Week of July 9, 2006 Thursday, July 13 2006 | dmac Realsamples Releases Analogue Strings Sound Library   Realsamples has released the Realsamples Analogue Strings sound library. The "Realsamples Analogue Strings" sample CD delivers a sought-after analogue synth monster of the seventies, the Eminent™ String Ensemble®. The whole four string sections of this classic device were included as well in its more specialized successor, the Arp™ Solina®. Most people know its organic pads from high class productions like Pink Floyd, Supertramp or Styx. In today's digital systems, such string pads bring that warmth and depth back in your productions! Recorded by the Canadian producer April May, all four polyphonic string sections were sampled chormatically and without loops. To start from scratch, ready-to-play-presets are available for Halion®/Reason®/Kontakt2®/EXS24®/Soundfont®/VSampler3® and GigaStudio®. The "Realsamples Analogue Strings" set is available on CD for $34.95. For more information, visit their web site at sampling-cds.com. Wednesday, July 12 2006 | dmac FXpansion releases BFD v1.5.45 beta FXpansion has released v1.5.45 J beta of BFD for Windows and Mac OS X. Changes: Mac file I/O API during disk streaming replaced with an alternative as experiment to see if white-noise affected users see improvement. On FX test systems, new technique survives Energy Saver. Swap kits command shouldn't produce a 'click' anymore. Swap kits command will work again (broken in 'H'). Snare top/bot outputs right way around again (broken in 'H' when fixing the snare top/bot knob flipped in detuned situations). Kits chooser list now cached + updated as needed (was always grabbed fresh from disk before). Kit piece photos now cached when 'cache photos' enabled (logic was flipped to reverse of this, not sure when was broken). BFD "Insto-load" is sneakier about when it swaps in newly loaded hit-types "to keep the beatz on rollin' when I'm a-choosin' and a-loadin' ". There shouldn't be kit pieces going silent during loads now. More @ fxpansion.com. Wednesday, July 12 2006 | dmac NuGen Audio Releases Visualizer 1.0 Beta 1   NuGen Audio has announced the release of Visualizer 1.0 beta 1, beginning the second round of beta testing for the audio analysis tool. Available as a free download to anyone wishing to try. Users posting comments/suggestions to NuGen Audio will be entered into a prize draw to win the full release version. Change since Beta 0.3: GUI added for access to main displays Link function added Control panel 'open/select' controls added Level meter control panel functionality added: Meter pre-sets (K-scales, DFS, Custom etc.) Independent RMS functions (if un-linked) Meter orientation Peak hold on/off Response Fallback Meter Colors Color split-points FS offset Meter 'style' Zoom and pan view functionality added to spectrum analyser and stereo spectrum analyser scales Correlation meter implemented Visualizer 1.0b1 is available now from NuGen Audio. For more information, visit their web site at nugenaudio.com.