WORLD OF MUSIC ; PORTABLE KEYBOARD - Latest Portable Music Keyboards, Synthesizers and Music News

Novation has introduced the FLkey Mini and FLkey 37, its first dedicated MIDI keyboards for FL Studio. These integrate fully with Image-Line’s DAW, and promise “seamless music production and an intuitive workflow”.

The FLkey range will enable you to do more without having to look at your screen and use your mouse or keyboard. You get direct access to the mixer and step sequencer, along with channel rack playability from the pads.

In addition, you can control instruments and automation, browse presets from Image-Line plugins and assign custom controls.

FLkey Mini is a compact 25-mini-key MIDI keyboard, designed to combine a portable keyboard with essential FL Studio control.

FLkey 37 expands on its Mini counterpart, giving creators a 37-note full-size keyboard for a larger octave range, making it a more playable device that is designed for studio use. It also offers more features, including Channel rack control, Fixed Chord mode and User Chord mode, which enables producers to play custom chords with one finger. Scale Chord mode, meanwhile, makes it possible to play pre-made chords in eight different scales straight from FLkey’s pads.

Here are the official video demos:

Features:

• Seamless Integration with FL Studio
• Volume and pan control
• Step sequencer
• Channel Rack playability
• Scale mode
• Instrument control – Trigger FPC, SliceX and Fruity Slicer with the pads for more expressive beats and melodies.
• Plug-in control – Control Image Line plug-ins and record natural-sounding automation with FLkey’s eight pots.
• Preset browsin – Browse presets in Image Line plug-ins directly from FLkey.
• Fixed Chord mode – Play custom chords with one finger (FLkey 37 only).
• User Chord mode – Assign 16 custom chords and play them with just one finger. Store chord progressions for rapid song building and performance (FLkey 37 only).
• Scale Chord mode – Play 32 pre-made chords in eight different scales straight from the pads (FLkey 37 only).
• Custom modes – Assign custom controls to the pads and pots to tailor your music production workflow.

FLkey Mini and FLkey 37 are available now, priced at $109.99 and $199.99 Find out more on Novation website.

Baby Audio’s Crystalline is a next-gen algorithmic reverb plugin that sounds “almost unreal”

A classic studio reverb for today’s producers, said to “stand on the shoulders of 60 years of chasing ‘the holy grail of DSP’,” Baby Audio Crystalline is a new algorithmic reverb plugin that reverse back to classic digital reverbs of the past while taking advantage of modern processing power. The final result is a plugin that promises everything that today’s DAW-based producer needs.

Crystalline enables you to hard-sync the reverb attack and decay time to your DAW tempo, creating reflections that sync with the music, but you still have the option of setting the pre-delay and decay times in milliseconds if you would rather.

The dedicated Reflections section enables you to set the size of the room, add ‘Sparkle’ – which emphasises the high frequencies within the reverb algorithm – and set the width.

The Depth section can be used to set the resolution of the reverb algorithm, add pitch modulation and adjust the level of ‘Shimmer’, which makes the high frequencies of the reverb tail decay lower than the rest of the spectrum.

In the Clean-Up section you can remove high or low frequency content, filter-out stereo information from the low-end of the reverb and use the gate to create that classic ‘80s reverb sound.

And the Shape section offers Tone, Smoothing and Transients controls, while the Output section features two ducker settings, reverse and freeze options and a dry/wet control.

Baby Audio says that the overall sound of Crystalline is “almost unreal” in the sense its spaces are closer to what you’d dream of having rather than what you’ve actually experienced.

It runs on PC and Mac in VST/AU/AAX formats and comes with more than 300 presets.

Crystalline is currently available for the intro price of $49, regular price $99. A demo version is also available.

Find out more on the Baby Audio website

HitSend has been developed over the last 3 years with the collaboration of some of the top names in the professional audio production world.

A gamechanger for audio pros?

HitSend is a one-stop solution for pro mixing and mastering engineers: share files, communicate and get paid in one place

It is very common for mixing and mastering engineers to work remotely; not in the same studio as their clients, but communication and payment barriers can have a habit of slowing things down. Enter HitSend, a new one-stop solution that is designed to take care of the whole process.

HitSend is a web-based solution that you can access from anywhere (no downloads or installs required) and enables engineers to receive timestamped feedback from their clients so they can see where and how they need to make changes.

In addition, Files can be played back at full WAV/AIFF quality, and final mixes/masters are only made available to clients once they have confirmed they are happy and made payment.

Other features include integration with Google Drive and Dropbox and “best-in-class” security.

Features At A Glance:

• Flawless audio – Full Wav. and AIFF playback on any device for up to 48x better audio quality.

• Time-coded feedback – Collect feedback on tracks that can flow into Pro Tools, Logic, Studio One and Cubase.

• Invoicing – Collect deposit and approval payments with PayPal, Stripe, Venmo, Apple Pay and more.

• Best-in-class security – Protect projects with secure logins, encryption, data privacy and compliance.

A subscription to HitSend costs $40 a month; this includes 250GB of active storage, 1TB of archival storage and four workspace ‘seats’. Custom-built solutions – for labels and large production teams – are also available on request.

Find out more on the HitSend website.