New Akai Professional VST Plug-Ins Now Shipping

Jul 19, 2002

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Akai Professional is offering five new innovative VST (Virtual Studio Technology) plug-ins.

Available through Akai Professional dealers or on-line at akaipro.com, this collection of multi-part harmony, pitch correction, and mastering tools will be a welcome addition to the serious producer's and musician's effects arsenal. Add to that a rotating cabinet simulator with graphic mic placement and graphic representation of speaker rotation, as well as a 50-band vocoder that can create vocoder effects even without a carrier signal, and you have a fresh pallet of colors for your musical artistry.

The DECCA BUDDY adds multi-part harmonies to your vocals. By adding 9 harmony parts to the original vocal, up to 10 voice harmonies can be played: 5 parts (Original + 4 transposed Harmonies) x 2 (Dual function). Harmony can be selected using any one of the Preset Scales, User Scales or MIDI. In addition to generating harmonies, the Formant function can change female voices to male and vice versa. For a more natural character, all voices can be randomized independently. When MIDI Scale is selected, you can control the notes from an external MIDI keyboard or add harmonies via a MIDI Sequencer.

The PITCH RIGHT allows you to correct the pitch of vocals or any other instrument in real time. Three parameters control operation: 'Ratio' sets the amount of pitch correction, 'Smoothing' sets the correction for vibrato, and 'Calibrate' sets the reference pitch. And unlike other pitch correction programs, the setting of 'Smoothing' does not influence the transition time between notes. Thirteen factory Preset Scales, two User Scales and MIDI Scales are available. With the MIDI function you can control pitch from an external MIDI keyboard via a MIDI sequencer.

The QUAD COMP is a 4-band Compressor/Expander that has mastering as its primary purpose, but it's also very useful for vocals and guitars. Linear phase FIR filters split the signal into four bands with no phase shift or its associated distortion, maintaining pristine sound quality. The frequency for each band can be selected from 13 presets ranging from 50Hz to 12,500Hz, and crossover slope is selectable at 6, 12, 18, and 24dB/octave. Eight factory presets offer useful templates that help you to develop your own presets, and you may store/recall your original settings any time.

The D.C. VOCODER creates "robot" voices and other vocal effects. The 50-band filter divides the input signal into 50 frequency bands for processing individually to deliver a high quality vocoder sound. The level of each band can be precisely adjusted just like a parametric EQ. An internal 6-voice synthesizer and modulator signal creates vocoder effects, even without a carrier signal, and the Formant function changes female voices to male and vice versa.