Last month we gave 3 people a chance to win the fantastic Wavesfactory Mercury piano, a faithful rendition of the Freddie Mercury piano at Metropolis studios in London.
The lucky winners are;
First prize winner got the Mercury Piano Pro and runner-up prizes are Mercury Piano Lite.
Right now Wavesfactory is offering 50% off storewide in their sale.
As you recover from turkey coma, here are some deals on synths, plug-ins, and music production software for Black Friday, all of which you can access from the smartphone resting atop your expanding belly. Know about something that should be on this page but isn’t? Let us know and we’ll update the page!
Accusonus, makers of magical loop-deconstructing software ReGroover, are offering both the full and “lite” versions for half off ($149 and $49, respectively). Get it here.
Arturia has 50% off individual software instruments from their V-Collection. Get them here.
ILIO, U.S. distributors for a slew of brands including Spectrasonics and Vienna Symphonic Library, are offering the Gig Performer plug-in hosting software, intended as a primary alternative to Apple MainStage for playing virtual instruments live, for $99. Go get it.
iZotope is offering the “Essentials” version of their RX audio repair, Neutron mixing, and Ozone mastering plug-ins for just $29 each, or $79 for the suite of all three. This and a handful of other specials are on this page.
Moog Music is bringing the coveted hardware with up to 30% off on synthesizers including the Minimoog Model D reissue, Voyager XL, Sub Phatty, Minitaur, Mother-32, Werkstatt, Etherwave theremins, Theremini, plug Moogerfooger and Minifooger effects pedals. Master page here.
Native Instruments is taking 50% off the price of most of their software, including the kitchen-sink Komplete 11, through November. Details here.
Not strictly for Black Friday, Novation is running November-long discounts on a bunch of products, including the MiniNova and Circuit synths as well as several audio interfaces from their sister company Focusrite. It’s all here.
Output Sounds are offering 25% off most software, and 60% off if you buy it in a bundle. Here’s their page.
Propellerheads have discounted just about everything, including $100 off Reason. Shop the huge sale on their store page.
ROLI, who makes our favorite futuristic wavy black keyboard controller, has some very aggressive deals going. Buy a Seaboard Rise and get FXpansion’s BFD3 drum software (usually $349) for free. In addition, you get $100 cash back on the Seaboard Rise 25 and $200 back on the 49-key version. Buy a Lightpad Block controller and get a free Snapcase Solo plus $50 cash back. It’s all here.
Spitfire Audio is running a number of discounts, giveaways, and online events for Black Weekend, including a teaser video that looks like it was conceived by Friedrich Nietzsche.
U.S. mail order king Sweetwater has a ton of things onsale. Scroll midway down this page to ind the “Keyboard and DJ” section, which includes a Pittsburgh Modular synth.
Waves has specials on too many things to list, so check out the master page here.
The winner of the PreSonus Quantum 2 prize draw we held in October is Steve Blizin.
Steve is a voice-over artist running Clear Voice Media based in Calabasas CA.
On the win Steve said;
“I’m executive producer of the Drift & Ramble podcast, sound designer for the wildly popular “Creepy” podcast and as a narrator and voice actor, for my Los Angeles based audio production company, Clear Voice Media.
I was impressed by all the features and specifications included in the Pro Sonus Quantum 2 – especially the built-in talkback feature which is often overlooked by manufacturers. A small thing but big to me is the digitally controlled gain, as it’s easy to bump a knob in a cramped studio or work space. But most impressive are the Thunderbolt specs. In thinking about my next upgrade – this was a key concern.
As an avid reader of the Expert sites I saw there was a chance to win a Pro Sonus Quantum 2 and I had to try to win. I’ve entered many contests and figured I had zero chance of winning so when I saw the notice I had actually won, I made a bit of noise. Unfortunately, I was standing in line at the airport so I got a few odd looks. Still, I’m gobsmacked! Over the moon! Elated! Excited and most of all appreciative!
Thank so Pro Tools Expert and PreSonus!! You’ve made my day and probably many months to come!”
Well done Steve, a worthy winner.
The Korg PS-3300 was the ultimate synth in Korg’s PS lineup, which began with the PS-3100 in the late 1970s. Even the 3100 was a monster by the standards of the era: It had 12 independent, robust (not paraphonic) voices of polyphony. Its semi-modular design meant that it could be patched, but you didn’t need patch cables to get sound out of it.
