Mac and Music News

Several sources told us that Apple/Emagic may soon release a new DAW software. This software would be primarily targeted at sound engineers more than musicians and would be a compliment of Logic.

This application is Core Audio based and supports AudioUnits plugins. The User Interface is made by Apple who had started this project before acquiring Emagic. Apple may even release its own hardware developed by Apogee Digital. This software is clearly planned to go head to head with ProTools and dedicated DAW in its appeal to the professional recording and mixing world.

Rumors or facts: time will tell!

Kenton presents his Midistream pack, a wireless MIDI system: The transmitter is a cigarette packet sized unit, with a small aerial, an on-off switch, a MIDI input socket and is powered from a 9 volt battery. The receiver is a free standing diversity unit (two aerials) to maximise reception. It has 4 status LEDs, an on-off switch and a MIDI out. The whole system has an extremely low latency of 2mS The whole system has an extremely low latency of 2ms and the range should be up to 80 meters (260 feet).

Two different models are available, due to different frequency allocations in the USA and in Europe. The whole Midistream pack costs 400 pounds.

Audio Ease announces VST Wrapper 4 for MAS. This utility allows MOTU Digital Performer 4 and Audiodesk 2 users to work with VST plug-ins and instruments in real-time.

A demo version of VST Wrapper is available on download .The upgrade from version 2 or 3 costs 39.95 euros and this full 4 th version costs 69.95 euros.

The Nord Modular G2 synthesizer by Clavia is now shipping. The G2 makes modular synthesis a lot easier. It comes with up to 120 patch parameters, real-time control, internal and external audio and MIDI routing, subtractive synthesis, FM synthesis, physical modeling, vocoding, effects processing, MIDI automation.

LPM: Note that the editor will still be PC only, and Clavia is still mute on the subject of a MacOS editor. It doesn't mean there won't be one one day, but don't count on it in the near future.

Sibelius 3.1 is available as a free update for Sibelius 3.0 users. The update includes 4 new plug-ins for note color, harmonics playback, and removing overlapping notes, 16 new instruments, a new "Unregister Sibelius" feature that (finally!) allows moving licenses between computers without typing any numbers, major improvements to PhotoScore scanning software, OS X speed improvements and scroll wheel support, and many improvements and bug fixes. The download, or even a replacement hybrid CD-ROM, is available free to registered users.

The biggest news for OS X users, however, is that Kontakt Silver, the high-quality sampled instruments by Native Instruments bundled with Sibelius 3.0 for Windows, is now available on Mac OS 9 and OS X for download.

The holiday season is here and Ableton would like to thank their customers by offering all registered users an exciting collection of samples. In conjunction with M-Audio, Ableton have selected 100 of the best samples from their ProSessions Sound and Loop Library collection. From now until 30-12-2003, these can be downloaded free of charge by registered Live users (full retail versions of Live only).

Native Instruments announces a new update of KOMPAKT for OS X.
The Native's sampler now fully supports the modern technologies and interfaces of OS X, including AudioUnits, RTAS, VST and standalone operation with CoreMIDI and CoreAudio.

The KOMPAKT update is immediately available to all registered users as a
free download. The full version costs 199 euros.

Voice of the GoatCactus is an application that lets you create original "music" with "the click of a button", even if you have no musical training. You can use the demo version to create studios and bands, listen to their music and make modifications. If you pay the license fee, you can save the music you've created, as entire studios or individual bands, or export the music as MIDI files. All music is royalty-free.

You can download a demo version of Voice of the GoatCactus or buy the 30 euros licence.