Arturia has release v5 firmware for the MiniFreak, adding user sample and wavetable import, plus a new Factory Bank v5.0 with 23 new presets.
Features:
User sample import – import your own WAV, AIFF and FLAC samples and reshape them with MiniFreak’s sample-based engines, including granular processing, for unexpected textures and custom sound design. 12-bit / 32 kHz, up to 6 seconds.
User wavetables – Import mono wavetables from your favorite libraries, including Pigments, and twist them on the fly with the Wavetable engine. 24-bit, 512 points for wide compatibility.
New factory presets – 23 brand new presets bringing exclusive new sample and wavetable content, for you to explore with your favorite Freak engines.
Arturia MiniFreak v5 is available now as a free download.
Octabam is an open-source firmware remixing project that lets Elektron Octatrack owners build custom versions of the OS 1.40C firmware, combining community modifications with experimental DSP features.
Rather than distributing a modified Elektron OS, the project builds a new firmware image from the user’s own copy of OS 1.40C.
If you’re an Octatrack owners, Octabam promises to give you new effects, expanded MIDI functionality, additional sound-design options and bug fixes that aren’t available in the stock firmware.
Current modules include an auxiliary send bus with delay and eight-line FDN reverb, new filter/saturation/modulation effects, six experimental per-track inserts, MIDI-driven parameter locks, expanded Octakit functionality, a LO-FI pitch fix, tempo-synced delay, and a recorder-loop click fix.
The project also provides a framework for combining future community-developed modifications into customized firmware “remixes,” with automated compatibility checks and emulation/testing tools intended to catch conflicts before an image is flashed. The project currently supports both Octatrack MKI and MKII for the shared OS 1.40C image.
Note*: Octabam is an unofficial firmware modification, so back up your projects before trying this out.
If any readers have given Octabam a try, leave a comment and share your experience.
New Nova platform with five free virtual instruments but, bigger things are on the way.
The LA-based music software company behind the plugins Cube and Beam, Lunacy, has announced the launch of Nova, a cloud-based virtual instrument platform.
All of Nova’s instruments can be played in both your browser and your DAW via the free Nova host plugin, which gives you access to a growing library of instruments that currently includes ten titles – five of which are available for free. The plugin is available in AU/VST3/AAX formats for macOS and Windows.
Among the free instruments are Woodland Piano, a characterful sampled upright piano with a granular delay onboard and Chiptuner, a single-oscillator chiptune synth that delivers classic video game nostalgia in spades.
Also available for free is Good Vibes, a sampled vibraphone with four velocity layers and multiple effects, and Zephyr Strings, a string arp instrument based on recordings of the Budapest Strings Chamber Orchestra. Finally, Silhouettes is an ambient instrument with five presets and an XY-pad interface that’s ideal for atmospheric pads and eerie drones.
Alongside these free instruments, Nova’s marketplace features five paid titles that are a little more versatile than the freebies. These include Gleam, a modal resonator synth developed by Rainbow Circuit, Drift Cassette, a dual-deck tape-emulating multisampler, and Growl, a monophonic FM bass synth built for aggressive low-end tones. All five are currently available in a $99 bundle or can be purchased individually for between $19 and $35, and you can test them out for free in your browser.
The plan is to develop a platform for prompt-based plugin development and customization, synchronized across your browser and your DAW. Using Nova’s builder, creators will be able to design, edit, share and sell virtual instruments and effects without any programming experience, all with the aim of making plugin creation more accessible. Lunacy says the builder is currently in early access with a small group of developers, but hasn’t yet shared a date for an official release.
“Imagine if you could build any musical instrument you can imagine,” Lunacy CEO Casey Kolb said in a press release. “Soon, NOVA will let you. Once it is fully launched later this year, you’ll be able to dream up any sonic idea or playground, then turn that into a music tool, and then share it with the world with a single link.”
“Say someone makes a step sequencer and shares it. You open it and wish you could add a custom shimmer reverb to the end of the signal chain. You can add that, then you can share your new version with a friend, and that friend expands it further. The tools are never fixed; they are always evolving.”
While these capabilities are still a little way off, we’re curious to see how Nova develops. As it stands, the Nova plugin is worth downloading for the five free instruments alone, and we’re told that the library will continue to grow as time goes on.
