Software

Miscellaneous, Software

Groove Planet Turns Your Music into a Clicker Game

March 13, 2016 | Shawn Sackenheim | Comments Off on Groove Planet Turns Your Music into a Clicker Game Share this

I am not a fan of the increasingly crowded “clicker” genre but I am a sucker for games that tweak your music collection into gameplay. Those are the genres that Animoca’s Groove Planet straddles which is out now on Android after a successful launch on iOS this past December. It’s also free so there’s not a whole lot to dissuade you if you’re on the fence about another Clicker game or another your-music-is-the-game game.

Groove Planet is pleasant enough to look at with stylish and vibrantly colored structures that you place on the surface of a giant vinyl record planet. After a very brief tutorial you’ll start adding and upgrading those buildings which rapidly increase the number of notes (read: money) that are constantly being generated. Challenges motivate you to make specific upgrades and watching an ad or two rewards you with temporary boosts to Note production. It’s all very typical Clicker stuff with exponentially expensive upgrades requiring more taps to refill your coffers.

This is where the music game aspect comes in. Like other Clickers you can tap the screen as wildly as you like and watch a few Notes add to your pocket or you can tap along to the beat of the song and start building up a combo. Naturally, the combo multiplies the amount of notes to wild degrees as long as you can keep it going. The beat matching seems a little off at times but there’s no penalty to missing other than starting your combo over again. It’s nice to purposefully go off the beat and tap along to a drum roll and not feel punished for a little freestyling. A couple other nice touches include the skyline that changes color based on the chord of the chosen song and the Key of the song appearing on your main base tower (if the game can figure it out). They even pop up little tips on the “mood” of different chords.

As a music player Groove Planet is a little lacking. You can only browse a big dumb list of all the music on your device and there’s no way to limit the search to artist, track or album. Artwork is also mostly broken for me but the songs do start playing right away. Whatever beat analysis that’s going on happens very quickly which is appreciated. You can also use it as a music visualizer if you’d like. After 20 seconds of inactivity the menus fade out and your planet begins to spin, subtly reacting to the music as buildings animate and characters scurry around.

If you’re the kind who loves watching profits skyrocket into the octillions or if you just like to tap along to your favorite songs Groove Planet is worth a shot. It’s made for a decent little mindless diversion while listening to music and it’s free afterall. Grab it for yourself on the Google Play Store or the iTunes Store.
Music Production, Software

Impact Soundworks Kicks Off Holiday Sale With New Orchestral Colors Sample Library

December 20, 2015 | Michael Hoffmann | Comments Off on Impact Soundworks Kicks Off Holiday Sale With New Orchestral Colors Sample Library Share this

Hopefully you didn’t burn through your entire music tech budget for the year during Black Friday, because Impact Soundworks has launched one of their biggest music software sales. Every one of their sample libraries and virtual instruments, including the bundles, are on sale until December 30th.

The sale coincides with the release of their latest instrument, Rhapsody Orchestral Colors. The new library features samples of brass, woodwinds, strings, and choir ensembles.

There are some special deals related to the Rhapsody instrument series as well. If you already own Rhapsody Orchestral Percussion, you will receive a $50 coupon associated with your ISW account. If you spend $299 or more in one order, you will receive Rhapsody Orchestral Colors for free. So if you’re still looking for deals on music software before the end of this year, be sure to head over to the Impact Soundworks site.
Music Production, Software

Black Friday Deals (2015): Audio Software From Native Instruments, iZotope, and More

November 27, 2015 | Michael Hoffmann | Comments Off on Black Friday Deals (2015): Audio Software From Native Instruments, iZotope, and More Share this

Earlier this week we posted a few Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals on music software. These included sales from Heavyocity and Impact Soundworks. Since then a number of other music and audio companies have launched their own deals for the Black Friday weekend. For the sake of convenience we’ve compiled the other deals that we’ve found here, and we’ll attempt to update this list as we find more. (more…)
Music Production, Software

Black Friday Deal: Heavyocity Virtual Instruments On Sale

November 24, 2015 | Michael Hoffmann | Comments Off on Black Friday Deal: Heavyocity Virtual Instruments On Sale Share this

Virtual instrument company Heavyocity is having a Thanksgiving sale on its products starting now until December 6th. The collections and individual instrument packs are available for up to 50% off. These include Gravity, Aeon Collection, Ensemble Metals Collection, Evolve, and many more.

All of the instrument libraries run on Kontakt 5 and require at least the Kontakt 5 Player to be used. If you’re a composer or sound designer who’s been eyeing any of Heavyocity’s virtual instruments, now may be the time to grab them. You can check out more of the Heavocity Thanksgiving sale on their main website.
Music Production, Software

Black Friday Deal: Impact Soundworks Orchestral Libraries On Sale

November 24, 2015 | Michael Hoffmann | Comments Off on Black Friday Deal: Impact Soundworks Orchestral Libraries On Sale Share this

Two of the orchestral sample libraries from Impact Soundworks are on sale this week to help kick off Black Friday deals on music software. The first of these is the Bravura: Scoring Brass Complete library for $249 and the second is Rhapsody: Orchestral Percussion for $99.

If you already own any individual instruments or lighter versions of either library you can contact Impact Soundworks to get a special discount on the upgrades to the full versions as well. The Essentials version of the Rhapsody library is also available for $49.

Both the Bravura: Scoring Brass and the Rhapsody: Orchestral Percussion libraries have been reviewed here on OSV. The sale runs until November 30th (Cyber Monday). So if either of these libraries are on your wishlist, be sure to grab them at a discount while you can on the Impact Soundworks website.
Music Production, Software

Guitar Loop Library ‘Acoustic Revolutions 2’ is Out Now

November 4, 2015 | Michael Hoffmann | Comments Off on Guitar Loop Library ‘Acoustic Revolutions 2’ is Out Now Share this

The music software company Impact Soundworks has launched a second volume of their Acoustic Revolutions series titled Acoustic Revolutions 2. The library features loops of an acoustic Taylor guitar and are designed to be useful for a variety of styles and genres. The loops, which are organized by tempo, time signature, and key, do not require a sampler to be played and the WAV files can be dropped and placed into any DAW (Digital Audio Workstation).

Acoustic Revolutions 2 is available on Impact Soundworks for $49 and you can buy Acoustic Revolutions 1 + 2 as a bundle for $65. You can head over to the Impact Soundworks website for more details.
Gear, Music Production, Software

Drum Sample Library ‘Martin France Drums’ is Now Available

October 11, 2015 | Michael Hoffmann | Comments Off on Drum Sample Library ‘Martin France Drums’ is Now Available Share this

The sound engineers over at Rattly and Raw have just released a drum kit sample library for Kontakt 5 titled Martin France Drums. The collection includes a wide range of recordings of vintage and modern drums. The library contains over 32,000 samples to cover the recording of 36 different drum kit pieces. The demo video below shows off just some of the library’s capabilities and features.

The Martin France Drums library is available at the Rattly and Raw site for £99, or about $150 USD. The software is also compatible with the free Kontakt 5 Player, so you won’t need to shell out extra money for Kontakt 5 to use this collection. You can find out more information about Martin France Drums at the Rattly and Raw website.