Category Archives: News

SongStarter Beta Updated – Now with External Recording

Posted on by

The new SongStarter icon.

We’re pleased to announce that a new updated beta of SongStarter is now available.

Download the updated SongStarter now from our SongStarter page.

This update adds two new features and a slew of bugfixes that take us closer to a final 1.0 release:

External Audio Input Recording in SongStarter

Input devices (soundcards, microphones, etc) now appear as instruments in today’s SongStarter Beta update.

External Audio Recording

Each recording device on your computer now appears as an instrument in SongStarter, and allows you to capture audio right into the loop recorder. This is handy for recording from instruments like a guitar, layering quick vocal ideas, or even for beat boxing. As an added bonus, if you have Soundflower (Mac) or Virtual Audio Cable (Win) installed, you can now record audio from other programs into SongStarter.

VU Meter and Waveform View in SongStarter Beta 090912

The new VU Meter for recording and Waveform View in SongStarter Beta 090912.

Clicking an input device “instrument” displays a VU meter in place of the piano keyboard and when you record, you see a waveform visualization drawn instead of notes. We think this design keeps the SongStarter just as fast and fluid as before, but creates another useful way to help you brainstorm for music production.

External recording also works with the Freestyle Recorder, for automatic hands-free recording. It works by listening for background noise and then triggers recording when there’s a large deviation from that. It’s not perfect, but you can create some cool rhythms and jams if you create a loop out of your recording. We hope that we can work on the triggering mechanism more and make it more reliable, but for now, play with it and let us know how it works for you.

New Loop Recorder Note Visualization

While we were reworking the loop recorder visuals to support waveform drawing, we rewrote the way note rendering works too. Instead of the “scrolling notes” visuals that the previous betas had, we’ve changed it so that a white marker (the vertical line in the screenshot) tracks the playback/recording position and paints notes on the fly. This new technique always remains in sync with the audio and now matches the appearance of loops when they’re copied to ideas. One remaining issue is that sometimes very short notes don’t get visualized, although everything you play will always get recorded.

New Loop Recorder Note Visualization

The new Loop Recorder note visuals in today’s SongStarter Beta update.

 

Other Bug Fixes and Changes

  • Latency improvements on Windows. We now prefer WASAPI audio devices on Windows Vista and above, and this gives us better latency out-of-the-box for all Windows users. We also show the audio API in the preferences beside the name of the device.
  • Fixed problem with only getting silence from certain input devices. (If you downloaded SongStarter before today, you’ll want to update.)
  • Added a tiny bit more info to the Help screen. More to come…
  • Moved preferences to the options menu (Windows).
  • Default save path is now Documents/SongStarter
  • Remember the last save path.
  • New and improved icon! (at top of the post)
  • Confirmation before hitting “back” and resetting a project. Better integration of projects with each platform (Win/Mac/Chrome).
  • Fixed a rare crash on startup.
  • Freestyle Recorder now tells you what state it’s in (Idle/Recording/Waiting). There’s a short wait time of about 1 second after any audio recording, just to stop it from triggering again too quickly.

Known Issues

  • Recording is not yet supported in Chrome. Right now the APIs we need don’t exist in Native Client yet.
  • Very short notes don’t paint in the loop recorder widget. However, they’ll always be recorded.
  • Confirmation is missing before closing the application.
  • Still a handful of cases where the loop recorder length buttons are in the wrong state.

That’s it for now, but there’s more bugfixes to come as we keep polishing. Lastly, if you’re playing with SongStarter, leave us a comment and let us know how it’s working for you!

SongStarter Beta Updated – Bugfixes, REAPER, and more…

Posted on by

Though it’s only been a few days since the SongStarter free public beta release, we’ve already started getting good feedback and have some bugfixes to push out.

The biggest problem reported so far was that the beta version appeared expired for many Windows users. I’ve done a bit of tinkering and I think I’ve managed to fix this one, so if you couldn’t get SongStarter to run before, try hitting the SongStarter page again and download the new version for Windows (songstarter-1.0-beta-082312-win32.exe). The Mac version has been updated with these fixes too.

Other changes in this version (1.0-beta-082312) include:

  • Drag and drop MIDI export for REAPER added
  • I quietly fixed the OS X package having some broken artwork and instruments earlier in the week.

That’s actually it, it’s been a slow week. I spent one day tackling some bugs lurking in Analog Extracts and SodaSynth (updating coming for those tomorrow), and I’ve been working on gathering feedback on SongStarter. There are a handful of high-priority features I have on my TODO list, but I want to make sure my priorities are right, so if you dig SongStarter, your feedback would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks for reading, and I’ll keep you posted on SongStarter as it develops!

SodaSynth 1.1 Released!

Posted on by

Oscillicious is pleased to announce the release of SodaSynth 1.1!

This new update includes 4 new presets (Sleep Walker, Sleep Walker Remix, Squish, and Crystal Strings) and brings full compatibility with 64-bit AU and VST hosts on Windows and Mac OS X 10.6+.

Here’s a new video that starts off with a brief demo of two of the new presets (Sleep Walker and Crystal Strings), and then goes on to show some sound design possibilities by taking Sleep Walker and tweaking a bunch of the knobs.

