A new art project, Telemegaphone is still in active state until 6th, September. It is a seven meters tall speaker set in the fjords of Norway, which can send your voice real-time three kilometres around if you call the phone number specified here. The unit is totally green, powered by the wind, and the volume was set carefully not to disturb the people living there but to have a real impact.

The Klaus Schulze book has finally arrived, but with a very simple title - Klaus is the Electronic Music Legend in fact, no doubt, but it is really not a title that screams. The author, Greg Allen follows the career of the genious carefully, and interviews the persons around him, plus some colleagues: Jörg Schaaf, Klaus D. Müller, Steve Roach, Kitaro. Photos were taken from Schulze's own archives. Order here immediately.

Making of a drum synth is the title of a new blog - if you follow it you can build your own analogue drum synth. Try it.

Wallander Instruments' WIVI has reached version 2. It realises wind and brass instruments via physical modeling, has a small phrase sequencer, and all this wonder sits in a single plugin. A great feature is the finest velocity resolution on the market, far beyond the usual 127 levels. Not the cheapest one: if you buy the whole ensemble, you end at 1600 USD. Go here to learn more.

Softube modeled the spring reverb in their newest plugin so gently that it even has a Shake function. Priced at 99 USD, Spring Reverb has a tasty feel graphically, it almost has the typical smell of the vintage gear. Another authentic function is the spring tension setting. To learn more click here.

The cheapest digital DJ solution, Quad has a new version, Quad2. This is the system which handles four time-coded vynil discs via standard, ASIO-compatible sound cards for 89 euro only. The latest version runs on Mac already, and has a comletely customisable user interface. It has more nice goodies, like the tempo-adjustable effects. Check the official info sheet here.

Universal Audio has released their new DSP card fmily, UAD-2 yesterday. I comes in three strength scales, Solo, Duo and Quad. All three features the same SHARC DSP chips. The smallest one exceeds the old UAD-1 2,5 times in terms of DSP power, and the biggest exceeds 10 times. Prices starting at 500 USD. Check here the official news.

This small gadget is a full-featured MIDI sequencer that records onto SD card. The name of the game is SD MIDI Controller, and you can buy it on a British web page, for 195 GBP. If you want to assemble yourself you can buy it as a kit, too. Check its website for more info.

An new version has ccome from Auto-Tune, the leading pitch correction software plugin from Antares. It's called Auto-Tune Evo, and it has a completely redesigned core technology, plus a new interface, and a simpler workflow. It shifts pitch real-time also, and checks for the formants to preserve the sound characteristics. It also models the mouth size of the singer, and you can even modify it, to control the tonal specs of the singer. The price is 400 USD, to know more click here please.

We had an article on the free DJ software, DJ-1800 already; now it has a major upgrade, version 3.2 which streams the live mixed material to the internet. Check it here - for Mac users only.

Update: unfortunatel DL-1800 is not free any more - the full single-user licence costs 80 USD.

Korg's strangest synth, DS-10 on preorder from now, they will ship it in September. As you probably remember this is a software synth for the Nintendo platform, and quite a complex one: just check this video  - the soundtrack was composed fully on the DS. Two synths and a drum track, at the same time. Kling, klang.

Didgeridoo is fashionable since more than 20 years - at first, it came for E-mu's Emulator III, in 1986. Now Zero-G published a full library dedicated to this instrument - an enormous set of more than 800 samples. It's called Rhythm Organism, costs 100 USD, check it for more info here.

Impressive, isn't it? We don't know what we have found exactly but it's a rather cool experience: nude girls surrounded with synth legends like Fairlight CMI 3, Moog Micromoog, EMS and so on. We would have some questions about this project so if somebody has the answers please drop a comment.

Serious free synths everywhere, powerful drum machine for 5 USD - the future of the market can be found perhaps under the 10 USD price tag? Centaurus from Koblo can prove this sentence. This virtual analog goodie costs 7.49 USD only, and performs quite well. For more info click here.

A short news on a simple instrument: Peter Yandell has produced SimpleSynth, a very basic synth application for Mac. It comes with a General MIDI-soundset, but can load any Soundfont file to extend the sonic range. Sounds are not tweakable but there is a low-pass filter with no resonance. It works as a stand-alone only. Get it here.

Theoretically it is very easy to discover that your iPhone could be a fine MIDI controller. Now it is reality, iTouchMidi is up in the Appstore for 40 euros: Jazzmutant is probably worrying as we suspect... A networked Mac is needed to perform the www.itouchmidi.com/.

Eighteen gigabytes of sampled material, Kontakt Player inside, and costs 300 USD: it is Synergy, Sample Logic's latest supersynth. Synergy gives you more than 1200 sound presets for the money, mainly in the modern synth/groove field. Check it here.

DSK launched a free saxophone virtual instrument, SaxophoneZ. It plays alto, soprano and tenor sax, has tweakable envelope generator, low and high pass filter, plus a reverb and a chorus. Take it here.

Propellerhead celebrates Moog these days: they donated the Moog Foundation (probably with a REASONable sum), and they provide a free soundset download of some Moog-sounding instruments, produced by Craig Anderton, Mark Vail and Gordon Reid. Click here to have it - you have to have a registered Reason copy.

