The embarrassment of riches that is music software for the Nintendo DS continues to grow. Alongside the homebrew entries, DS developer AQ Interactive has the one officially-distributed DS soft synth, a loving emulation of vintage Korg goodness in DS form. We’ve gotten word that the DS-10 makes its public debut this Saturday in London, as part of the London International Music Show (LIMS):

"KORG DS-10 night in London"
Date: Saturday, 14th June, 2008
Time: 22:30-26:00
Location: LIFE, 2-4 Old Street London EC1V 9AA
tel: 020 7250 3737 (http://www.life-oldst.com/)
Admission is FREE!
———————————-
We will have fine entertainment at the event, featuring smooth vibes from cool DJs and a special appearance by the producer of the DS-10, sanodg.  He will not be at LIMS but will be only at our event, so do not miss this only chance to see his performance with the DS-10!
Come one, come all and shuffle on down, and please receive a free drink by letting the reception know that you’ve received this invitation at the door!

I’m supremely jealous (London gets to have all the fun these days), so if anyone would like to cover the event for CDM so the rest of the world can enjoy, please get in touch! No word yet on whether you can trade your free drink ticket for a “free DS-10 cartridge ticket.” Guessing not, unfortunately.

Still no more word on pricing/availability for the rest of us on the DS-10, but I expect this means we’ll be hearing more soon. When I hear from AQ, you’ll hear from me.

Okay, JUNO lovers: while we ponder why Roland won’t reissue some of its classic JUNO models, you can get your fix from some very responsive indie developers, at least on Windows.

VST U-NO-60 from Togu Audio Line

Before we get into the specific features of the plug-in itself, let’s talk about the features of the developer: 1.) they’re giving this gem away free, 2.) they’re getting involved with the community of people actually using it, who have already created some terrific demos of its sound capabilities, and 3.) they’re very responsive to user comments. Best of all, they’ve done what seems to be a really terrific job.

Sasa writes us:

“Check this plugin out, sounds incredible and it’s free. The developer responds incredibly fast to people’s comments. See this thread at KVR:
http://www.kvraudio.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=179588&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0
There are almost daily updates and bugfixes. I think it deserves a place in CDM. Your readers will appreciate it.”

I agree. Now about the plug-in itself: it’s a simplified version of the JUNO, as the name implies, but still with some important features for making it useful, sonically speaking.

Stompboxes are back! Yes, software is great, but the gigging musician still loves something you can plug in and step on. The Messe show saw some traditionally rack-mounted gear reborn in stomp form.

Sure to be a huge hit, Roland’s BOSS RE-20 takes the beloved RE-201 Roland Space Echo and recreates it as a stompbox. It emulates all the major features of the RE-201, down to placement presets and tape flutter and magnetic head sound saturation, and adds a longer delay time — plus the ability to tap in delays with your foot. No pricing or availability yet that I’ve seen.

BOSS RE-20 Space Echo Product Page
Music thing weighs in with some thoughts.

At the other end of the spectrum, vocal processor maker TC-Helicon is best known for making big, do-everything racks. They’ve now taken the most popular features there, and repackaged as stomp boxes called VOICE|TONE. The idea is to perform all of the sweetening you’d normally apply in the studio onstage.

After conquering the world of software emulations, Arturia is finally thinking inside the box with the announcement of its first keyboard, the Origin Keyboard. Like the previously announced but yet-to-ship Origin, the synthesizer is completely modular, allowing you to build patches by combining modules from Arturia’s versions of the Minimoog, CS-80, ARP 2600, Moog Modular and Prophet VS.

While, personally I’d rather have the tabletop version, the 61-key keyboard appears to be no slouch, combining aftertouch and velocity sensitivity with a ribbon controller, joystick, the requisite mod and pitch wheels and plenty of knobs for tweaking. Ed.: Glad you’d rather have the tabletop, Lee. I’ll take one keyboard, then, Arturia — thanks! -PK

While only a rendering exists, it appears that the front-panel can be tilted to accommodate your playing style (like the Minimoog or the Korg Radius). A 5.2″ color screen means you won’t miss your laptop when playing live. In the studio, software integration comes in the form of an AU or VST plug-in that allows editing on a computer, with all processing taking place in the Origin hardware. The Origin has a complete selection of on-board effects including a phaser, chorus, delay, reverb, and distortion and a 16/32 step sequencer.

Tim Clark writes to point out the Magical 8bit Plugin from the awesome Japanese game console virtuosos YMCK is now Intel Mac-ready:

YMCK Plug-in Download Page

What wonders does YMCK offer?

1. 5 waveforms (square, pulse (2 kinds), pseudo-triangle, low-resolution noise)
   
2. ADSR envelope assignment for volume
   
3. Supports pitch bending, bend range variable
   
4. Frequency sweep function

Sure, it’s not a real NES, but I love plug-in emulations nonetheless: they open up additional performance options and insane configurations impossible with hardware. Now if only Chip32 were Intel-native. (As we discovered in comments, GarageBand weirdly refuses to run in Rosetta for PowerPC compatibility, something most music apps will do.)

Previously:
8-bit Nintendo Sounds as a Free Windows/Mac Plug-in (Add an NES to GarageBand, Stompbox NES FX)

YMCK: Japanese 8-bit Virtuosos, Music Videos

Audio Impressions had a working demo of their flagship orchestral library, DVZ. Well, ok—just the strings were demoed, but the full package with over 600 instruments is scheduled to de-vaporize and ship in March.

