There's something about well placed female vocal riffing in electronic music that just gets me. Jazz scats like the new collection of sounds featuring Canadian chanteuse, Julie Hamelin, work quite well for building on top of a solid dance beat or dropping in neatly into a hip-hop riff. With some careful arranging, you might even be able to piece together a backing vocal for a pop melody. 341 voice samples weighing in at 27.8MB deliver a solid dose of vocal goodness perfect for adding to tracks that need a little something extra to make them work. Sample the tracks with a massive rar file containing free sounds from the collection or take a listen to the audio tracks constructed on the site. The demo sounds give you a very accurate impression of the potential value of the entire vocal collection. For $19.99, this is an excellent collection of vocal stabs compatible with any app capable of supporting soundfont, NUSofting DK+ and FXpansion DR-008, Vsampler 3 or Wusikstation.
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Get big drum and bass guitar sounds in one combined virtual rack. M-Audio makes the Drum and Bass Rig compatible with most of the recording environments on both Windows and Mac OS X platforms, with four separate modules for creating the perfect digital rhythm section. RD-5 Real Drums, EB-6 Electric Bass, LC-7 Loop Creator and BL-8 Bassline all work to create the rhythms you need to compose backing tracks or build a solid dance track from the beats up. While the app is optimized for use with the M-Audio keyboard line, it should work with any MIDI instrument configuration. Individual modules have their own effects racks in addition to a master effects rack for the entire application. Compatible with virtually any VST 2.0 interface. [Windows XP/Mac OS X 10.3 MSRP$129.95]
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Guitar modeling is something of a voodoo science. After all do you really get the sound of a Marshall Stack by plugging this in instead of using that Pignose practice amp in the corner? Is this going to turn that Sears catalog special into the sounds of the legendary rock masters? While a wide combination of amp rigs might be out of reach for most musicians, the purest in mean screams out to make the madness stop. I've heard several other digital modeling tools do a capable job of replicating specific microphones, so there must be something to this technique. Modeled amps include Fender Bassman, Fender Deluxe, Fender Twin, Vox AC 30, Marshall JTM-45, Marshall Plexi, Marshall JCM-2000, Hiwatt DR-103, Soldano SLO-100, Mesa Boogie Maverick, Mesa Boogie Dual Rectifier and Bogner Uberschall. In addition to tricking the sound waves into thinking they've originated from a classic amp, the Black Box also bundles drum machine beat generation with automatic beat syncing, which is useful for the home recording musician. This could be the most expensive USB microphone pre-amp on the market. It is an effective DI box for recording your guitar direct into a PC, but you won't get the room feel associated with proper microphone placement on a real amp, no matter how good the modeling claims to be. A built-in guitar tuner is sort of a so-what extra that every gadget maker includes these days. If you're going for an easy set up to do PC or Mac based recording of your guitar tracks this is it. If you want to do computer recording and have it sound more natural, stick with the hard way and mic your amp.
Jamstix is a virtual drummer with a pretty suite feature set. Dumping the drummer in favor of a computer generated alternative has a long tradition, but this one takes it a step further and attempts to play along with other instruments. The big advantage is no dropped sticks during gigs and one less body to consume the food buyout.
According to Rayzoon, makers of Jamstix, it is a VST acoustic drum brain that can jam with you and your music like a human drummer would. Recognizes what and how you play and interacts with you to give you very realistic drum tracks. Steroids for your creativity! Built-in high-quality multi-velocity drum sample player with controllable ambience and bounce samples. Integrated VST sub-host allows usage of any VSTi drum synthesizer, such as BFD, NI Battery™ and DFH Superior. Combine the sounds of your favorite drum plugin with the jam power and realism of the Jamstix brain! Extensive, unparalleled jamming capability. Analyzes MIDI input as well as audio input (with limitations) in real-time and develops rhythms and adjusts parameters instantaneously, giving you the feel of playing with a human drummer Limb-Priority-Control mechanism ensures that the output is at all times playable by a human drummer. You can layer rhythms and fills and accents as you wish and never have to worry about whether the result sounds realistic.
Download the demo or order a copy of Jamstix from Rayzoon.
