Enjoy Studio-quality recording on the go with the new RØDE NT-USB

Thursday July 24th 2014, Sydney Australia – Australian audio manufacturer RØDE is excited to announce its newest microphone, the NT-USB -- a studio-grade microphone with the convenience of a digital USB interface. The NT-USB is fully compatible with MacOS, Windows and iPad.

While RØDE’s Podcaster USB microphone was released in 2007, its primary focus is to provide broadcast-quality voice recording, with its end-address configuration. The NT-USB on the other hand is a highly versatile side-address microphone that is ideal for recording musical performances in addition to spoken applications such as podcasting and voice-over.

The microphone is fully compatible with all mainstream recording applications on both Windows and Mac OS based computers, as well as the Apple iPad using RØDE Rec, GarageBand, or any other recording app that accepts an external microphone. Use on the Apple iPad requires a suitable USB connection adaptor, such as the Apple Camera Connection Kit.

The body of the NT-USB features a zero-latency stereo headphone monitoring (3.5mm) jack, which allows users to monitor the microphone input in realtime, along with dials to adjust the monitoring level and mix between the computer/iPad audio and the microphone input.

A premium pop-filter is included, which fits onto the base of the mic, positioning the filter the ideal distance from the capsule to minimise plosives (hard ‘B’, ‘T’ or ‘P’ sounds that produce a harsh sound) during singing or speech. Also provided is a high-quality stand mount with industry standard 3/8” thread, desktop tripod stand that allows the NT-USB to sit at a comfortable height on a tabletop, and a pouch for storage of the microphone when not in use.

The NT-USB is supplied with an extended 24 month warranty, which is free of charge to customers that register their microphone on www.rodemic.com.

For more information please visit www.rodemic.com/nt-usb.

About RØDE microphones: 
RØDE Microphones (www.rodemic.com) designs and manufactures high-quality microphones and related accessories for studio, live and location use. Its products are designed and primarily manufactured in Sydney, Australia and exported to over 100 countries globally. 

Sticks In Motion, the home of forward-thinking online education for the 21st century drummer, is now live and online at www.sticksinmotion.com.

The aim is to give players around the world the tools to become great drummers, percussionists and all-round musicians. There is a broad range of lessons specifically developed to improve students’ knowledge of various styles, production techniques, studio engineering, drum tuning, music reading and a holistic approach to improving body and mind, all focused on providing players with all the tools they will need to constantly push themselves and develop their own individual sound and voice as on their instrument. 

The website features a hand-picked team of tutors who are all well established and highly-experienced in their chosen styles and fields, as well as being passionate about tuition and developing players' skill sets. Alongside expert tuition, www.sticksinmotion.com will be constantly expanding with new tutors, exclusive free downloads, free audio podcasts and up-to-date news and insights from both our teaching staff's working career and the world of drums in general, all aimed at showing our students exactly what's involved and required to be a successful working drummer and performer.

Their Facebook and Twitter pages will be constantly updated and in order to provide the best possible service they want to hear your feedback to help you improve your skills as a musician.

To find out more visit www.sticksinmotion.com to start your journey to become a better drummer, plus check out the introductory YouTube video here : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cWjpUyh6ioI

July 24, 2014 - IK Multimedia is proud to announce that SampleTank® 3, the ultimate sound and groove workstation for Mac and PC, is now shipping. SampleTank 3 sets a new industry standard for studio composition and live performance via its massive 33 GB sound library (containing over 4,000 instruments), 64-bit compatibility, completely redesigned user interface, 55 high-quality effects, new loop and groove management and enhanced sample engine. Powerful, functional and effortless, SampleTank 3 puts a whole new world of sound at your fingertips.

It's all about the sounds
The reason SampleTank has remained the industry standard "rompler" after all these years is due to the superior quality and sheer amount of sounds it offers right out of the box. SampleTank 3 pushes the benchmark even further by giving musicians a wider selection than ever before, with over 4,000 instruments to choose from in 21 categories that stretch across every genre and style imaginable - everything from acoustic to electric, ethnic to electronic and beyond.

