Behringer today announced that they’ve finalized the design for the MS-5, their Roland Sh-5 knockoff, and it is ready for beta testing:
“MS-5 is coming. We’re super excited having finalized another blast from the past.
This beautiful synth is now going to the beta testers for final review and then straight into manufacturing.”
The MS-5 is a copy of the SH-5, but in Behringer’s Poly D form factor. The Behringer MS-5 replaces the modulation panel and the top panel of the Poly D with panels based on the SH-5.
The smaller form factor means that the synth loses 2/3rd of an octave on the keyboard, and that controls are packed together more tightly. But adapting the SH-5 to Behringer’s existing format presumably will make the keyboard much less expensive to manufacture.
Details on pricing and availability are still to be announced. Behringer says that they are looking for Roland SH-5 owners to beta test their copy. If you are an SH-5 owner and have interest, you can contact them via their Facebook page.
Woodman’s Immaculate Maple Syrup Studio has introduced WoodTroller v1.0, a new app/auv3 plugin that turns your Mac or iOS device into an MPE multi-touch bar keyboard and MIDI macro controller.
The MPE touch bar supports multiple notes (on iPad) with individual pitch shift (horizontal movement), pressure and CC74 (vertical movement). Number of notes visible, center note and pitch end values for MPE and non-MPE can be user set.
WoodTroller has 8 general purpose rotary controls:
Each can send 6 different CC messages to different channels.
Each of the 6 command values can be mapped differently to the full rotary range.
So 1 rotary can control several parameters on the same or on different instruments.
Rotary names, color, unit, range can all be user set.
WoodTroller also has 8 general purpose on-off or push buttons:
Each button can send up to 8 different midi commands (CC, PC, NoteOn, …) to different channels.
This allows to quickly switch multiple midi instruments or devices to another program or to other settings.
Each midi command’s data value can be auto incremented/decremented.
All button names, color, type can be user set.
All settings can be stored in presets in iCloud, which allows for automatic preset syncing between several WoodTrollers on different devices.
WoodTroller is available as stand-alone app and as AUv3 plugin. The developer says that it’s mainly meant for iPad, but also runs on MacOS (single touch).
Isla Instruments has released a new firmware update for the Isla Instruments S2400, a sampling workstation and drum machine described as “The spiritual successor to the greatest drum machine the world ever saw.”
The S2400 OS update includes a long list of fixes and new features:
Live Looping has had a major overhaul. You can now Live Loop in stereo, have more banks, and set different inputs for each one.
For those of you with an old-school E-mu SP-1200, there is great news. The S2400 can now import samples and sequences from SP-1200 floppy drive images.
Then there’s the new Round Robin playback feature that adds variation and generative sequencing to your patterns.
Miscellaneous weaks and fixes, making this the instrument’s “most stable OS update yet”.
Updating is easy, just download the update copy it to your SD card, and the S2400 will do the rest.
