Gospel Musicians are proud to announce the release of the Neo-Soul Suitcase Fender Rhodes plug-in, a very specific urban-sounding Rhodes that is designed to reproduce the exact sound, feel, and playability of a real Fender Rhodes Suitcase with the detail and expressiveness of the fender cabinet and, of course, a beautiful vibrato.

The primary goal was to make sure that if you were not able to take a real Rhodes to your gig or studio, this plug-in would be the next best thing. The Neo-Soul Suitcase sound is a combination of Rhodes samples (2.6 gigabytes!), physical modeling, and complex impulse response algorithms that will give you the grit of Hip-Hop, the silkiness of R&B, and the soul in Neo-Soul.

The absolute number one objective was realism. And with vintage modeled effects, complex impulse response algorithms, and tweak-able knobs for ultimate control, you will have the best Rhodes experience ever produced in a plug-in. With all of this, Gospel Musicians promise that you can leave your Rhodes at home and replace it with the Neo-Soul Suitcase!

• Dedicated 2.6 GB of sample data (44.1 kHz, 24-bit)
• 12-Velocity layers of sustain, release, and staccato (bark) notes
• Bass and Treble Boost
• Tine/Bell controls
• Pedal Noise and Resonance sounds when sustain pedal is pressed
• Key release noises, emulating a real Rhodes
• Velocity layered release samples
• Dedicated Bark samples, for more aggressive sounds
• Vintage modeled Vibrato
• Impulse Response amp modeling of Vintage Amps
• Warm Phat Chorus for a Thick Layered Sound
• Special EFX Section: Phaser, Flanger, Distortion, Delay
• Vintage modeled Spring Reverb
• Kontakt 4 Advanced Scripting
• Disk Streaming to reduce memory usage
• Easy MIDI Learn function for all knobs, sliders, and buttons
• Real-Time MIDI controls that can be saved in a patch
• Clean/Original Switch for raw samples or cleaned-up sounds

Neo-Soul Suitcase requires Kontakt 4.2.3 Retail Paid Version (Neo-Soul Suitcase does not yet work with Kontakt Free Player), UnrarX to decompress the downloaded files and 2.6 GB of available hard disk space. On the Mac, Kontakt 4.2.3 requires OS X 10.5 or later (32/64-bit), an Intel Core Duo processor, and 2 GB of RAM (4 GB is highly recommended). Kontakt can run stand-alone, and as an AU, VST, or RTAS (Pro Tools 8 and higher) plug-in.

Neo-Soul Suitcase is available via direct download (1.23 GB compressed) from Gospel Musicians for $99.99. An introductory price of $79.99 is available at the time of this writing. If you purchase “The Fundamentals of Neo-Soul Keyboard” DVD ($49.99), the price of Neo-Soul Suitcase drops to $49.99. If you have already purchased the DVD, you may use the UPC code on the back of the DVD or in the downloads as the coupon code for the same discount.

http://neosoulsuitcase.com/

Arp Dimensions (£39/€49/$59) is a 150-preset (with 1200 variations) library of cascading melodies; pulsating soundscapes; and head-banging, layered riffs — no static arpeggios here, with each preset incorporating extensive programming options — courtesy of the combined talents of several leading sound designers including biomechanoid, Gareth L Devlin, Andre Ettema, Himalaya, Christian Kjeldsen, Luftrum, Corin Neff, Stephan Romer, Chris Sciurba, Adam Szabo, Tasmodia, Martin Walker, and Yuroun — to offer a seamless mini- world of evolving possibilities, broken down into the following categories for easy access: Ambient (30); Arps (14); Bass (9); Classic (35); Dance (30); Layered (18); and Percussive (14).

Arp Dimensions is perfect for genres as diverse as ambient, dance, and electronica, all locked in perfect sync to track tempos; moreover, many patches have a dedicated control for switching between multiple arpeggiated patterns, so it’s easy to make them fit specific music. From classic simplicity to wild note excesses, gently swelling sparseness to complex multi-layered riffs, Arp Dimensions has it all!

Dubstep (£25/€29/$35) comprises 75 (with 600 variations) wobbly basslines, twisted soundscapes, and deep sub-basses — tightly-focused and highly usable dubstep sounds all, ranging from sparse minimalism to mashed-up mayhem, with much in-between, including squelchy synths, heavyweight drum sounds, plus punchy effects — perfect for builds, drops, and transitions.

Leading sound designers Andre Ettema, biomechanoid, Gareth L Devlin, Himalaya, Christian Kjeldsen, Bryan Lee, Stephan Romer, and Yuroun deliver over 150MB of new sampled content for Dubstep, including comprehensive punchy drum kits, rich new pad sounds, reverberant soundscapes, and glitchy effects, categorised as follows: Bass (5 Distorted, 6 Sweep, 4 Sub, and 25 Wobble); Drums (4); Sound Effects (11); Soundscapes (12); and Synth (8). Crank up the tempo to 140bpm and let the inspiration flow forth!

On the Mac, Alchemy Player requires OS X 10.4.9 or later, a 2 GHz Intel or G5 processor, 1 GB of RAM, 410 MB of free disk space, and an Audio Units or VST plug-in host.

Both sound libraries can be ordered directly from Camel Audio, and downloaded as complete Alchemy Player versions or smaller-sized files—without Alchemy Player—for use with the ‘full- blown’ Alchemy sample manipulation plug-in (available separately for £179/€199/$249).

www.camelaudio.com

Discuss Alchemy and Alchemy libraries on our Instruments forum.

Ableton and Cycling ’74 have announced the release of Max for Live, essentially putting the power and potential of Max/MSP inside Live.

Create all the instruments, effects and extensions you’ve ever wanted. Go beyond the common and predictable, and transcend the limits that conventional tools impose. Build completely unique synths and effects, create algorithmic composition tools, or fuse Live and controller hardware into radical, new music machines. Join a society of makers and share ingenuity.

Basically, Max for Live is a tool kit for making new devices. Think of a diverse and comprehensive set of building blocks that you can use to build pretty much anything you can think of. These building blocks include basic objects such as “+”, audio elements such as filters and oscillators, user interface objects, and a set of objects that regulate access to Live and hardware devices. Max for Live also provides a canvas where you can place and connect these objects with virtual wires. Flowing through these wires are audio, MIDI or video signals, or any other kind of data. Max is essentially a visual programming environment where you build courses or tracks for these signals to run through.

You can build new devices from scratch, modify existing ones or simply use devices that others have made. Max for Live includes several ingenious example devices and plenty of tutorials to take you from using to tweaking, and then to building.

Key features

• Build your own audio effects, MIDI effects and instruments
• Use the API to control Live Sets, tracks, clips, devices, notes, loops, parameters etc.
• Extend your hardware’s feature set: provides objects to access any hardware controllers that are connected to Live
• Includes a specialized version of Max for creating and editing Max devices (Please note: does not run independently of Max for Live)
• Comes with a selection of MAX devices that are ready to use out of the box for audio and MIDI processing, algorithmic composition, real-time performance and hardware control
• Devices keep playing in Live while they are being edited in Max
• Flexible user interface design: the UI can look like Live or completely different
• Includes hundreds of built-in Max objects for logic, MIDI, scripting, audio and video processing
• Supports video synthesis and animation via “Jitter” objects
• Includes step-by-step tutorials for learning to program with Max for Live

Max for Live requires Ableton Live 8.1 or higher. It is available now for $299 / €249. If you already own Max 5, the crossgrade price is $99 / €79.

www.ableton.com/maxforlive

Discuss Max for Live in our Live forum.