All of SampleTank 3's sounds have been sampled and painstakingly crafted by IK's team of professional audio engineers, with new lifelike expressiveness thanks to SampleTank 3 multiple articulations and new "round-robin" features. Musicians will enjoy the depth and nuance of their favorite instruments like never before: SampleTank 3's pianos, drums, basses, guitars, synthesizers, brass, strings, vocals and other more exotic sounds shine brightly and stand out in any mix with little-to-no adjustment required.

An elegant, easy to use, interface
Harnessing the power of SampleTank has never been easier thanks to its freshly redesigned user interface. Its workflow has been streamlined into three main pages that let you work with 16 distinct "parts," which operate like a channel on a mixing board or a track in a DAW: The Play interface is where you'll play, search, browse, layer and adjust SampleTank 3's instruments. The Mix interface gives you the flexibility of a multitrack console-style DAW mixer that lets you process sound through SampleTank 3's many versatile effects. And the Edit interface lets you tweak sounds through a full-featured synthesizer engine, 3 advanced sampling engines and a host of 10 filters. Now you have not only the power but also the ease-of-control to create any sound you desire.

Get into the groove
Want to start jamming over complete tracks? Now you can with SampleTank 3's new built-in MIDI engine. It lets you build killer rhythmic tracks from its library of 2,500 audio loops and 2,000 MIDI patterns. And no matter what kind of grooves you decide to create, you'll always end up with the highest professional sound quality: its rhythm section has been recorded by some of the finest drummers and percussionists in the world. You can even drag and drop to export your groove constructions and beats to your DAW of choice.

Three powerful engines
SampleTank has long been considered the undisputed king when it comes to resampling. Its 3 engines go beyond traditional resampling (which you can find in any sampler). It offers advanced pitch-shifting and time-stretching engines for loops and grooves. And its unique formant preserving STRETCH™ engine provides an unparalleled level of realism when dealing with vocals, woodwinds, brass, and other organic sounds. These features allow for a virtually unlimited assortment of creative sample effect combinations. With SampleTank 3, users will enjoy these engines even more as it's been optimized for quick sample load times and light CPU usage.

Enough effects to fill a recording studio
SampleTank 3 comes with a lot of effects to choose from - 55 to be precise. All of these have been derived from IK's professional-grade T-RackS and AmpliTube software and feature eye-catching graphics and ear-pleasing sound that will make you feel like you're in the recording studio with some of the most coveted audio hardware of all time. You get high-quality vintage-modeled effects - like AmpliTube's Chorus1, UniV and TapeEcho - which sound great on keyboard, guitar and bass samples. You also get a full suite of outboard processors from T-RackS - like the Black 76, White 2A and Model 670 compressors - which will help you give your drums a visceral punch. All this is to say that SampleTank 3 is more than just its voluminous library of samples: It's a full-featured sound workstation that will take your musical creativity to the next level both on the stage and in the studio.

Pricing and availability
SampleTank 3 is available now from music and electronics retailers worldwide and from the IK Online store until September 30, 2014 at introductory prices as low as $149.99/€119.99* for SampleTank 2 XL or Miroslav Philharmonik full users; $199.99/€159.99 for users of any other paid IK software, hardware or app; and $299.99/€239.99 for new users. After the introductory period, the price will increase to $199.99/€159.99, $249.99/€199.99 and $349.99/€279.99 respectively.

*All prices excluding taxes

For more information, please visit
www.sampletank.com

There's only one week left to enter #Drumerica, the National Competition For Young Drummers! Submit a video of your drumming online for a chance to be seen by top drummers and win $25,000 in prizes. Open to 13-18 year-old US residents • Free, downloadable play-along tracks • Celebrity judges. The contest ends July 31, 2014. For more info go to: www.drumerica.us

New Comb-Bound Book with USB Drive Gives Guitarists  
Hundreds of Tracks in Lots of Styles

MILWAUKEE – Now guitarists can back away from their boring routines and practice in style with The Big Book of Backing Tracks. New from Hal Leonard, this excellent collection assembled by Chad Johnson contains 200 chord progressions over which players can practice their latest and greatest licks, plus a USB flash drive of audio demos for every single one.

