New Gear Alert: Waves’ Michael Brauer Plugin, elysia karacter 500 Emulation, Nuendo 8 & More

Waves is now shipping the Brauer Motion plugin.

Explore new ways to create movement in your mixes with Brauer Motion, a collaboration between Waves and GRAMMY®-winning mix engineer Michael Brauer.

Brauer Motion is a spherical auto-panner developed together with GRAMMY®-winning mix engineer Michael Brauer, allowing you to create an unprecedented world of movement inside your mixes, with up-to-360-degree auto-panning. It works especially well on rhythmic tracks such as percussion and acoustic guitar, on swelling pads and organs, or whenever you want to pull the listener in with subtle or drastic panning movement.

Brauer Motion comes with four different panning modes to direct the motion of the sound, four different trigger modes for a variety of on/off options, two separate panners with full control, a dynamics section, pre-delay, motion filter, and precise control over the speed, width and depth, and a master section with gain and wet/dry controls.

Check out a video introduction of Brauer Motion here.

Brauer Motion is on sale now for $29 (reg. $99).

Plugin Alliance adds karacter to DAW domain with exacting emulation of elysia stereo saturator.

elysia’s “karacter” 500 Series stereo saturator is now available in plugin form via Plugin Alliance.

Plugin Alliance is proud to announce availability of karacter—an exacting emulation of German high-end processor manufacturer (and Plugin Alliance partner) elysia’s discrete class-A stereo saturator namesake, known as “The Coloring Box”.

karacter is actually a bundle of two plugins—karacter mix and karacter master, the former providing a straightforward set of controls for treating mono and stereo tracks, while the more surgical latter lets users process full mixes, stereo stems, and subgroups, thanks to its independent left and right channel controls or, in MS Mode, mid and side channels.

Both the karacter mix and karacter master plugins provide three different modes with which users can paint tracks with colorful harmonics. Creatively, the standard saturation mode makes for fattening gently while heightening (odd) harmonics. FET Shred mode mimics the pleasing distortion of a driven tube amp, adding a relative boost to (even) harmonics that transform clinical-sounding electric guitar and bass tracks. Turbo Boost mode—only available in FET Shred mode—creates total harmonic destruction, hard-clipping signal tops.

karacter is available as an AAX Native & DSP-, AU-, VST2-, and VST3-supporting plugin for Mac OS X (10.8 through 10.12), Windows (7 through 10), and Pro Tools 10.3.10 (or higher)—exclusively from Plugin Alliance for $199.

Steinberg announces availability of Nuendo 8.

Users of Nuendo 8 can now experience a wealth of new features and tools such as Direct Offline Processing, the debut of Sampler Track, a newly developed video engine, added effects processors & more.

Nuendo 8 contains many exciting new tools and capabilities alongside its powerful feature set. First and foremost is Game Audio Connect 2 that transfers entire music compositions from Nuendo to the Wwise middleware while including audio and MIDI tracks along with cycle and cue markers. Direct Offline Processing together with its Live!Rendering technology lets users apply frequently-required processes in an offline plugin chain and render offline processes in real time, while Renamer automatically assigns new names to events. The Sound Randomizer plugin creates different variations of a sound instantaneously, adjusting its pitch, timbre, impact and timing.

The newly introduced Sampler Track allows users to drag and drop audio samples from the MediaBay into it in order to easily play and manipulate the samples. Also new to the table is the virtual-analog Retrologue 2 synthesizer, the second version of a VST instrument pertaining to the included set of features that was previously available as the NEK (short for Nuendo Expansion Kit).

Other highlights are the User Profile Manager, HALion Sonic SE 3, the newly developed video engine, ADR enhancements, new effects processors—such as the eight-band fully parametric Frequency EQ—a fine selection of sounds taken from the 2017 Hybrid Library by Pro Sound Effects and much more.

Nuendo 8 is available from resellers and through the Steinberg Online Shop. The suggested retail price is $2,100.00.

M-Audio announces the Hammer 88 USB/MIDI controller.

M-Audio’s forthcoming Hammer 88 will feature the authentic feel of weighted grand piano keys, a unity-locking pitch wheel, assignable up/down keys, & more.

Featuring a full-size 88-key keyboard, Hammer 88 delivers a genuine grand piano feel along with the capability to use virtual instruments and sound modules.

Hammer 88 boasts a core range of controls, including a unity-locking pitch wheel and a separate modulation wheel to add portamento and glissando effects. With the dedicated Master Volume Fader, you can control the intensity of their performance or MIDI map to any compatible parameter in a DAW or virtual instrument collection for expanded, hands-on control. With the assignable Up and Down buttons, you can select different programs, effects, MMC messages, jump between octaves and more.

Hammer 88 comes complete with Ableton Live Lite, a full suite of premium AIR and SONiVOX software and includes a 3-month subscription to Skoove interactive online piano lessons. In addition, Hammer 88 is USB-powered, class-compliant and supports USB-MIDI connectivity for rapid, hassle-free setup that lets players focus on what’s important—their performance.

Hammer 88 will be available in Summer 2017 with a US retail price of $399.

Meet Thumb Thang, an innovative new percussion tool.

With Thumb Thang, drummers and percussionists no longer have to sacrifice the use of an entire hand to play shaker.

Thumb Thang is a hands-free, multi-tasking, percussive accessory. It is engineered to be non-weight bearing on your fingers with a sleek design that does not impede on one’s mobility or dexterity. Three separate chambers help maintain the balance. Innovative glass beads give Thumb Thang its unique sound.

Thumb Thang can be fitted and worn on any digit that best suits your application/playing needs.

Thumb Thang is available here for $19.99.

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