#NAMM 2024: Melbourne Instruments NINA

video upload by CatSynth TV

"We get a tour of NINA, a 12-voice polyphonic hybrid analog synth with motorized faders and a host of other features.

To find out more, please visit https://www.melbourneinstruments.com

'"NINA is the world’s first fully motorized analog synthesizer. Synth players have dreamt of this feature for decades, and now it’s finally available. Instantly recall your presets and layers, see exactly how the sound was created, or pick up from where you were last working.'"

Update: and one from Sonicstate:

NAMM 2024 - Melbourne Instruments - Nina Updates

video upload by sonicstate

"At NAMM 2024, we hooked up with Ian from Melbourne Instruments who introduced us to some updates recently bestowed upon on their synthesizer, Nina. Ian told us that they have added some fun features to the firmware, including scopes that display waveforms and an XY mode for visualizing stereo phase alignment. The biggest update, however, is the ability to modulate the morph between two sounds using the modulation matrix. Each of the 12 voices on the Nina can now individually control the morph through the modulation matrix, allowing for evolving and breathing sounds as you play.

Feedback for the Nina has been positive, with increasing popularity and favorable reviews. Melbourne Instruments has been listening to customer feedback and plans to release regular firmware updates, incorporating requested features.

Nina Price 3,599 USD"

NAMM 2024 - Modal - Carbon 8

video upload by sonicstate

"Christian from Modal Electronics unveiled their latest synthesizer, the Carbon 8, at NAMM 2024. This synthesizer is the culmination of Modal's years of experience and knowledge in developing wavetable and virtual analog synthesizers. The Carbon 8 boasts a sound engine that is twice as powerful as their previous models, the Argon 8 and Cobalt 8. It features two distinctive oscillators that generate up to 56 digital core waveforms, allowing users to mix algorithms and wavetables in one synthesizer. The Carbon 8 is designed to cater to modern music styles with rough, edgy sounds, while still offering features like a sequencer, arpeggiator, and various effects.

For more information on the Carbon 8 and other Modal Electronics products, you can visit their website. Stay tuned for updates on future projects from Modal at events like Superbooth. And for existing customers, Modal will continue to provide customer support and their app, which will be updated with a Carbon 8 version upon release.

Carbon 8 Available: Summer 2024. Price 1,099 USD"

Additional Carbon 8 posts

NAMM 2024 - Korg - PS3300

video upload by sonicstate

"At NAMM 2024, SonicState had the opportunity to speak with Luke from Korg about the highly anticipated PS3300 synthesizer. With less than 50 of the original units produced, the PS3300 is a fully polyphonic analog synthesizer that pays homage to the original 48-voice model from 1977. Luke explains that the reissue was in response to years of requests from fans, and the collaboration with legendary designer Fumio Miyada ensured the authenticity of the instrument. Despite the downsized electronics and the use of new materials, the PS3300 retains its iconic sound and features, including presets and the ability to adjust temperament for each note. With MIDI and USB connectivity, the PS3300 also offers a librarian software for sound backup and customization. As for the pricing and availability, the details are yet to be confirmed, but it is expected to be a high-ticket and built-to-order item. It's even got 49 voices now, one more than the original."

Additional KORG PS-3300 posts

Sequential Prophet 5/10: a Musical Exploration

video upload by Synth Universe

"A musical exploration of sounds and timbres on this classic analog synth using custom-created patches. All the sounds you hear in this video were created by me on the Prophet 10 and include brasses, pads, keys, bass, poly synth, sines, chimes, strings and FX.

I wanted to retain the raw sound, so in the making of this video no chorus, modulation or thickening effects were used (software or hardware). Note that the Prophet 5/10 has no internal effects. The only effects used were reverb (mainly the Valhalla Vintage Verb plugin) or delay (Logic native delay plugin). No EQ was used to enhance either the low end or the high end.