The audio tracks range from approximately one minute for the short progressions, to four minutes or more for the full-length “song” progressions. The Big Book of Backing Tracks covers numerous musical genres, keys and tempos to make sure guitarists are well versed in practically every style.

Rockers, jazzers, bluegrassers and blues folks alike will find plenty of opportunities to milk their melodies for all they’re worth. In addition to the USB flash drive, The Big Book of Backing Tracks also includes access to audio files online at www/halleonard.com/MyLibrary.

The Big Book of Backing Tracks (HL00119678) is a great deal at $24.99. For more information or to place an order, please call the Hal Leonard E-Z Order Line at 800-554-0626, email sales@halleonard.com or visit www.halleonard.com.

About Hal Leonard Corporation

Founded in 1947, Hal Leonard Corporation is the world’s largest music print publisher and digital content provider, producing songbooks, sheet music, educational publications, reference books, DVDs, magazines, eBooks, digital sheet music, apps and more.

The company is also a major distributor of music technology products, selling and marketing the most popular software, hard goods and accessories available today, to musicians and recording enthusiasts around the world.

In its more than 200,000 available publications and products, Hal Leonard represents many of the world’s best known and most respected publishers, artists, songwriters, arrangers and manufacturers. The company is headquartered in Milwaukee, WI and also has domestic offices in Winona, MN; New York; Nashville; and Boston, and offices abroad in Australia, Belgium, China, Germany, Holland, Italy, Switzerland and the United Kingdom.

Hailed as a new paradigm in audio live production, this ground-breaking console can switch between live and post production modes at the touch of a button

Berlin, Germany. July 22nd 2014: EVO.Live, Fairlight's new generation digital audio mixing system, will make its European debut at IBC 2014 on Booth 7.H17.
 
Designed for the most demanding on-air and live productions, EVO.Live won a Best of Show Award when it was launched at NAB 2014 and broadcasters around the world have been quick to spot its potential. The first console has already been installed at the prestigious Catholic TV Network in Boston, USA, where it is broadcasting live TV to more than 14 million homes worldwide.
 
Based on Fairlight’s leading-edge audio processing and control surface technologies, EVO.Live is a powerful console that offers integrated HD video and multitrack audio recording. However, what makes EVO.Live exceptional is its ability to switch between live and post production modes at the touch of a button so that staff engineers can use the desk for audio sweetening when it isn't needed for on-air applications.

"EVO.Live is truly unique," says Fairlight's CTO Tino Fibaek. "By combining Live and post-production capabilities in a single console, we have succeeded in delivering a product that is more flexible and more cost effective than any other large format live broadcast console on the market. EVO.Live customers will get a much better return on their investment because they are effectively getting two consoles in one."

 
EVO.Live's compact, modular design creates the perfect mixing environment for OB trucks, performing arts venues, house of worship and broadcast facilities.  The console can be used in a dual-operator configuration with each engineer having independent access to separate fader sets, channels and monitor controls.
 
EVO.Live incorporates Fairlight's integrated control surface technology featuring unique Picture Keys that self-label instantly for each task performed. These display the right commands and functions at the right time, ensuring a much faster workflow and giving users much better control of their events.
 
EVO.Live also features Fairlight’s FPGA-based Crystal Core engine that delivers high channel and bus counts, low latency and exceptional audio quality.  The console additionally provides advanced surround sound mixing capabilities, off-line preparation via laptop, a built-in sound effects cart machine and control extensions to lighting systems, third-party DAWs and sound library databases.
 
EVO.Live is available in different stand-alone chassis sizes, as well as surface-mounted and table-top configurations, from 12 to 60 faders. The ergonomic integrated control surface design with touch screen TFT monitors offers immediate access to all critical live functions with excellent visualisation. An optional second hot-swappable FPGA based engine with dual-input power supplies gives redundancy and further enhanced system reliability. 

"EVO.Live delivers huge benefits in terms of productivity gains, reliability and value for money," Tino Fibaek adds he says. "By taking the console architecture that we use for our post-production desks and creating a variant to suit live broadcast applications, we have created an incredibly powerful mixing and editing system that customers can use all the time."