New Gear Alert: Exclusive Eventide Deals with Apogee & Focusrite, iZotope Updates Elements Offerings, mix:analog & More

Apogee & Eventide join forces on the Ensemble Bundle.

Buy any Ensemble or Element Series interface from Apogee and get 6 months of Eventide’s Ensemble Bundle subscription for free.

The Apogee and Eventide Bundle brings together Apogee’s premium Ensemble and Element Series Thunderbolt audio interfaces with Eventide’s expansive and comprehensive Ensemble Plugin Bundle subscription.

Buy a new Apogee Ensemble or Element Series interface from an authorized Apogee dealer and get a discount coupon good for a free 6-month subscription to the Eventide Ensemble bundle (a $180 value). This bundle has 23 plugins included, plus access to any new plugins Eventide releases during your subscription at no additional charge.

iZotope releases Nectar Elements and updates the Elements Suite.

iZotope gives their Nectar Elements vocal plugin several key upgrades and adds it to the Elements Suite.

iZotope’s new version of Nectar Elements brings a complete refresh to the popular vocal plugin. Now incorporating the new Vocal Assistant, Nectar Elements analyses and adapts to your vocal sound, taking the guesswork out of placing your vocal in the mix, and letting you make your vocals stand out in just a few clicks. The plugin intelligently combines iZotope’s latest DSP for compression, de-essing, tonal and subtractive EQ, pitch correction, and reverb into one intuitive interface.

To coincide with the release of Nectar Elements, iZotope has also now added it to the Elements Suite. With Ozone Elements, Neutron Elements and RX Elements, the Elements Suite delivers a highly useful combination of award winning plugins for mixing, mastering and repair.

iZotope is offering attractive discounts—particularly for existing iZotope product users—on both Nectar Elements and the Elements Suite until July 31st, with prices starting from just £43.

Focusrite offers Eventide deals via the Plug-in Collective.

New to Focusrite’s Plug-in Collective is Eventide’s comprehensive EQuivocate equalizer, along with a 50% discount on the entire Elevate Mastering Bundle.

Focusrite has unveiled a new offer for its Plug-in Collective community from July 5th to September 6th. The availability of free Eventide plugin EQuivocate (reg. $99) coincides with a 50% discount off Eventide’s Elevate Mastering Bundle. Registered Focusrite hardware customers can access the free plugin and discount from their Focusrite accounts.

EQuivocate’s auditory filters and match EQ functionality make it incredibly powerful, simple to use, and natural sounding. EQuivocate uses filters which are modeled on the human ear; each of the 26 critical bands tickles a different part of your inner ear, making any combination of settings sound as natural as possible. Combining this with a linear-phase filter shape that reduces pre-echo makes EQuivocate an EQ with a difference you can hear.

The Elevate Mastering Bundle includes Elevate, EQuivocate, the Punctuate adaptive transient enhancer, and the Saturate spectral clipper. The unique Elevate multi-band limiter, human-ear EQ, and powerful audio maximizer will increase the loudness of your mix while maintaining or improving its dynamic perception. It uses intelligent, adaptive technology that responds in real time to your music, creating not only the loudest, but the best sounding master.

Blue Cat Audio releases Blue Cat’s Free Amp plugin.

Blue Cat utilizes the technology behind their Destructor and Axiom software to offer a no-strings-attached, new amp mod—for free!

Using the same modeling technology behind the Destructor and Axiom software, Blue Cat’s Free Amp offers 3 amp models for a wide range of guitar tones. The plugin can produce pristine clean tones, subtle crunches, or heavy distortion, depending on the amp model and the settings dialed with the guitar-friendly tone controls. It includes two dozen factory presets to get started, and additional free presets are available for download.

Blue Cat’s Free Amp is 100% free, and does not require any registration or dongle to run without any limitation.

Meet mix:analog, an online analog audio processing service.

mix:analog offers real time control over a wealth of classic analog hardware-inspired emulations via a new and inventive remote control-based workflow.

mix:analog is the only online service offering full, real time control and monitoring of remote analog audio processing hardware. It’s a browser application that lets you remote control professionally maintained analog gear over the internet, using a graphical user interface.

mix:analog allows you to choose a signal chain and upload the file(s) you want to process. Press Play and tweak the settings, then use the Download tab to bounce the processed version. While you’re tweaking the settings, the playback is streamed to you live in 16/24-bit lossless quality at up to 192kHz.

mix:analog distributes the purchase and maintenance costs of your dream gear between the users of the “analog cloud,” making it available at a fraction of the investment required to buy the devices.

The service features top quality reincarnations of venerable classics: a 20-tube powered Distopik FC670 stereo compressor/limiter, two Distopik EQP-1A tube make-up passive EQs, and a GML/Sontec-inspired dual-mono, surgically accurate Distopik Precision Series Mastering EQ.

For the DA/AD conversion, mix:analog uses the Burl B80 Mothership filled with BDA8 and BAD4 daughter cards.

For more information, visit mix:analog’s website.

Yamaha gives virtual vocal production a high-five with VOCALOID5.

Four additional voicebanks are part of VOCALOID5 Premium.

This is most comprehensive VOCALOID update yet. The Standard edition offers four voicebanks and is available for $243.72, while the Premium edition with eight voicebanks is available for $389.95.

VOCALOID5 specs:

• Over 2,000 preset phrases & audio to drag-and-drop into your song creation.
• 11 audio effects to use within a single application.
• Style function for an instant conversion to your favorite singing styles & voices.
• Attack & Release effects and emotion tools to express your vocal phrases more realistically.
• 3 new parameters to control vocal tension and breath amount.
• 4 voicebanks (male & female, Japanese & English)
• VST, AU, external MIDI input improved for external functionality.
• Compatible with VOCALOID3 & 4 voicebanks
• VOCALOID 4.5 Editor for Cubase, included support software.

There are male and female voicebanks, in Japanese and English, each of which offer unique singing voices compatible with every genre. They include:

Amy: Expressive English-language female voicebank, ideal for contemporary singing. The voice boasts natural pronunciation and varied vocal tones, suited to genres from R&B to pop music.

Chris: Authentic R&B English-language male voicebank. Capable of singing over a wide range from delicate, soft bass, to powerful, sustained high tones.

Kaori: Japanese-language female voicebank with a soulful vocal quality. Long vocal sustains make it perfect for powerful singing.

Ken: Sharp, clear Japanese-language male voicebank, with a light vocal quality ideal for singing J-pop.

Learn more by visiting VOCALOID5 online.

Please note: When you buy products through links on this page, we may earn an affiliate commission.