New Gear Alert: BURL’s B4 Mic Pre, Free Plugins from Focusrite, Plugin Alliance Goes VI & More

BURL announces the B4 mic pre daughter card.

BURL welcomes the B4 mic pre daughter card to the Mothership family.

BURL Audio is proud to announce the new B4 4-channel mic/line input daughter card for the B80 and B16 Motherships. The B4 boasts the new BX6 input transformer designed for true mic/line input impedance. It maintains a no-compromise, Class A analog circuit, followed by the same ADC Burl uses in the BAD8.

Using a single B80 chassis, 40 input channels of audiophile mic/line inputs can be realized. With digital control and SoundGrid or Dante, the B80 Motherships with the B4 mic/line daughter card is the ultimate studio grade stage box.

The B4, along with other new offerings from Burl, will be shown at NAMM 2019, located at booth #15823.

Free GROW and LEVELS plug-ins via Focusrite’s Plug-In Collective.

Exciting offerings from Mastering the Mix are now available in Focusrite’s Plug-In Collective through the first week of March.

From now through March 7th, Focusrite is giving registered customers a free GROW plug-in and a free 6-month license to LEVELS by Mastering the Mix.

GROW is a dynamic module within the popular ANIMATE plug-in, which enables you to increase the width of selected frequencies using a psychoacoustic precedence effect, spreading frequencies super-wide. Only audio that surpasses the set threshold will be pushed wide, so you don’t have to settle for a static and boring width, or worry about mangling the rest of your mix.

LEVELS is an invaluable metering plug-in, perfecting your mastering by monitoring the elements of your mix and alerting you to any technical issues. With a refreshingly intuitive interface, and presets for CD, Club, Streaming, YouTube and more, LEVELS helps you quickly diagnose problems and gives practical advice on how to fix them so you can spend less time wondering why your mix isn’t working, and more time being creative.

All Focusrite customers have to do to take advantage of this offer is to make sure their hardware is registered; details of the deal then lands in their account.

Plugin Alliance teases new lineup of virtual instruments.

A new software synth collaboration with Brainworx marks Plugin Alliance’s first foray into the world of virtual instruments.

Brainworx will soon be leading Plugin Alliance into the world of professional VIs with its first software synthesizer, applying their proprietary, patent-pending Tolerance Modeling Technology (TMT).

Newfound third-party Plugin Alliance partners are also all set to release equally exciting VIs of their own in what will prove to be an exciting era for sound design-savvy synthesists and songwriters alike.

Bitwig Studio 3 is coming.

The most notable feature of Bitwig Studio 3, The Grid, brings to fruition the company’s goal of creating the option for a modular workflow.

Bitwig Studio 3 opens an entirely new window for working with sound: The Grid. As was hinted at from the start, Bitwig Studio was always intended to provide a fully-modular sound design option, and this has become reality with The Grid.

The Grid is an open modular environment built into three new devices: Poly Grid, Mono Grid and FX Grid.

While all Grid devices work in the same way, each allows for different configurations. Want to build a polyphonic synth? Start with Poly Grid. Need an adaptive audio effect with your signature sound? FX Grid will chew up incoming audio, either gently or otherwise. In the mood for cascading drones? Mono Grid is a great workbench for you. And when your idea morphs, just take what you’ve made and move to a different device.

Sporting a bevy of Grid modules and a supersonic patching workflow, The Grid is a truly modern modular patching environment that lives within its family of new devices, ideal for designing sounds and harnessing synthesis.

Bitwig Studio 3 will be previewed at NAMM in January, with an expected release in Q2 2019.

Puremix releases free Al Schmitt mix download.

Take a swing at mixing Al Schmitt’s tracks for Cyrille Aimee’s “Make You Dance,” courtesy of Puremix.

In Puremix’s video series with Al Schmitt, Al tracked and mixed Cyrille Aimee on his home turf of Studio A at Capitol Studios in Los Angeles, California. Al employed the same techniques he used on timeless classics from artists like Frank Sinatra, Bob Dylan, Jefferson Airplane, Neil Young, Miles Davis, and Ray Charles.

Now it’s your turn to sit in Al’s chair and mix “Make You Dance” from Cyrille Aimee, tracked in one of the best rooms in the world, by a true legend who has had a tremendous impact on the history of recording.

Download the tracks for free here.

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