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Microsoft has announced that they have opened their Github repository for MIDI 2.0.

The opening of this Open Source repository is a major step forward for MIDI 2.0, as Apple and Google have already implemented MIDI 2.0 in their operating systems.

“By default, we are open source for everything which can be, even going so far as to create clean-room versions of code when there’s any question about what can or can’t be OSS,” notes Microsoft Principal Software Engineer Pete Brown. “We’re not open sourcing so that we can dump this on the community, but so we can engage the developer community, get feedback, enable deep insight into what’s happening, and share MIDI 2.0 with the rest of the world in the most useful way possible.”

Details on the announcement available at the Microsoft Developer Blogs website.

Arriving just in time for a summer of field recording, Teenage Engineering has finally released its new TP-7 field recorder, which is designed to do “only one thing and do it well.”

The TP-7 field recorder was introduced at Superbooth – it is digital and it is one of the loveliest looking recorder designed to slot perfectly into your palm.

TP-7 encourages you to use your index finger to trigger the fast-forward control and your middle finger to rewind. Your thumb starts a recording, and your ‘pinky’ selects the mode. Teenage Engineering calls this ‘intuitive muscle reflex control’ and believes that it creates “a genuinely rewarding man-machine experience.”

Audio scrubbing can be controlled by a side-mounted rocker, but the centrepiece of the TP-7 is the motorised ‘tape’ reel. Featuring a brushed motor with ball bearings, this enables you to grab and move through your recording, pause it and navigate menus. The reel also spins during playback so you can experience the sensation of watching analogue tape rolling.

Available in limited quantities, the TP-7 costs $1,499/£1,299. Find out more on the Teenage Engineering website.

Nembrini Audio’s Big Stuff is a plugin emulation of Electro-Harmonix’s classic Big Muff pedal, a free plugin that promises all the fuzzy fun of the hardware in your PC, Mac or iOS DAW.

Having seen Electro-Harmonix create a ‘hardware plugin’ version of its Big Muff pedal last year, now Nembrini Audio has released a standard plugin emulation, Big Stuff, and is enabling you download it for free.

For the uninitiated, the Big Muff is a classic fuzz/distortion/sustain pedal. Released back in the ‘70s, it was favoured by everyone from Jimi Hendrix to Carlos Santana and David Gilmour, and its sound is still in demand today.

Big Stuff promises to do an accurate job of nailing the Big Muff’s tone and workflow. As on the pedal, there are volume, sustain and tone controls.

When used in combination, the volume and sustain can do everything from cleaning up a signal to adding more obvious sustain and distortion, while the tone control operates like a low-pass filter.

What Nembrini Audio says about it:

“Nembrini Audio Big Stuff is modeled on a Electro Harmonix Big Muff.

The Big Stuff will give you a sweet violin-like sustaining sound. It’s the same legendary created by Jimi Hendrix”.

Big Stuff Harmonic Distortion-Sustain Demos

Big Stuff is free to download, it runs on PC and Mac in VST/AU/AAX formats and also on iOS in standalone, AUv3 and Inter-App Audio formats. Find out more and download on the Nembrini Audio website.