Korg nice yellow toy, Kaossilator has a surprise: David Bottino blogger let us know it. With some button push and trick, without any hardware modification anyone can force the gadget to memorize four bars instead of two. If you have the machine and some time try it.

iZotope adjusted his very attractive drum software, iDrum to work on iPhone - you can buy it at the AppStore for five USD only. We did it so, and had a good time jamming with it as you can see in our video - just play it, you can learn about using the editor, tempo setting, volume and panorama setting, and playing it manually. The software is extremely useful - perhaps the most usable drum editor ever -, and the sound quality is really fine. They have two versions now: Club Edition and Hip Hop; iZotope promises more in the near future. The iPhone version is file compatible with the Windows and Mac versions so you can tweak your rhythms edited on the phone for professional use.

Mixxx is a very nice and free software for the laptop DJ which runs on three platforms: Windows, Mac and Linux. And that's not the full story: it is developed with a real open source effort, and they did almost all the important functions we got used to in the expensive packages: plays mp3, OGG, WAV, FLAC, has real time stretch and BPM detection, supports numerous hardware controllers natively, supports multi-channel sound devices, has multiple skins, uses on multi-core CPUs, the maximal audio resolution is 24/96, crossfader's envelope is selectable - just to name some. Get it here.

We forecasted a war on the free synth market this spring, after the arrival of Native's Kore Player. Now it is reality: E-mu has released Proteus VX (formerly bundled with some hardware product) as a free download for anyone, with an impressive set of approximately 800 sounds of Composer Bank - a nice offer after the 50 presets of Kore Player. Here is the link to download - you only have to accept their newsletter to get it.

Livid is so generous that they provide a free and very joyful piece of software, Looper. It works with any grooves, and you can manipulate and slice them as it is running in any other similar system. Additionally, it has open source code so anyone with a programming practice can extend its capabilities. No more words but a link.

LinPlug has updated their virtual saxophone, Saxlab with a new, 2.0 version. They resampled all the raw material with a much better equipment, and developed a lot of small goodies into the system. You have to pay 149 euros to own it. Here are the details.

Togu Audio Line has replaced their software delay with a new model. TAL-Dub II has a useful add-on, a vintage modeled distortion unit after the delay - and has some new control tricks also. It is free so take it soon.

You can download individual instruments of the Vienna Symphonic Library from now, no need to buy expensive packages. At first, they uploaded 47 brass and woodwind instruments to check the audience. Try them here.

PG Music, developer of the popular accompaniment software started a new line with the name of RealBand 2008.5 - this package includes a basic Band-In-A-Box with RealTracks and RealDrums technology inside. Both solutions are from PG, and capable of producing accompaniment from acoustic audio track chunks. The new software costs 129 USD, to learn more go here.

Behringer's ultra-compact keyboard+audio interface combo is finally hit the shop these days. UMA25S has a USB connector, a very basic stereo audio interface (with microphone input though), velocity sensitive keys of two octaves, and some knobs and buttons. Keys are normal sized but their way down is shorter than you would wait - yes, it is the slim design that Roland had already years before. But Behringer offer the product at a much better price point of course: the UMA25S costs 190 USD only. The web page of the product is here.

Tascam has launched a dedicated pocket recorder for the guitarists, GT-R1. It records MP3 and WAV files on any SD cards - the package includes one piece of a 1 gigabyte card. USB 2.0 is also supported, and charging its battery is also done with this connection. On the input stage it has a low-cut filter and a limiter to protect your recording, and built-in is a stereo condenser microphone that performs quite well. All of these are standard features on any recorder but here come the guitar-oriented goodies: amp simulation and effects, a small drum machine, and a pro-like overdubbing facility. It even has a guitar and bass canceler to perform a karaoke show with any hit you have. Price is around 200 euro, check the details here.

Noise.io will the first serious software synthesizer for the iPhone range - it will debut in 25th, August. It is an FM synth with 3 oscillators, 1 filter, 2 LFOs, plus chorus, flanger and delay effects. It will contain 81 preset sounds - all are effects and noises, the software will not support musical sounds as we understand its description. You can even tap a BPM to sync with your fingers on the surface. Multitouch controlling is also supported. A must have for the iPhoners.

Studio Electronics will release this super cool synth, Orion Galaxy. The design is following the oldschool sci-fi world, and inside is their Omega 8 analog synth engine. We still don't know any more info, and the official website is only teasing us, too. We don't expect a competitive price at all - it will remain a high prestige instrument for ever.

Native Instruments' Kore got a now soundpack, Absynth Twilight, which will bring you more than 200 fine, mystic sound programs that use Absynth engine which sits inside Kore. Price is not more than 49 euro, click here if you want it.

Why spend a lot on Tenori-On - here is a software emulation of the biggest instrument hit of the year which runs on the cheap iPhones. 1.0 version is still seems to be reached not so recently, and playback still has some timing problem, but fingers crossed - and check here the development.

Warmverb from Tone2 is a great multieffect plugin with a decent quality reverb. Additionally, it has  more than 20 processor like delay, chorus, flanger, and some oddities: talkbox, rotary, ring modulator and vocoder. Calculations are done at 64 bit precision but it doesn't hurt your CPU too much. For more info click here.

Priced at 100 USD, Stratos from Big Fish Audio consists of 4 gigabytes of 24 bit samples. Format is pure WAV, click here to know more.