Key Rig, Drum and Bass Rig Virtual Instruments Now Shipping

First announced at Winter NAMM, M-Audio has now released the first in its own brand of software. The first two products are Key Rig, a virtual keyboard rack, and Drum and Bass Rig, a virtual bass and drums rack. Both products work in Mac and PC environments in either stand-alone mode or with most popular sequencing hosts.

Key Rig

Key Rig covers all the basic needs for today's keyboardist in a single virtual rack housing four separate modules:

The SP-1 Stage Piano module serves up grand pianos, Wurlitzer, classic electric pianos, FM, clavinet and more. Each preset can hold a combination of two instruments with individual settings for Mix, Octave, Detune, Velocity and Tone. Owing to a dual effects section, each preset also has its own effect settings including delay, chorus, phaser and more.

The MS-2 Polyphonic Synthesizer delivers a new, easy way to call up and edit great synth sounds. Each preset consists of sub-presets for each major section: filter, amp, mod and FX. Creating new sounds is as simple as combining these sub-presets in different ways and tweaking any associated parameters from there as desired.

The MB-3 Electromagnetic Organ emulates the classic Hammond sound complete with rotary speaker. Standard features include nine drawbars that are pre-mapped to M-Audio brand USB MIDI controllers, percussion and variable key click, three chorus and three vibrato settings. Rotary speaker emulation includes tube overdrive, speed and tone controls to yield everything from glassy jazz chords to smoking rock leads.

The GM-4 General MIDI Module delivers 128 GM instruments plus a great GM drum kit. It instantly plays GM-compatible standard MIDI files from host applications and provides an easy way of sequencing additional backing tracks.

Drum and Bass Rig

Built on the same engine as Key Rig, Drum and Bass Rig delivers a wide variety of bass and drum sounds in a single virtual rack. Drum and Bass Rig also includes four modules for creating backing tracks in both authentic and electronic styles.

The LC-5 Loop Creator offers a pool of 250 source loops that can be freely combined and manipulated by options such as slice-reordering, slice muting or group muting of ranges of slices. The LC-5 Loop Creator is designed for people who want their own loops but find it hard to create them from scratch. It also offers a vast range of real-time controls for dynamic playing/arranging.

The BL-6 Bassline module is a monophonic bass synthesizer combined with a arpeggiator/step sequencer. Synth controls are straightforward and immediately accessible. An onscreen keyboard provides a familiar step-entry interface pioneered on vintage gear in this genre.

The RD-7 Real Drums module features a comprehensive library of drum kits and individual drums in all styles, with control over tuning, tone, decay, panorama and level. Each kit also has adjustable overheads, room ambience and effects. All kits are GM-compatible and contain an additional standard percussion set.

The EB-8 Electric Bass module produces the sounds of electric bass guitars. This extensive collection includes a large selection of finger, pick, slap and fretless sounds featuring slides, dead notes and harmonics. The EB-8 also includes a built-in bass amp emulation with drive and tone controls, as well as an effects section for creative options.

Common Features

Key Rig and Drum and Bass Rig are built on the same engine and therefore share some common features. The master MIDI/Mixer section of Key Rig and Drum and Bass Rig lets you route, split, layer and mix each set of four powerful modules in whatever way best suits users' performance and recording needs. A master effects section even allows for adding a common effect in addition to the individual effect section included with each instrument.

Both modules operate in stand-alone and hosted mode on Mac and PC platforms, with compatibility including AU (Mac), VST (Win/Mac) and RTAS (Win/Mac).

Minimum system requirements for Windows are: Pentium III 500 MHz or AMD7 (P4 / Athlon 1 GHz or faster recommended), 256 MB RAM, 1GB free hard disk space, Windows XP, VST 2.0-compatible host software, MIDI interface, CD-ROM drive for installation and Internet connection (on any computer) for software activation.

Minimum system requirements for Macintosh are G3 500 MHz (G4 or faster recommended), 256 MB RAM, 1GB free hard disk space, Mac OS X 10.3, VST 2.0, AU or RTAS compatible host software, MIDI interface, CD-ROM drive for installation, Internet connection (on any computer) for software certification.

Key Rig and Drum and Bass Rig are now shipping at an MSRP of USD $129.95 each.

For more information, visit their web site at www.m-audio.com