Mac and Music News

This ongoing series at The Mac Night Owl LIVE on "Music and the Mac" continues today with singer Jodi Light and musician/producer Mario Mendivil. The discussions will range from using Digital Performer to make music on a Mac to the ongoing issue of music downloading.

Swissonic, well known for its high quality preamps and converters, provides a very compact audio recording solution for portable computers or laptops. The AD-8 converter will be sold very soon with mLAN format (format created by Yamaha and supported by Mac OS X) and will allow connection via FireWire to Apple computers without the need for a third party PCI card.
After Yamaha, Motu, Tascam, Presonus, here is a new audio interface via FireWire for our computers!

Emagic has released a 6.1 Update for Logic Platinum (Mac OS X only). It's about 25MB big and available for download on the emagic site. It's free for users of version 6 and can be tried for 28 days by owners of v5.

The update allows the use of Digidesign TDM systems with Logic Platinum 6 under Mac OS X. It also provides the full functionality of Emagic's optional ESB TDM and PTHD Extensions in Mac OS X. This now provides TDM users with the opportunity to use the Emagic software instruments - ES1, ES2, EVOC20, EVP88, EVD6, EVB3 and EXS24 - in combination with the reliable, powerful TDM DSP hardware together with Logic Platinum 6 on the Mac OS X platform.

There's many detailed improvements for both Mac OS 9 and OS X versions, including the import of Akai S1000/3000 samples for the EXS24 mkII under Mac OS X.

Gleetchplug free bundle has finally been updated! The coolest new feature of V1.0.1 is Therevox: a stunning mouse theremin fully automatizable. Discover the pleasure of sci-fi atmospheares with this incredible instrument.

This bundle also includes:
- D-Rive : an overdrive simulator.
- Sonic reducer : a sample and bit reducer and multi-mode 2 pole filter.
- Maelstrom : ring mod and Morphing convolution.

All the plugins in this bundle are free and exclusively for VST/MAS/RTAS apps on Mac OS9.x (it needs the free Cycling'74 Pluggo runtime environment)

Boosting performance while lowering the price of its popular desktop for home and school, Apple announced an entirely new eMac line offering up to a 1 GHz PowerPC G4 processor, a faster 4x SuperDrive(TM), high performance ATI Radeon 7500 graphics, up to 80GB hard drives and internal support for AirPort(R) Extreme wireless networking. Featuring a stunning 17-inch flat CRT and a remarkably compact all-in-one design that is even less deep than the original iMac, the most affordable PowerPC G4 system now starts at just $799 (US)

Avaible only through Software Update for the moment, the 10.2.6 Update delivers enhanced functionality and improved reliability for the following applications, services and technologies: Address Book, Graphics, Printing, OpenGL, and PC Card and USB hub device compatibility.

An update for AudioTools Pro, bringing it to version 4.2. AudioTools Pro is a calculation utility designed for music production environments. The update features several enhancements including OS X support and network operation.

It's a full success for Apple. In a May 5th message, Apple announced that more than a million of titles have been sold on the iTunes music store (only available in US for the moment), after one week only, when the Cupertino Firm had expected to get this result after a month.

Little problem : on the 200,000 available tittles, half has already been downloaded so Apple announces that 3,200 new tittles will be on line since May 6th.

Other good news : the new version of the iTunes software has been downloaded more than a million times in less than a week and there have been more than 110 000 orders of the new iPod during its first launching week !

And in the end, our big friend "the rumour" announces that the 10.2.6 Os will be available in mid-May...

Since the present Digidesign core audio driver is incompatible with iTunes4, Digidesign has announced a new version (1.2) available this week. For the record: Digidesign engineers claim to have received iTunes 4 "like everyone else", on 28th April....