Puremagnetik has announced the release of "Human Beatbox" and "Funky Constructions" Artist Kits, two new free Ableton Live 8 Packs.

The Human Beatbox Kit includes a dynamic and expressive beatbox Drum Rack and a collection of looped clips for Ableton Live 8.

Funky Constructions is a fine collection of funky beats and hot grooves for Ableton Live 8 in grouped "construction kit" format.

Both of them are available for free at :

Effective immediately, Cycling '74 will discontinue sales of prebuilt Max-based audio plug-in packages. This includes Pluggo, Mode, Hipno, and UpMix. They will still continue to support current users as best as they can, but there will be no further development on either the plug-in packages or their supporting technology.

"This was not an easy decision to make, and we know it will disappoint some users. We had originally hoped to update

KResearch has just released KR-Fatter STR, a modular hybrid plug-in processor using two different proprietary time and frequency domain dsp platforms in a single unit.

The frequency domain platform used is Spectral Transformation Resynthesis (STR). STR is a digital signal processing (dsp) platform that operates exclusively in the frequency domain and makes use of specially developed spectral transforms for synthesis and audio effect design. At the same time, KR-Fatter STR is using specially designed time domain processing elements like for example fractal based variance controls. By combining these two platforms in a single unit, new more powerful effects can be achieved by rather using a single platform.

KR-Fatter STR can be used to enhance the spectral content of audio signals cont ...

Modartt announces the release of the new Vibes add-on for Pianoteq.

Using a newly extended model, Pianoteq can now reproduce the beautiful sound of the vibraphone. Two virtual vibraphones, V-M and V-B, reproduce faithfully the characteristic sound of two well-known vibraphone brands.

The V-M is a virtual copy of a Musser vibraphone that belongs to the famous French vibraphonist Dany Doriz. The V-B is a virtual copy of a Bergerault vibraphone that belongs to the Condorcet studio in Toulouse (France).

Thanks to the physical model the range of the vibraphones is extended from 3 to 5 octaves. Each instrument is provided with several variants and by using interface features, such as mallet hardness and tremolo, you can customize them to your own taste.

The Vibes add-on can be purchased by all Pianoteq customers for 49 €. Audio demos and a free Pianoteq trial version are available at :

Univers-Sons / Ultimate Sound Bank introduces Spirit of Gongs, another crazy and exclusive UVI Soundpack which features 80 ancient gongs and related percussions in one single library.

Gongs are mainly East and South East Asian musical instruments, the shape of a flat metal plate, usually hit with a mallet. There are gongs of various sizes, and this collection focuses on the most musical ones, middle to small-sized, from 5 to 26 inch.

Following their pristine audio quality policy, Univers-Sons did record these pieces of history with the best analog and digital equipment in 24-bit / 96 kHz, to capture the essence of these rich percussive instruments. Depending on the model, they were able to sample in multiple velocity levels.

In addition to the recordings, they assed the perceptual tuning of each sample, allowing the presets to be played around the keyboard. Thanks to that, the collection stands as more versatile than just a "classic" gong collection : sound textures are varying from large metal bongs, to magnificent and musical bell chimes.

Instruments are sorted in a very meticulous way, from their original location : Burma, Cambodia, China, Indochina, Japan, Malaysia, Vietnam... Pictures and actual sizes are provided along for most of the presets.

Spirit of Gongs is now available for $99, and includes the full version of UVI Workstation. Note that a video demo is available at :