The Prophet 5/10 has a single mono audio output, so to create a stereo image I used old-school layering in my DAW. When I recorded each audio take, I also captured MIDI data and used this to record new tracks of the original take. Using the Vintage knob on the Prophet set at 3 means that each MIDI take has subtle differences in pitch, envelopes and filter. Panning and slight detuning of the tracks creates, to my ears, a nice rich stereo image and retains the character of the sound.

** If you own a Prophet 5 rev 4 or Prophet 10, all the sounds featured in this video will soon be available to purchase as part of the Synth Universe Prophet 5/10 rev 4 Soundbank. Please subscribe and enable notifications and you will be alerted on release.**

Although the Prophet 10 now has dual layer functionality, all the sounds in this video are single layer and could be played on a Prophet 10 or a Prophet 5 rev 4.

Time stamps
00:00 Big brass pad
01:21 Big pulsing poly
01:50 Clarity
02:18 Unison pluck bass
02:54 Uni brass 2 and muted bass
04:07 Attack sizzle
04:39 Warm underpad
05:35 Expressive pad
06:33 Sizzle sweep
07:28 Bright poly
08:06 Dark strings
08:50 Polymod sparkle
09:08 Detuning brass
09:44 Cosmic organ flutes
10:19 Touch poly
10:48 Vibrato sweep
11:55 Firework chimes
12:24 Octave release
13:36 Shadow whistle
14:14 Synth strings raw mono
14:44 Synth strings stereo
15:15 Synth strings stereo + reverb
15:48 Storm drone

All musical ideas are my own and are copyright to me.

There was no sponsorship or affiliation to Sequential or their products in the creation of this video.

Hi I'm Jim: a musician, composer and sound designer. Welcome to my channel! This channel focuses on the musical and performance potential of synthesizers and helping you to get the most out of them."

Verde Rayo Japanese Train Melody + TUTORIAL (JR East Departure Melody) JR東日本 発車メロディー

video upload by csmcrckrs

"I heard this a lot when I was visiting Japan last year!
Gear used:
- several instances of Nord Electro 6 for the arpeggio
- several instances of Sequential Prophet 5 for the chords
- liberal amounts of reverb & bitcrushing for a realistic train station sound ;)"

Patchwerks - Community Hub & Music Store Fundraiser Reminder

In case you missed the original post, Seattle's Patchwerks is having fundraiser on GoFundMe.

Click here for details.

The Crow Hill Company Announces Availability of SMALL STRING GESTURES

The best string sound I have ever heard!! video upload by The Crow Hill Company

Press release follows:

TCHC announces availability of SMALL STRING GESTURES as toolkit to dial up musical personality with intimate interpretative band behind each key

EDINBURGH, UK: having ‘softly’ set out its software stall late last year with a low-key launch of STRING MURMURATIONS that saw decades of award-winning experience in the music tech sector and at the composing coalface distilled into an easy- to-use, intuitive, and comprehensive sample-based virtual instrument plug-in and GUI (Graphical User Interface) introducing the cutting-edge concept of Gestures (whereby an orchestra interpreting its user’s composition and making it into music and art lies behind every key played), music-making community tools-maker The Crow Hill Company is proud to announce availability of SMALL STRING GESTURES as the latest incarnation of that concept — creating a set of tools where individual instruments and the playing style, strengths, and frailties of the intimate interpretative (3, 3, 3, 3) band behind each key are available for the user to dial up the personality of their composition, created from a collection of master recordings that have been mixed and edited into a sample-based virtual instrument plug-in with a GUI and preset browser that are as easy on the eye as they are in use — as of January 26…

An armada of strings can create awe — an epic tidal wave of human emotion, of scale, of wonder. While STRING MURMURATIONS makes it easy and intuitive to make music that sounds human thanks to three distinct palettes of expressions, each designed to feel like the user is collaborating with an orchestra of real musicians, creating endless harmonic possibilities that inspire from the moment a key is touched, sometimes music-makers need it to be intimate, truthful, personal, human — hence The Crow Hill Company creating SMALL STRING GESTURES as a set of tools where individual instruments and the playing style, strengths, and frailties of the instrumentalists involved are available for the user to dial up the personality of their composition. Cue humanity, in other words.

