While the release of Independence Pro delays for a few weeks to January 2008, Independence Basic, Freedom v2.0 and Origami v2.0 are shipping.

Independence Basic comes with the same audio engine as Independence 2 and is fully compatible with Independence Free and Independence 2. Apart from the ability to load 3rd party VST effects and VST instruments - which is not enabled in Independence Basic - the user has access to the same software features as Independence 2.

Freedom 2.0

All insert filters and effects of Freedom 2.0 are fully surround compatible up to 8.1. The format of surround files is recognized automatically and Freedom 2 assigns the respective channels accordingly. Freedom 2 offers a new FX Bank Browser, and automation features include minimum and maximum values (use the ...

Best Service releases Chris Hein-Bass, a bass guitar sample library powered by Kontakt 2 Player (12.7 GB, up to 4,089 samples per patch). Chris Hein has produced this collection including a Musicman Stingray picked & slapped, a LeFay fretless bass and an upright bass with three sets of strings: steel-strings (classic jazz sound), nylon-strings (high-fidelity sound) and gut-strings (40s swing sound).

All nuances of bass playing techniques are implemented, thanks to Kontakt scripting abilities. It offers 112 MIDI controllable features including things like repetition-hotkeys, keys-vibrato, fall-control, bridge/center playing, pickup micro-blending, expression-samples, pinch-harmonics, automatic-mode, slide-mode, chord-mode and much more.

The included IK Multimedia Ampeg SVX Uno (virtual bass-amp) adds more sound variations to the natural, basic, bass instruments.

Tone2 has announced that Gladiator for Mac OS X is available now and that the Windows version has been updated to v1.1.


The Mac UB (AU and VST 2.4) version of Gladiator is available. Tone2 has enhanced some functionalities and fixed some behaviors :
- Drastically improved time for saving/loading songs in Cubase and other hosts.
- Opening the plugin is 250% faster. When the plugin is started for the first time it creates cache files (.1 .2 .3 .4) within the Gladiator_data directory. These cache files help to improve the performance.
- Drastically reduced the hard disc space for saving songs in Cubase and other hosts (previously 1.5 Mb per instance, now 850 byte).
- Removed a glitch after switching through presets.
- Slightly reduced memory usage.
- LFO1/2 "retrigger off" was rena ...

Olympus adds another member to the portable recorders family (see our news on the Marantz PMD620 or the Edirol R-09), for example).

The Olympus LS-10 allows you to record in 24bit/96 kHz linear PCM, and supports Wave, WMA and MP3. It has a built-in 2 GB memory, SD slot, mic amplifier,2 cardioid mics, line and mic inputs, headphones output, USB connection, etc.

It is powered by 2 AA batteries (up to 12 hours of recording capability).
It is bundled with Cubase LE4 and has an estimated street price of $399.99 and should be available these coming days.

Kurzweil should make its (big ?) come-back at Winter Namm 2008, with the PC3x, their newest performance controller, offering a huge collection of over 800 sounds combined with comprehensive real-time controller functions.
Among other things, their Classic Keys ROM, a large vintage keyboard rig, is included, as well as the VA1 analog synth architecture (for free til Feb 15th 2008), coming from their never issued analog modeling supermonster synth (remember Winter Namm 2004 ?), or the famous Kurzweil Triple Strike Piano.
And Dynamic V.A.S.T. is said to "pick up where the K series left off. Having up to 32 layers per program means that emulations of real instruments can be extremely detailed and accurate, while the synthesized sounds can be extraordinarily large and complex."
A few ...