: 100 sound design presets explore every corner of the Glass Works sounds.
Glass Works 2.0 is also fully Kontakt Player 5 compatible.
Glass Works 2 is available to purchase for 99 EUR. Glass Works 1 users can upgrade for 29 EUR.
For the next 2 weeks, Glass Works 2 is 20% off with coupon code: WOD84HRK
Send an Email or use social networks Twitter, or Facebook. Listen to some tunes at SoundCloud, or subscribe to the RSS feed to get all the lastest news in your news reader.