With this in mind, The Crow Hill Company specifically selected a 3, 3, 3, 3 — three Violin 1, three Violin 2, three Violas, and three Cellos — band size that ensured its sampling style brought every individual within that ensemble into beautifully detailed and intimate focus for SMALL STRING GESTURES. This toolset is provided with a different lens and aperture to play through.

The Crow Hill Company collectively likes to keep things moving, so while this latest incarnation of its Gestures concept is very much related to one of those distinct palettes of expression available in STRING MURMURATIONS, it is worth highlighting hysteresis — dictionary-defined as the phenomenon in which the value of a physical property lags behind changes in the effect causing it, such as when magnetic induction lags behind the magnetising force, for instance — in relation to SMALL STRING GESTURES. Getting in on the act of creating sample libraries involves always asking the instrumentalists involved to perform musical material that is incredibly easy to play in order for the end result to always be ‘together’. That is fine for programming or composing simple stuff since that would sound true to real life, but it becomes harder, however, for players to remain totally locked to each other’s tuning or timekeeping when playing more difficult passages. Pure sound becomes more problematic as a result — reduced fundamental meaning more character, which is why a lot of sample-based music used in films, games, and TV sounds ‘characterless’. Clearly the samples involved therein lack hysteresis as they were easy to play, yet playing something difficult with them does not sound natural, real, or human. Indeed, it is fair to say that what makes musicians ‘hysterical’ is speed — faster playing means looser playing that is less in time and also less in tune; reach — the wider the gap between the notes, the further they have to reach, resulting in less perfectly in tune playing; and pitch — the higher a player plays, the harder it becomes as it involves more intense accuracy from string players performing on fretless instruments.

It is for this reason that The Crow Hill Company decided to get its players to perform the hard stuff — not compositions, but mere fragments, which is why anyone working with SMALL STRING GESTURES will not feel like they are playing phrases; instead it is rather like having a string band under their fingertips. For Gestures are the very real sound of reach and performance. But by not giving the musicians behind SMALL STRING GESTURES simple stuff to play prevented them from getting bored. Better still, SMALL STRING GESTURES users are accessing the sound that musicians make when they are smiling... hysterically!

It is also fair to say, therefore, that the effect of hysteresis on a large string section — including that which was involved in the creation of STRING MURMURATIONS, for instance — is a silky, blurry sound. An audible example of this might be the fast string runs in John Williams’ ‘Hedwig’s Theme’ from Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone — ditto the closing bars of ‘Mars, the Bringer of War’ from Holst’s The Planets suite. Saying that, though, there are times when music-makers do not need awe, epic, and huge scale in pursuit of their compositional craft, but instead seek something more intimate, more personal, more human. The theory that led to SMALL STRING GESTURES revolved around if The Crow Hill Company could get a string band small enough then the impact of hysteresis would not be a musical blurring, but rather an exposure of each player involved in its creation — their own style of bowing and vibrato, their own fragilities to help the user’s audience connect more with the human nature of their music.

Making that happen meant designing SMALL STRING GESTURES to make its users approach composing and making music from a totally new angle, one where it feels like there are musicians at their fingertips — not samples. SMALL STRING GESTURES is a collection of master recordings — made by world-class producers and engineers at Glasgow’s Clockwork Studios, a new custom-designed scoring stage for the UK comprising of a large hall for full orchestra (up to 80 players) with a balanced and focused sound ideal for modern orchestral recording, as well as a smaller dry space in Studio B (up to 15 players), with the world-class Scottish Session Orchestra playing some of the finest instruments through the finest microphones and mic pre-amps — that have been mixed and edited into a sample-based virtual instrument plug-in with a GUI and a preset browser that are as easy on the eye as they are in use. Ultimately, it works within anyone’s favourite DAW (Digital Audio Workstation) with 25 presets — presented as six Gestures, four Longs, 10 Presets, and five Bonus — and additional hand-crafted Selects designed by The Crow Hill Company team. There are three mix-ready stereo signals — namely, CLOSE, WIDE, and AMBIENT, as well as unique REVERB controls and a granular effects processor.

