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James Bernard is coming close to the end of his 52 week series on Propellerhead Reason. This week, he takes another look at Thor Polysonic Synthesizer, focusing on Thor’s Multi-Osc, Noise Osc, and Filters.

via PropellerheadSW:

If you’ve made it this far into Synth School without dropping out or changing your major to something less technical, then congratulations. You’re nearly ready for graduation day. Today we’ll be picking up where we left off with Thor’s oscillator types, namely the multi-oscillator and the noise oscillator. There’s a lot to these simple looking modules! From there we’ll move over and take a look at the filter sections in Thor and I’ll introduce you to the semi-modular routing buttons which help move signals through Thor.

We’ve added a Submit A Story form to Synthtopia to make it easy for anyone to suggest electronic music news tips.

What We’re Looking For

We’re looking for news about electronic music technology or popular electronic musicians.We’re also looking for videos and photos that would be of interest to Synthtopia readers. We’re looking for the type of news that we include on the site – but we’re also interested in your suggestions for news that we’re not currently covering.

A good submission will include complete information (the who, what, when, where, how of the story) or a link or contact where we can find this sort of information.

Here’s an example of a good submission:

Greetings!

We recently made a new music creation system for the Nintendo DSi portable game console, and we thought you’d like to know about it!

You might think “Nintendo, that’s going to be some dumbed down kids crap!” But you’d be SO wrong! Rhythm Core Alpha was designed from the start as an instrument for creating and performing music live, in front of an audience. It has a 12 track drum sequencer, an 8 track piano-roll style melody/bassline synth, a pattern sequence mode, but most of all it includes a LIVE SOLO MODE, where you can solo on the screen using the stylus!

Furthermore, the system’s face buttons allow you to change the key of your sequenced backing tracks, and the notes available in the solo mode are keyed to that, so you can never hit a wrong note! Even better, those buttons can also be reassigned to switch to different loops or different steps in the pattern mode (which can also sequence the chord changes!)

The system comes with 122 drum sounds and 166 instrument sounds, but also includes a full ADSR volume envelope giving you a far more extensive sound palette. (The upcoming European version is said to have even more extensive sound mangling options!)

There is also a full set of editing functions for the sequence data, allowing you to copy, shift, set, clear, randomize, scale, and transpose to your hearts content on single tracks, or any subset of the track list. Using the “Random” function on every track simultaneously and then forcing it into a key and scale with the remap controls actually yields some almost musical concoctions on its own!

We think it is a really killer product for any musician, and at $5 (500 Nintendo DSi Points) it is a real steal (even if you have to buy a DSi to play it on!)

We also have a lovely website with all sorts of information, videos, screenshots, etc. on it at http://www.rhythmcorealpha.com/ , as well as a handy press kit at http://www.rhythmcorealpha.com/rhythm-core-alpha-press/RhythmCoreAlpha-SoftEgg-Press-Pack.zip . If you just want the original press release (PDF) it is at http://www.rhythmcorealpha.com/rhythm-core-alpha-press/Rhythm%20Core%20Alpha%20-%20Press%20Release%20-%20SoftEgg.pdf .

I hope you can find some space to mention our product, we’d really appreciate it!

This submission also included a contact name, phone number, email address and Website link.

We won’t publish everything that is submitted, but we will publish items that we think will be interesting to most Synthtopia readers.

Things That Won’t Get Published

Incomplete items won’t get published. Here’s an example:

Synthesizing TTC door chime using Thor synthesizer

This might be really interesting – but it didn’t include a link to the video….

Cryptic messages won’t get published. Here’s an example:

Vladimir M. Pirouette’s “70 Sheet” (I can only assume you’re not recieving this submission as it clearly is pure genius AND contains at least one synthesizer)

Legendary film mastermind Vladimir M. Pirouette, of Sheet series fame, is at it again with his latest opus, “70 Sheet”. Admirers of previous Sheet films will be happy to see Vladimir return to his roots, while ALL OF THE CRASS, UNCULTURED SWINE WHO HAVE NEVER WITNESSED ANY OF VLAD’S AMAZING, INSIGHTFUL WORKS MIGHT WANT TO LOOK AWAY LEST THEY MELT THEIR BARBARIC “BRAINS”.

Enjoy,

This might be the coolest thing ever – but the submission doesn’t tell us what this is, why readers would care or where to find more information.

Hate mail won’t get published:

If you’ve got other suggestions for how we can improve our electronic music news coverage, leave us a comment below!

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Sound designer Luftrum has announced the release of Luftrum 6, a soundbank for the Roland GAIA SH-01 synthesizer.

Here’s what Luftrum has to say about the new soundbank:

The soundbank contains 64 ambient patches, ranging from warm space pads over Berlin School arpeggios and organic sound effects – suitable for ambient, cinematic and filmscore productions. 32 of the 64 patches are spine-tingling ambient pads, lifting the GAIA up to the next level of sound!

Luftrum 6 is drawn out of inspirations from Brian Eno, Tangerine Dream, Biosphere and Steve Roach and is a follow up to soundbank successors released for Propellerheads Reason and lately the standalone Luftrum:Ambient for Camel Audio’s Alchemy – which cemented Luftrum’s signature as an ambient tone painter.

Luftrum 6 is available as download-only from www.luftrum.com

Click here to view the embedded video.

Propellerhead today announced Neptune Pitch Adjuster for Record, as part of its series of teaser videos for Record 1.5 and Reason 5.

Neptune is an advanced pitch adjuster, audio transposer and voice synth for Record 1.5.

Propellerhead says:

Getting a vocal performance right means so much more than hitting the right notes at the right time. Sometimes you get that almost perfect performance with perfect feel and presence, but the singer might have missed a few notes. That’s when Neptune can save the day.

Sound a lot like AutoTune was a popular feature request. Read what Synthtopia readers want most from Reason 5 and Record 1.5.