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If you havent fiddled with Rebirth it is incredibley fun, although the interface can be a bit overwhelming at first.
"Propellerhead Software's ReBirth RB-338 pioneered a new era of music instrumentation that merged the principles of "virtual reality" with historic synthesizers and drum machines. This concept seemed impossible at the time, but has since become a common trend in music software.
Since its introduction in 1997, ReBirth has influenced numerous companies to take advantage of contemporary technology by incorporating computer simulation into the latest generation of products.
The world has come to embrace the sound of electronic music, thanks to a long tradition starting in the 1960s with the popularization of Moog Synthesizers. It deepened in the 70's and 80's, and the sound of drum machines was introduced in music as electronic instruments adopted microprocessor technology.
As technologies continued to evolve in the 90's, the subsequent role of computers in music ushered in a digital age of composition and recording. Early in the decade, trends in electronic music and their significant effect on popular culture converged with the rich heritage of synthesizers, drum machines, and computers in the software application known as ReBirth."
This was taken from the Propellerhead website:
"ReBirth was the first successful software synthesizer. It pioneered and shaped a lot of what we now take for granted in software synthesizer type products. However, it was designed almost ten years ago. Musical styles and music technology have both changed dramatically since then, and we decided that the foundation for the product just wasn't valid anymore. We're a small company with limited development resources and we think it makes much more sense for everybody involved - even you as a ReBirth user - that we concentrate our efforts on our more current products and on future projects.
The practical ramifications of this decision are:
All development on ReBirth RB-338 has stopped. There will be no future updates and no Mac OS X version.
Personal customer support of the product will be discontinued. We receive very few questions from ReBirth owners nowadays, and all of the information we usually provide is now available in the FAQ section on the new ReBirth web site, see below.
As of today, ReBirth is given away for free. Anyone can download and use ReBirth 2.0.1. The download and instructions are also available on the ReBirth site. "
SWEET
I don't know you people...why are you here? MEMS MUZAK
Dont forget that Rubberduck (that preceded Rebirth by a couple of years) has also just been released as freeware. You can get it here
Overview:
d-lusion Rubberduck.
Download Rubberduck Now!
With this bass synthesizer released for Windows 95 in 1996 (way before Propellerheads Rebirth, was available), d-lusion pioneered the market of realtime software synthesizers on standard processors. Roughly based on the the well known TB-303, Rubberduck's synthesis model consists of an oscillator wave with a resonant filter sweep applied to it combined with an efficient hardware sequencer design which resolves in the typical twisted, screaming, bubbling bass sound that is often used in Acid House, Goa Trance, or Techno productions. Rubberduck featured realtime digital resonant dynamic filters, frequency and volume envelope (DCA, DCF), 4 basic waveforms, dual oscillator sound generation (starting with version 2.0), a 224 note sequencer, a drum section where samples could be synchroneous played back, an effect unit (delay/feedback/distortion) and was fully Windows 95 compatible. User feedback was overwhelming, ranging from "the door-bending bass response makes rebirths 303 section sound like a touch tone device" to "fucking brilliant" and the most famous quote which says it all: "it is like fucking a hot hollywood bitch for the price of a corner crack slut". On the other side Rubberduck received impressive press couverage, from "KEYS" to "Future Music".