The SodaSynth VST and AU plugin is also fully compatible with Mac OS X Mountain Lion and Windows 8.

Grab your copy of SodaSynth from the Oscillicious Shop via instant download, or save nearly 20% by purchasing SodaSynth and Analog Extracts together in the Oscillicious Plug-in Bundle!

Existing users can upgrade for free using the download link in their original registration email, or by hitting up our downloads page.

Analog Extracts Released!

Posted on by

We’re pleased to announce the release of Analog Extracts, the first sample pack from Oscillicious!

This sample pack contains a fantastic collection of over 200 brand new sounds designed with a scary-expensive Buchla analog modular synthesizer. The pack includes synth leads, basses, and some grimy pad sounds from outer space, along with a selection of analog drums and laser sounds.

What makes Analog Extracts special?

First, these sounds are something else. Our sound designers Thor Kell and Dan Godlovitch did a stellar job at creating a collection of new analog sounds that at times grimy and robotic, yet alive and energetic. Here’s a set of demo songs showcasing some of the samples:

Oscillicious Analog Extracts Demos by Oscillicious

Second, the sample pack comes with a bonus VST and Audio Units plugin that puts all the samples right at your fingertips so you don’t have to fumble around mapping them into your DAW’s sampler, and it doesn’t matter which host you’re using.

Check out the Analog Extracts product page for more information or head over to the Oscillicious Online Shop to pick up a copy instantly by digital download.

Coming Soon: Analog Extracts

Posted on by

Here’s a quick sneak peak at our next product: Analog Extracts.

Analog Extracts is a sample pack consisting of over 200 analog modular synth sounds. Our sound designers were lucky enough to get their hands on a very expensive analog modular synth, and managed to squeeze some incredibly unique and original sounds out of it.

The sounds we captured are pure analog waveforms, each with its own unique character. They’re different. The laser sounds are especially unlike anything you’ve heard before, and we think these’ll work great as accents and buildups in a range of electronic music.

Also included in the sample pack will be a number of synth leads, bass samples, and pads, along with an assortment of original analog drum sounds.

Analog Extracts Demo 1 by Oscillicious

It gets even better…

To take things even further, we wanted to make it as easy as possible to use these samples. This collection of analog modular synth samples could stand on its own as a product, but as musicians ourselves, we think digging through folders full of samples when you’re trying to write a track can be a bit of a chore.

To solve that, many other companies bundle presets for certain samplers like EXS-24 or Kontakt with their sample packs, so you can load up different banks quickly. The problem with this approach is that they assume you own one of these other (expensive) products. This only really benefits some users. As an alternative, other companies choose to license a sampler like the Kontakt Player to bundle with their sample packs, but it costs big bucks to do so and dramatically increases the cost to you, the musician.

Both of these approaches have big downsides, so we decided to do it our own way. To make Analog Extracts even better, we wanted to provide something extra for all users without breaking the bank.

The Analog Extracts VST and AU Plug-In

To make it as convient and easy as possible to use these analog samples in your music, we’ve created our own custom mini-sampler plug-in specifically for Analog Extracts. This bonus plug-in contains a curated selection of drum kits for easy access, as well as presets that map each sample to the entire keyboard. The plug-in will be available in both 32-bit and 64-bit flavours for Windows and Mac OS X, and is even compatible with Windows 8 and Mountain Lion already!

We’re wrapping up beta testing and we hope to make Analog Extracts available in the coming weeks. Stay tuned!

BeatCleaver 1.2.1 Released!

Posted on by

I’m pleased to announce a new bugfix release of BeatCleaver, which brings us to version 1.2.1.

I’ve been accumulating small bugfixes in anticipation of a future release, but yesterday a Swedish BeatCleaver user emailed me with a curious problem: He couldn’t open an MP3 with an “å” character in the title.

Uh oh. This was a bit embarrassing because it sounded awfully similar to bugs we had fixed in Mixxx many times before. The only difference was that this time, the bug was in my own code. Whoops!

The good news is that I fixed it quickly, and I think it’s important enough to warrant a new release of BeatCleaver. With that, the changes in 1.2.1 include:

  • Important compatibility improvements with files containing non-Roman characters. If you’re slicing files with non-ASCII titles or work with non-Western music, you’ll want to update.
  • Fixed a related bug in our open source library libaudiodecoder
  • Added the currently open file’s name to the window title
  • Fixed a crash when moving a slice’s end point after playing
  • Minor improvements to the registration process
  • Fixed a settings saving bug on Mac OS X
  • All Windows packages are now certified and signed. (When you install BeatCleaver, you should see something like this instead of this.)

Lastly, we’re pleased to confirm that BeatCleaver is the first beat slicing tool that is fully compatible with Mac OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion.

Registered users can download this free update by clicking the download link in their original registration email again or by visiting our downloads page.

An updated free trial version is available for download from the BeatCleaver site.

BeatCleaver, the sampling and beat slicing tool for Windows and Mac OS X, is available for the bargain price of only $15, 12 €, or £10 exclusively from the Oscillicious Online Shop.