Just today, Cherry Audio released their brand new Jupiter-8 software emulation, Mercury-8.

Thanks to Robert at Cherry Audio, I got an early license to try it out and prepare a firmware update for the SFC-8 that brings support to the Mercury-8 through a new plugin mode.
You can find more information about this integration in the manual.
Here is the information to update your firmware.

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I got an email from long-time customer Tristan Bres, he sent me the link to his 1 hour long concert. It’s a beautiful performance with synths, Rhodes and fantastic visuals.

Tristan uses many fantastic pieces of gear and is a very hard working talented musician, it’s a great honour to know that there is a little bit of my work in this setup.

Tristan has been a great supporter since 2021, he is using 2 uDCOs and the Dual ADSR. You should check it out:

I am happy to announce that the SoundForce products are now available through DLX music with a webshop for each country:

Sweden:
https://www.dlxmusic.se/varumarken/soundforce

Finland:
https://www.dlxmusic.fi/tuotemerkit/soundforce

Norway:
https://www.dlxmusic.no/varemerker/soundforce

Yesterday the V Collection 11 came out. I personally did the upgrade directly as I need to continuously insure support for my controllers and my users. None of the plugins related to my controllers received significant updates, it’s still the same plugin generation.

The great news is that Arturia did work on some bug fixes updates that bring back the 2-way communication for this latest version. The last version to be compatible was from Dec 2023.
As I was expecting some progress on this since Summer 2024, I directly updated all the plugins and worked on the new XML files.

The update is available for V Collection 10 license holders! For some plugins even V8 or V9 license holders should be able to update to this new plugin version. So no need to purchase the V11 upgrade to get the 2-way communication working on the latest versions.

I created new links on the support page under Mapped Presets. The old XML file is still available to make sure that people with older OS can still use the plugin and controller in the future. In each zip, you will find 2 folders for the new and old versions. Inside of each folder a README for instructions.

Please note, that if everything works for you right now, there is no need to do the update in my opinion. But you are now aware that if you ever reinstall your system, the latest version will be supported with those new files. I will do everything that I can to offer continued support to all the future versions and I hope that future Arturia updates won’t bring any more issues as we experienced in the 2024 updates.

It’s 15 days ago now that I got a few messages at 1 in the morning (local time in the Netherlands) from some friends of SoundForce, telling me that they think they just saw the SFC-8 during the SuperBowl national anthem performance ?

Obviously, I wouldn’t believe it at first. But by some unbelievable strike of magical luck, Jon Batiste performed the national anthem this year and the SFC-8 was standing on his piano on the left side. His wife painted his piano and she took the time and effort to paint the SFC-8 sides in the same pattern as well.

People were speculating on the internet about why is this device, along side a Maschine and a Novation controller, are standing there: https://www.musicradar.com/artists/why-did-jon-batiste-have-a-jupiter-8-plugin-controller-a-maschine-and-an-ableton-live-controller-sitting-on-his-piano-when-he-sang-the-national-anthem-at-the-super-bowl-were-still-not-sure

During the performance, mostly his piano and voice are present and some backing track is adding drums and extra orchestration. Maybe he changed his plans last minute. In any case, what I heard from his tour manager is that Jon Batiste is starting to experiment more with electronic elements.

This is an absolute trip to have a device broadcast to the wide world during such a massive event. People speculated that I sponsored Superbowl to get this feature, which is hilarious for me considering the size of my operation.

The video will not embed so here is the link if you want to see it

I am very happy to present MOD 6, a powerful dual-function Eurorack modulation source.It was designed and developed to compliment the other modules in the juno-themed range of modules: DCO, VCF/VCA 6 and CHORUS 6. It is based on my work with the Dual LFO and Dual ADSR modules, with the goal of merging them together into a powerful dual-function next-level module. It can do a lot!

More info on the product page.

As usual, a high quality and very detailed demo video is available from DivKid:

The module is available right now, in my webshop and at schneiders laden, cicada sound, signal sounds and perfect circuit.

The german music tech site Amazone.de posted a long and detailed review of the SFC-OB:

https://www.amazona.de/test-soundforce-sfc-ob-controller-fuer-oberheim-plugins/

The article is quite detailed and precise, thanks a lot to Amazona.de and Markus Galla for taking the time.

You can get a full page translated easily using your browser translation function, or add a plugin that implement google translate into your browser.

Many thanks to Olivier and his friend Luc from France for sending me this video. Both Olivier and Luc are visually impaired so the focus is on accessibility. I learned that you can turn on “voice over” and have vocal feedback when pots are turned and switches are pressed. This is an amazing feature to start learning an interface and getting used to the position and function of every control. I am very happy I can play a small role in their enjoyment of music technology!