Kairatune 1.2 is out!

Kairatune version 1.2 is available for download! This update adds native 64-bit support for Windows users and makes Kairatune available for Mac users for the first time. The OS X version supports both 32-bit and 64-bit Macs and is available as Audio Unit instrument as well as VST instrument.

Kairatune 1.2 has a completely redesigned preset manager, offering support for unlimited number of presets and the possibility to add, copy, paste and remove individual presets and the ability to add metadata, such as preset category, which you can use to narrow down the list of presets while browsing for the right sound, and metadata such as the preset author with contact URL and more.

However, most of my work has been under the hood, redesigning and implementing the inner workings of this plugin. Some of this is because the expansion to OS X, and some for even better sound and user experience i.e. for performance, stability and smoother overall action.

I’m so relieved to be able to offer decent support for all of these platforms at last. It’s been heartbreaking to learn about so many musicians who were fascinated by Kairatune and truly appreciated the sound of this synth, but who were unable to use it because of compatibility issues or the lack of Mac-version. I hope Kairatune will earn more happy users and inspire a lot of wonderful music!

There are many host/platform combinations that i haven’t been able to test as thorough as needed. Please report any bugs you encounter, and if you’re updating from 1.1 on Windows, please make sure to read the instructions in the readme.txt included in the download package.

Finally i want to thank and credit Ilkka Pajunen and Jyrki Pajunen for sound design, usability design, for testing and for support, and give additional credits for sound design to ENV1, Vlad, Togeo Studios, Alv Faria, Mad Processor, Doc Jon, InterSlot Call, Kraftraum, Mark Heath, Manvanmars, Photonic and Ruedi Rena.

Looking forward for 2014!

Some FX sounds

Mad Processor has contributed a bank of instrument presets for Kairatune. Almost all of the presets are FX sounds and some of them are really wild and scary and some of the roars are absolutely impressive. The bank is available in the KVR banks and patches section. Thank you very much Mad Processor!

Something from the OSC

There were plenty of really great tunes on the KVR One-Synth-Challenge’s Kairatune round. The tracks are available on the OSC-36 page. A Child’s Hope by Irion Da Ronin was voted for the best track by a clear margin. I got the biggest kicks out of Kaira’s Nightmare by Doc Jon.

I asked the participants to contribute some of their instrument presets and received a good set of really great sounds from Doc Jon, InterSlot Call, Kraftraum, Mark Heath, Manvanmars, Photonic and Ruedi Rena. The sounds are available at the KVR banks and patches section in a single FXB bank.

And more sounds

Alv Faria has designed a bank of 30 instrument presets. There are lots of very useful electro-percussive sounds and some interesting SFX sounds. The bank can be downloaded from http://thefxbproject.wordpress.com/2011/11/22/kairatune-vsti-alv-faria-preset-bank which is a site for free preset banks for virtual instruments.

PlugINdex site for audio plugins reviews and news, provides a bank of 20 instrument presets. The bank is available at PlugINdex under Downloads/Presets.

Even more sounds

The user ENV1 was the first to release new instrument presets after Kairatune was released. Among those was the amazingly massive CS-80 / OB-X emulation preset. Now ENV1 has contributed a bank containing a total of 50 instrument presets. Some of the sounds on this bank are just huge. There’s many dramatic sounding rhythmic synths, some more classic synths, some really tight sfx sounds and even some percussion instruments. The bank is available in the KVR banks and patches section as usual.

Thank you very much for your contribution!

More sounds

Togeo Studios specializing in music production, sound design and Ableton Live resources, has released a set of over 30 instrument presets for Kairatune. The set contains really great and very useful sounds. The set is available in the KVR banks and patches section.

Danke schön Togeo Studios!

Credits

I have to thank Jyrki Pajunen, Ilkka Pajunen and Simo Lappalainen who have been helping me out on this project. Jyrki and Ilkka designed some great presets and produced the demo track with me, Jyrki gave his magic also in mixing and mastering the demo.

I have to thank the people on KVR Forum for DSP and Plug-in Development for revealing the mysteries of plugin development and providing answers to the most difficult questions.

Some software has been invaluable to the development. Especially the VST Host from Hermann Seib and the KnobMan from g200kg.com are irreplacable in plugin development. The Signal Analyzer from rs-met.com by Robin Schmidt has been very useful.

Putting the synth together would have been impossible without the algorithms and source code from musicdsp.org.

And finally i must thank Laurent de Soras for the incredible HIIR library and Paul Kellett from mda-vst for a magnificent resonant lowpass filter algorithm, that was the starting point of my LPF implementation, DestroyFX and Urs Heckmann for publishing source code that taught me the basics of VST plugin development many years back.