The PS-3200 essentially was a 3100 times two, doubling polyphony to 24 voices. Then, the 3300 took it was over the top with 48 independent voices, amounting to three full PS-3100 units in one box with an integrated mixing section. Keep in mind this was before 1980, with the last year of the PS-3300’s production being 1981, so for most musicians getting five notes at a time out of one’s Prophet-5 was a big deal.
Korg PS-3300 image via “Mojosynth” at Wikipedia; Creative Commons license applies.
The PS-3300 came with a five-figure price tag to match its power, and recent auctions have seen perfectly working specimens approach $50,000. Now, however you can have the experience of crafting sounds on one of the most ambitious analog synthesizers ever made for the attractive price of free.
German developer Full Bucket Music has released a Mac AU and Windows VST soft synth emulation of the PS-3300 and it’s yours for the asking. Features include:
Hit the product page for download information, audio examples, and user manuals.
If you are wondering if your music software and hardware will brick if you update your Mac to the new macOS High Sierra software then Mike and the team at Pro Tools Expert have made this amazing database.
The comprehensive macOS High Sierra compatibility guide for music software and hardware features over 100 of the top software and hardware brands. The fully searchable database will tell you in an instant if you can upgrade with safety.
Check it out below. It’s updated daily so make sure you report back for more news.
app_id=”59cc93385f1bde2338e4e5ba”;distribution_key=”dist_2″;https://loader.knack.com/59cc93385f1bde2338e4e5ba/dist_2/knack.js
The Roland Cloud has a lot of good points, with some very cool, retro synths to enjoy.
However, there seems to currently be a flaw in the software and that is you can’t currently (October 2017) keep the content you download on an external drive. We have searched high and low on the Roland FAQs and other forums and it seems there is currently no option for it.
If you start to take advantage of the Roland Cloud the content soon starts to add up and many of us like to keep our content on separate drives.
A workaround for this current oversight by Roland is to create an alias and then point the Roland plug-ins to it.
A couple of things to note, when you open the Roland Cloud Manager it will tell you nothing is installed, but it is. You may also have to authorise your synths again but after that, all should be good.
If you are a Windows user and know how to do this in Windows let us know and we’ll post it.
We hope this is a temporary solution and that Roland will allow Cloud users to move their libraries to other locations.
The team over at Pro Tools Expert are conducting a poll ‘What Control Surface Do You Use With Pro Tools? We can’t let them have all the fun so we have a similar poll ‘What Control Surface Do You Use With Studio One?’
The Expert team use a range of controllers compatible with Studio One including PreSonus Faderport 8, Softube Console 1, PreSonus Faderport, Slate Raven as well as the excellent free PreSonus Studio One Remote app for iPad and Android.
Do you have a physical control surface or do you a mouse lover? Please take a moment to share your choices, you can choose up to three. Also, please use the comments to tell us more about our workflow and why you like it so much.
IK Multimedia Syntronik, first released as a computer-based app, is now available for the iPad.
Syntronik includes recreations of 38 different hardware synthesizers and string machines presented as 17 powerful virtual instruments. You can read our review of Syntronik Free here.
The new iPad version has the following features;
You can download the free app from the App Store, which is a fully functional version of Syntronik that includes 25 carefully selected instrument presets from all 17 synth models and start experimenting and playing with Parts, Multis, effects and arpeggiators. You can conveniently purchase the full version or each individual model at any time via the in-app shop.
Native Instruments, makers of software and hardware instruments, has updated Kontakt to v5.7.
This update adds three new guitar amp models and two additional distortion effects. Kontakt 5.7 also adds enhancements for instrument builders – including two for UI-authoring – and fixes some bugs.
You can download the Kontakt and Kontakt Player 5.7 from Native Instruments
Added:
Changed:
Fixed:
Known Issue:
The Fusebox from Analogue Solutions is, well, a fusion of other great ideas from designer Tom Carpenter. It’s a three-VCO analog monosynth with a 12dB filter inspired by the Oberheim SEM. More prominently, it’s semi-modular architecture revolves around arpeggio- and pattern-based tools. This is another one of those things where it’s far easier to show you then to tell you, so check out the video demo below from Chicagoland synth convention Knobcon 2017.
Pro Tools Users Blog 