Antares Audio Technologies has announced AVOX 2, the second generation of the Antares Vocal Toolkit.

Not only this new version includes the original AVOX plug-ins but it also adds an additional five state-of-the-art vocal processing modules, including the recently released Harmony Engine Vocal Modeling Harmony Generator.

New plug-ins :

- Harmony Engine Vocal Modeling Harmony Generator: a real-time harmony generating plug-in
- MUTATOR Extreme Voice Designer: it provides a combination of tools for creating unusual, weird, or downright wacky voices
- ARTICULATOR Vocal Formant and Amplitude Modeler: a modern-day version of the venerable talk box, ARTICULATOR lets a user extract the formant and amplitude information from a vocal (or other dynamic source) and apply it to any other audio track.
- WARM Tube Saturation Generator: based on Antares' Tube plug-in, WARM warms up vocals while being so processing-efficient that it can be used on every track in a project with negligible impact on CPU usage.
- ASPIRE Aspiration Noise Processor: a tool for modifying a voice's breathiness independently of its harmonic content.

AVOX 2 will be available in April for Mac OS X and Windows in AU/VST/RTAS formats at a price of $599 (which represents a greater than 60% savings over the MSRPs of the individual plug-ins). Upgrades will also be available to owners of Harmony Engine and the original AVOX bundle.

As part of its commitment to providing end users with ongoing enhancements for its flagship music workstation the M3, Korg has recently created 512 additional Programs which are now available as a free download from Korg's website. Created in direct response to customer feedback around the world, the new Programs cover a number of essential sounds, such as classic keyboards, guitars, basses, brass, woodwinds and more.

These new Programs double the internal EDS Programs available on the M3, from the current 512 Programs to 1024, increasing functionality, versatility and creative options. Included are a number of nuanced pianos; vintage electric pianos, reed pianos and clavinets; acoustic strings and vintage string keyboard sounds; brass and woodwinds, featuring new multi-instrument combinations; realistic guitar sounds modeled after a wide variety of amp types and sizes; and classic analog synths.

Also released is a collection of 128 Combinations which blends the EXB-RADIAS synthesis option with the onboard EDS Programs. It covers a wide assortment of sounds, from playable splits and layers, to imaginative soundscapes, to examples of triggering the RADIAS vocoder with drum grooves from KARMA.

Synful Orchestra has been updated to v2.4.4.

Changes :

- Fixed an important bug that occasionally caused users to lose their Synful Orchestra Control - Panel setups when they saved a project file.
- Fixed a problem that sometimes caused the challenge/response authorization window to freeze up so that it was not possible to paste in a response code.

Following our numerous members requests, we at 440Network our very proud to announce that a new free service is available to all members as from today : The 440 Music Space!

This new feature enables anyone to create its own site (or blog) in which they can not only post what ever is on their mind but also post songs that visitors can listen to in a very convenient way.

All you need to do to take full advantage of this new service is become a registered member (if not yet one) and "Create my Blog" from your control panel. You can then personalize your site using the numerous options and upload up to 5 mp3 song files that will easily be accessible to all visitors.

Enjoy!

The Music Blogs

Today independent developer Normen Hansen announced MusicBeam, an AU/VST (Mac/PC) plugin for online music collaboration.

By using MusicBeam users can automatically exchange what they hear in their sequencer and hear everyone elses tracks in sync to their own sequencer. No more bouncing, compressing and emailing your tracks to your bandmates ! MusicBeam does it all for you, in near-real-time.

See the MusicBeam demo video to see how it works.