Audio Impressions > Products > Realtime Instruments (DVZ)

DVZ (pronounced “di-vi-zee”) promises a unique experience for those yearning to achieve new realism for that film score sound. The string section emanating from their NAMM booth did indeed seem to hit the nail on the head.

I was particularly impressed that it sounded so good being played straight from a keyboard. Part of the reason is that there is an algorithm that senses how fast notes are being played, so you can get articulations that make more sense without needing to be programmed after the fact through sample switching or tweaking attack and release times.

So what else is innovative about DVZ?

A funny thing has happened this year: just as multi-core computers are making software more powerful, DSP has gotten easier and cheaper. Result: new hardware that behaves like software. Look no further than long-time software-only, analog emulation house Arturia, who have unveiled a new hardware synth called Origin that builds on the legacy of their soft synths.

The Origin builds in the components of Arturia’s emulation of the Moog modular, minimoog, ARP 2600, Prophet VS, and CS-80, now in hardware form, but allows you to mix and match modules via an on-screen, plug-in-like interface. Now, of course, you can already mix and match all kinds of synthesis methods in software, but Arturia claims that the Analog Devices TigerSHARC DSP chips in the Origin allow greater audio fidelity and performance than even high-end dual-core CPUs. That certainly seems likely; even as CPUs become faster, they’re still rarely as efficient as dedicated DSP. The big question to me is, have Arturia — new to the DSP game — sufficiently molded their instruments to the new hardware? We’ll just have to wait to hear the results.

Arturia Origin

Quick specs:

1. 500 presets, plus preset compatibility with “most” of Arturia’s software presets
2. 32-voice polyphony
3. True Analog Engine (as found in Arturia’s software); up to 24/96 audio


4. Plug-in support: hardware integrates with plug-ins on your machine (Mac/PC)
5. Lots of I/O: 2 audio ins, 10 audio outs. Digital: SPDIF out, USB 2.0, MIDI in/out/thru
6. FX: Phaser, Chorus, Delay, FX Reverbs, Distortion, Param Eq, Compressor, Bitcrusher
7. 16/32 step sequencer
8. Modulation control: Macro, Advanced LFO, modulation modes, Advanced Joystick modes

Arturia’s going to have a lot of competition, from software running on Core Duo laptops to new virtual analog hardware like the Waldorf gear. It’ll be interesting to watch this one shake out.

In the meantime, Arturia hasn’t stopped doing software:

Jupiter 8-V

1. 32 voice polyphony - 2 oscillators per voice; 18 osc total, 2 LFOs, 2 filters, 2 envelopes
2. FX: Dual Delay, Phaser, Flanger, modulation via any audio source
3. VST / AU / RTAS Mac/PC


4. 400 presets

As usual, Arturia isn’t just emulating; they’ve added twists like X/Y digital effects, an advanced “Galaxy” modulation section, easy MIDI assignment, and a step sequencer. The downside here: the “TAE” engine Arturia can sacrifice accuracy in the name of versatility; I’d really like to see an obsessive model of the Jupiter. We’ll know once we test it — especially once Jupiter lovers pull it apart.

(Bad news on the Jupiter is that apparently they’re using a hardware key aka dongle for copy protection.)

Arturia has long been known for its realistic emulations of classic analog synthesizers. So is Analog Factory, which repackages its existing emulations in a stripped-down virtual instrument a good deal for digital musicians, or just old wine in a new bottle?

The package contains 2000 presets, taken from Arturia’s ARP 2600V, CS80V, MiniMoog V Moog Modular V, and Prophet V emulations, all of which use Arturia’s acclaimed TAE (True Analog Emulation) technology to accurately reproduce the sound (if not the interface) of the original hardware. The bundle gives you a simplified bundle of the favorite sounds of all the larger, more editable libraries, in an approach along the same lines as Native Instruments’ Xpress Keyboards. Analog Factory rationalizes the sometimes complex interfaces found in the full packages with a simple display that puts everything upfront on a single screen. There’s a 2-1/2 octave virtual keyboard with pitch and mod wheels, master volume control, eight snapshot buttons for saving favorite patches, and a series of controls for controlling the basic parameters found in all analog synths (more on these later).

I have to point this one out in case you missed it: none other than George Massenburg chimes in on CDM’s comments on the new Focusrite Liquid Channel (click through to comments on that story for context):

Not sure everyone knows that although digital emulators are quite competent at some chores, others, such as comprehensive dynamics, are a different story; it’s my studied opinion that these devices are less than convincing when emulating analog compressors.

VJing and jamming with Pitfall, controlled from MIDI drums? Heck, yes!

Max/MSP/Jitter is a multimedia environment that also happens to be a development tool, the upshot being that you can do bizarre things like emulate the chips of Atari, Sega, Nintendo, and Coleco game systems (covered previously).

Now imagine you could turn those emulations into a playable video/music instrument. Imagine you could map the pixels of the graphics to any object, stretch and warp it to other objects, or even use it to control a giant lighting array. The source could be the game itself, or visualizations of the RAM and ROM memory accesses. You could use any instrument to control gameplay (like a MIDI violin, or a laser beam, or whatever you wanted). That’s exactly what the mmonoplayer gang have done with a free Jitter external:

jit.2600

You’ll need Jitter (try the demo), and you’ll need some ROM files to play the games. I love that the creators describe it as virtual circuit bending — and bending is literally the word, as you warp and stretch video matrices. More features are on the way, too: audio support (yes, please!) and other game systems.

If you do anything interesting with this, do let us know. Via Will Carter at the USC Interactive Media Division and Wallace Winfrey on the great, new Cycling ‘74 forums.