ManyTone Music has just released Manytone Fretless Bass, a comprehensive sample library of a 4-string fretless precision bass available now in multiple formats.

The extensive soundsets cover a variety of articulations which take advantage of the fretless nature of the instrument. Manytone has sampled the distinctive sound of vibrato as well as various increments and speeds of bends. The staccato samples allow the sample library to encompass faster, more upbeat styles of music as well. Also these staccato samples, as well as the sustained tones, were sampled with both index and middle fingers, so the machine-gun effect of repeating notes may be easily avoided.

The Manytone Fretless Bass was sampled completely dry, giving you the flexibility to shape the tone to your taste from a neutral DI tone (Direct Injected).

This library is available in various formats including ManyTone Instruments, Wusik, Kontakt, Cakewalk Dimension (sfz), and Soundfont. The Fretless Bass library is presently available for an introductory price of $49.95 for single format (single choice of one of the formats listed above) or $59.95 for multi format (Any, or all, of the formats).

Many years ago, Brian Eno popularised the term "generative music" to describe music that is ever-different and changing, and that is created by a system. Let me introduce you to Nodal, a generative software application for composing music designed by Peter Mcilwain.

Nodal uses a novel method for the notation and playing of MIDI based music. This method is based around the concept of a user-defined graph. The graph consists of nodes (musical events) and edges (connections between events). You interactively define the graph, which is then traversed by any number of players who play the musical events as they encounter them on the graph. The time taken to travel from one node to another is based on the length of the edges that connect the nodes.

Nodal is a freeware for Mac OS X.

Future Audio Workshop (FAW) has released a new bank of 30 sounds for Circle, their fabulous semi-modular software synthesizer. Designed by Dajan Izzo, this first Circle Sound bank is available now on the Circle downloads page, here.

Note that you will also find on this page a comprehensive template for using Circle with the Lemur multi touch control surface. This template can be used in its entireity or as base for making your own custom templates.

Sample Logic is proud to present its latest virtual instrument, Synergy. Weighing in at over 18 Gigabytes, this epic collection of 1200+ instruments, tempo-synced loops, and multis delivers the next generation of diverse sounds in an intuitive user interface.  

Powered by Native Instruments Kontakt Player engine, Synergy utilizes extended sample synthesis and effectual techniques to provide you interactive, ready-to-play instruments. With Synergy's flexible sound sculpting interface, control is in your hands. Simply put, all instruments can be modified, redesigned, and customized to your preference. This makes Synergy perfect for any performance and production environment.

Ambience (295 patches)
Bass (54 patches)
Drums (55 patches)
Impacts (269 patches)
Melody (173 patches)
Pads (57 patches)
Rhythms (270 patches)
Multis (40 patches)

Synergie is available now for Mac OS X and Windows in VST, AU, DXi, RTAS and Standalone versions for a fee of $299.