Duly designed by professional composers with the sonic connoisseur in mind, The Crow Hill Company’s collective conclusion certainly rings true, stating, “We’re a small team and have worked hard to make everything as intuitive as possible.” Put it this way: with SMALL STRING GESTURES it is perfectly possible to make music that sounds intimate, truthful, personal, human! Hysteresis, of course, comes into play here, albeit with the desired effect — exposure of each player involved in its creation.

Clearly, then, big messages come in small packages when it comes to working with the diminutive-sized SMALL STRING GESTURES as another easy-to-use and intuitive virtual instrument plug-in from The Crow Hill Company, one which is also easy on the wallet for those wishing to step into this new world of gesture-based sampling.


SMALL STRING GESTURES is available to purchase — as an AAX-, AU-, VST-, and VST3-format-compatible sample-based virtual instrument plug-in comprising 8 GB of uncompressed material (compressed losslessly to 4.4 GB) that loads directly into a DAW — for £49.00 GBP (including VAT) directly from The Crow Hill Company here: https://thecrowhillcompany.com/small-string-gestures

SMALL STRING GESTURES is available for free until February 29, 2024 when purchasing STRING MURMURATIONS for £199.00 GBP (including VAT) directly from The Crow Hill Company here: https://thecrowhillcompany.com/string-murmurations/ (Note that SMALL STRING GESTURES is also available for free to existing owners of STRING MURMURATIONS until February 29, 2024.)

Watch The Crow Hill Company founder and composer Christian Henson’s must-see SMALL STRING GESTURES walkthrough video here: [video up top]

Free sounds for all are available by simply signing up to become a Crow Hill member here: https://thecrowhillcompany.com/join-crow-hill/

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Video side note: Analogue Solutions Colossus in the background.

Hammond M-solo Organ - All Playing, No Talking

video upload by Kraft Music

"Shop exclusive Hammond M-solo Organ BUNDLES at Kraft Music: https://kraftmusic.com/collections/ha...

Adam Berzowski from Kraft Music shares a delightful performance on the amazing Hammond M-solo Organ here at the Kraft Music

Contact Adam directly at 414-858-4008 or aberzowski@kraftmusic.com if you have any questions or would like to place an order on your very own Hammond M-solo organ.

The Hammond M-solo is an eight pound portable organ with 49 keys, driving the same "MTW II" drawbar engine as found in Hammond's XK-4. All the essential ingredients are aboard, like Vibrato-Chorus and Touch-response percussion, as well as period-accurate models of the most popular transistor "combo organs," a '70s-type string ensemble, and an analog-style polysynth. A high-definition digital Leslie is also on hand, completing the tone which has thrilled musicians and audiences since 1940.

Get more for your money with an exclusive Hammond M-solo portable organ bundle from Kraft Music. These package deals include the accessories you'll need to get the most out of your new virtual tone wheel organ, all for one low price. If you have any questions, please contact us. Our knowledgeable sales advisors will be happy to assist in choosing the bundle that's right for you!"

Alice & Her Three Friends

video upload by NOISEBUG

"Patching up demos to show off at Buchla and Friends this Saturday Jan 27th. Come by and say hello, we’ll be there with Alice, Elby, Moon, and Portabella. Three amazing synths and one incredible mixer showcasing our diverse catalog and the lesser known products Noisebug has to offer"

https://www.noisebug.net

#NAMM 2024: 4ms modular jam with Catalyst sequencer and controller

video upload by CatSynth TV

"Dan Green of 4ms Company treats us to a modular jam featuring the new Catalyst sequencer and controller, along with many other modules from their catalog.

To find out more, please visit https://4mscompany.com"