A sampled piano with a difference, and you can currently have it for free till 3 August.
IK Multimedia is giving away free music software to subscribers of its newsletter by offering them Art Deco Piano, a SampleTank instrument that usually retails for €79.99 and is powered by more than 1GB of sample content.
This recreates the look and sound of the visually Blüthner PH grand piano. Instead of being housed in a wooden cabinet, this is made of metal, leather and other materials, and is known for its bright and modern sound.
The bright and modern Art Deco Piano should cut nicely through a mix, and there are 10 presets. Art Deco Piano works both in the full version of SampleTank 4 and the Custom Shop version, which works on PC and Mac and can be downloaded for free. This runs both standalone and as a plugin.
Modal Electronics has announced the availability of v2.4 firmware for their Argon Series synthesizers, along with a new volume of factory presets.
New in Firmware Version 2.4:
Added more LFO synced divisions
Added Extended Oscillator Drift to upper range of Drift control.
Added ‘Master’ Clock Source mode that always sends out MIDI clock
Improved MIDI reliability on macOS Big Sur
Improved arpeggiator sync when working with external sequencers
Improved expression pedal behaviour
Improved LFO1 sync when clocked from external MIDI
Volume 2 of the Factory Preset library for the ARGON8, ARGON8M and ARGON8X features 300 new presets, plus 100 MPE-ready patches currently available in the existing Volume 1 library.
28 iconic Roland Cloud AU plugins now native support for Apple M1 Macs. Classic TR drum machines and Juno/Jupiter synths are now compatible.
Roland has announced that 28 of its Roland Cloud-hosted AU plugin synths now offer native support for Apple silicon Macs.
The company notes that, because of the “inherent gains of the Apple architecture”, musicians can now run more instances of their software synths on more affordable devices than ever before.
Therefore, it seems that it is a case of ‘vintage synth meets modern computer architecture’.
Roland instruments now updated with native support for Apple silicon include:
ZENOLOGY?SYSTEM-1?SYSTEM-8?JUNO-60?TR-606?D-50?JX-3P?PROMARS?SH-101?JUNO-106?SYSTEM-100?TB-303?TR-808?JUPITER-8?JV-1080?TR-909?SH-2?XV-5080?SRX BRASS?SRX DANCE TRAX?SRX ELECTRIC PIANO?SRX KEYBOARDS?SRX ORCHESTRA?SRX STRINGS?SRX STUDIO?SRX WORLD?SRX PIANO I?SRX PIANO II
The list of updated plugins includes some stone-cold Roland classics – the likes of the TR-808, TR-909, Juno-106, and Jupiter-8. There are also plenty of emulations of more contemporary instruments, including the System-1 and System-8, as well as classic sound modules such as the JV-1080, XV-5080 and their companion expansion boards.
Zenology, which is powered by Roland Zen-Core engine, is now M1-compatible, as well.
