Beat Lab

International Music Production School

NAMM 2018 – New Gear to Be Excited For

NAMM 2018 – New Gear to Be Excited For The NAMM (National Association of Music Merchants) 2018 convention just kicked off this week and we’ve already heard some exciting announcements, we’re going to share with you some of our favorite things to look forward to: 1. Speak and Sample – Teenage Engineering Pocket Operators Teenage Engineering, the company behind the infamous OP-1 Synthesizer, is releasing some new additions to their calculator-sized Pocket Operator line up – Speak, and Sample. The Swedish company’s Pocket Operator series already includes 7 various drum, bass, and lead synths that offer incredible fun with their bleeps and bloops. The new additions include a sampler and a voice synthesizer with extremely impressive features for tech that fits in the palm of your hand (and costs under $90). Check it out here on the Teenage Engineering website with the rest of the Pocket Operator series too. su_divider top=”no” divider_color=”#d2d2d2″ size=”1″ …

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Rekordbox 5.1 Update Released – New Automix and Lyric Videos

Rekordbox 5.1 Update Released – New Automix and Lyric Videos Pioneer DJ announced the most recent version of their DJ software, Rekordbox, which can be used to organize your DJ files and sets as well as to spin the tunes. The latest version includes an upgraded algorithm to better suggest songs based on beatmatching/phrase-mixing AND it can also play automatically those songs from a playlist. This feature will be especially useful for those wedding DJs or DJs who all constantly on the hustle and don’t have as much time to dig through their collections, or if they want to let the app do its work while they take a break and enjoy appetizers. The suggestion algorithm also improved the search function by in turn letting you specify which type of songs you’ll be suggested based on artist or comment, etc. Also new is the Lyric Plus Pack which displays lyrics on screen, similar …

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Korg Volca Mixer – The Compact Mixer to Your Compact Gear

Korg Volca Mix – The Compact Mixer to Your Compact Gear With NAMM 2018 just around the corner, we’ve had plenty of teaser announcements about upcoming gear releases, one of the most exciting announcements is about the new Korg Volca Mix. This marks an addition to their popular Volca series which features compact synthesizers and samplers. Here are the features that this little guy packs: 4 inputs – 2 mono, 1 stereo input 3 faders each with a filter knob Analog stereo expander/compressor with sidechaining Master clock with sync out dedicated stereo send out, stereo RCA out, and headphone out Stereo Speakers Patchable DC power – 1 in 3 out     That list may be reason enough for people to purchase this powerhouse, but a surprising bonus is that this comes with a power supply, extra DC-DC cables, and aux cables for connecting to other gear. This is extra nice because the …

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HY-TP2 – Free Tremolo/Pan Plugin

HY-TP2 – Free Tremolo/Pan Plugin HY-Plugins has released a free VST/AU plugin called HY-TP2; it is a useful tremolo AND autopan plugin. The plugin comes with a Mod Wave section where waveform selections can be made to choose the type of modulation wave (sinewave, triangle, ramp up, ramp down, log up, log down, square, and random). There is a phase adjustment knob right below the waveform selection to adjust for timing issues and a smoothing knob next to that to smooth out the modulation shapes. The tremolo/panner section is straightforward with standard rate, depth and modulation width knobs (or a sync button to lock into the track tempo). The width modulation knob actually adjusts the balance between the tremolo and autopan effects. A dual filter section follows that with hi and lo-pass knobs. Finally, there is a volume knob to send out to your DAW. The GUI is resizable, includes …

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6 Laptop Stands for DJs

6 Laptop Stands for DJs With the new year comes new opportunities and for all those DJs out there we wanted to give you a short list of our favorite laptop stands that you can take on the road with you, use in the club, and use in the studio for practice. Below is our list of the top 6 laptop stands available today: su_divider top=”no” divider_color=”#d2d2d2″ size=”1″ 1. Pyle PLPTS55 – $45 Pyle has been a staple in Pro Audio and DJing industry since the 1960s with their wide range of electronics and gear ranging from home use to professional applications. This stand is sturdy and comes with a telescoping adjustable height from 12.6” – 16.7” tall. It can rotate 360 degrees around if you don’t need to have it in the center of your setup, it also comes with a handy pouch. This is the most affordable stand on our list …

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Krush – Free Bitcrusher Plugin

Krush – Free Bitcrusher Plugin In the spirit of the holidays and the top 12 plugins post we published recently, we wanted to set aside a post dedicated to this amazing plugin – Krush. Krush is a bitcrusher plugin which is designed to mangle your sound through its analog-modeled filters and warm drive stage. The bitcrusher includes an LFO section to modulate every parameter individually or at the same time which gives you a lot of freedom to synchronize your effects or add in random automation over the course of your track. Bitcrusher works by reducing your sample size and/or bit depth depending on the settings you’ve chosen, it leads to some subtle warmth or extremely aggressive mangling. Bitcrushers are useful in a practical sense for adding some character to instruments and are great for warming up vocals to make them stand out (re: Sail by AWOLNation). This plugin is a great addition to your …

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