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Wednesday, 13 June 2012

Snatched Up Great Deals from AudioMidi.com

Once again, Alvin Yap aka Mr Gallen Wolf has gotten hold of very timely information - good news, people.

This time, he brings news of an amazing special offer, 90% discounted price on the AAS Strum Electric GS-1. What used to be a regular priced of US$199 is now US$20! Amazing deal!

First Purchase: AAS Strum Electric GS-1
This is a physical modelled guitar instrument that is also an intelligent guitar strumming assistant. All you need to do is to hold down a chord voiced like a keyboardist, and Strum Electric GS-1 would give it a fingering like a guitarist would voice it. There are also difference in the sounds produced in up-strokes and down-strokes. It is also capable of producing strings mutes and strings harmonics too.

It is so intelligent that when we are playing less than 3 notes at once,  it goes into a non-strum mode where you can play it like any normal guitar patch. There is a 'legato' behaviour when you are in this mode. This prevents re-triggering of the hard attacks of individually played notes when the user is playing legato style.

Being a physical modelled virtual instrument, it does not fill up your hard drive with huge samples, and it does not have a big memory footprint when loaded. Also, it means it is free from audio sampling limitation like a fixed sample rate, or noisy signal chain during the sampling process.

Here's an official YouTube video demonstrating the Strum Electric GS-1 in action from the official AAS page:.






Second Purchase: Miroslav Philharmonik Classik Edition
This is a lesser version of the full blown Miroslav Philharmonik by IK Multimedia. The full version is a complete orchestral collection of instruments that are recorded from the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra, in the very famous Dvorak Symphony Hall. 


The full version of Miroslav Philharmonik is EUR169.99 on the IK Multimedia website. The lesser Classik version retails for EUR99.99 which equates to US$125.94 at this point of writing. It is almost a 70% reduction for me!

Some of the sampled recordings used in this library of virtual instruments were the very ones created by Miroslav Ladislav Vitouš (the very famous jazz/fusion musician/songwriter/double bassist/cellist) to help in his composing work back in the 1993. These samples have been used time and again in many films for the next decade or so. That speaks volumes about the quality and expressiveness of the sounds recorded.


IK Multimedia were the guys who developed the wildly famous SampleTank sampler player plug-in early in the days when software sampling was just beginning. Even in the days when I was using hardware synths and tone generators, I had already heard of this product. In a few occasions I nearly owned this, being bundled with some keyboard controller I almost did buy. 
Now the Miroslav Philharmonik is also running off SampleTank engine, but the interface has been customised just for this library. I finally get to own my first SampleTank based software virtual instrument! 


Here's a review by SoundOnSound magazine: http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/mar06/articles/philharmonik.htm
From ObiAudio.com:
http://obiaudio.com/2010/07/11/ik-multimedia-miroslav-philharmonik-review/
From the GearSluts.com forum:
http://www.gearslutz.com/board/music-computers/449941-ik-multimedia-miroslav-philharmonik-review.html




So all in all, I bought these two at a total of US$59. Pretty good eh? :)


Once again, Alvin has 'saved' my music life by satisfying my mid-week cravings for virtual instrument libraries acquisition! And he also has saved me very real money by hunting down good deals like these!




About AudioMidi.com:
This is an online store with great deals!AudioMidi aims to be an online resource to help provide unbiased advise and information on music/audio hardware/software and tools. They aim to reach out to musicians from all levels from hobbyists to serious professionals.

To provide a 'no nonsense' approach to their reviews and products offerings and pricing, AudioMidi strives to offer the most competitive prices on the most up to date products in the market.They have a blog and an online store.

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