You know, just this morning I was thinking to myself, I wonder what happened to BFD 2.

Well, I will wonder no more. Here it is, available for ordering if you need it.

While working last night, I reminded myself I did not need this update - I’m trying to get the full use out of the version I already own, and it is certainly more than capable for my needs.

That said, this looks totally bitchin’.

Here’s a deal for you breakbeat junkies:

Dusted William Super Funky Ass Drums - an impressive collection of 24bit REX2/wav loops for download for the introductory price of $10. Act fast, as I have no idea when this price ends; I think soon.

I’ve only just begun exploring the collection but I will attest to its quality. Just great sounding beats that have a lot of character but are dry and free of the over-processing that plague these kinds of collections.

This is not a “construction kit” per se, whereby you can mix and match different loops into a sequence which, at least remotely, plays like a continuous drum track. No, these are Breakbeats. But once you really start chopping up beats - snare pattern from this, kick pattern from that - or want to bung it through the DSP of your choice, you appreciate the usefulness of cleanly recorded but vintage sounding breaks. None of that, “Hey, let’s run the loop through a completely over-cranked filter and call it unique content!” Or “Well, let’s make it sound like it was ripped from vinyl by squashing the hell out of it and adding in noise.” No, when I’m buying breaks I want the groove, a great player playing a great sounding kit, recorded well. Making it sound completely over-processed I can handle myself.

That the collection contains both the REX2 & wave files makes this doubly useful. Lately, I’ve come to appreciate the versatility of REX files, though I still can’t bring myself to shell out for ReCycle. So I’m always happy not to be locked into one or the other format.

So, get in while the getting is good. This is a bargain at twice the price.

Without getting too inside VST geeky, there was a developer who went by the name Arguru, a real rock star in the development/advancement of making music on computers. Chances are, if you are using software sequencers/samplers his work has at least influenced what you are using. Sadly, he died a while ago, unexpectedly, in a car accident.

Anyway, for a while he was involved in the discoDSP venture and developed a sampler/host hybrid that is mind-bendingly advanced and incredibly simple. The fabled Highlife. Anyway, after Arguru parted from the company Highlife was released as freeware, frustrating everyone who had paid for the thing, delighting the rest of us cheap bastards.

Well, discoDSP have gone and released the source code under a BSD¹ license.

To quote Ugo over on the *cough* KvR *cough* forums, “Wow, that was unexpected!”

Remember when Netscape decided to open up its source code? No? Well, I’m old. But, unless I’m mistaken, it directly let to Mozilla/Firefox. I imagine this is the same. Only with DSP.

I imagine we’ll quickly see ~nix versions, right? This is big news indeed, correct?

^{1From what I understand, this means you can do what you will with it, commercially or not, as long as you keep a credit to the original copyright holders intact.}

_{Note: I only came to know of Arguru and his work after his passing, other than seeing his name around from time to time. One of those morbid cases of only learning of a person/their work only exactly because of their death. But once I began reading up on the guy and his life I realized how influential he was. Apparently a pretty stellar individual as well.}

A while back I posted an open letter to IK Multimedia regarding their decision to start using dongles to protect their software. As a user of a few IK products, namely SampleTank (meh) and Amplitube (yea!), I was put off by this turn. I considered this the end of the line with any of their future products.

Well, somewhere along the line cooler heads prevailed at IK, and they decided to allow users to choose between copy-protection schemes. If you were already on the dongle path (of the iKey variety), or if that suited your needs, you could use it for your IK products; if, like me, you had a dedicated production rig you could use the already-in-place digital ID, web-based registration. So, cheers, to IK for not completely dicking over a portion of their user base who didn’t use dongles.

If you act quickly, you can still take advantage of a 2 for 1 special offer on all IK Multimedia effect products that is running through the end of the month. Buy any IK effect software and get a free copy of any other effect software. Moreover, IK has instituted a generous cross-grade policy on all their plugins: if you already a registered user of one of their products, you can get a significant discount on any of their other plugins. If you’re worried that you might be cutting it a bit close on the offer, I suggest going through esoundz.com as they’ll get you sorted out quickly.

Edit: I don’t in any way mean to imply that I had anything to do with there decision - there was a bit of a ground swell on the forums, and one of their sound programmers led the charge - but it’s always nice to see your cause win out.