Mac and Music News

The huge NAMM show has come to an end in California -- ah, the memories. Well, okay, virtual memories as the MacMusic crew is holed up in places like New York and Paris instead. Apple has posted an enormous wrap-up of the festivities with galleries, press releases, and more. It's a little more Apple-centric than usual, not too surprising with big Emagic announcements and Garage Band. But the Mac Music ecosystem, from Cycling 74 to MOTU, makes an appearance, too, and check out that nice motorcycle and accordion.

Vintage synths and misc instrument icons for OS X that can be used for audio set-ups as well! Ed: Fire up Audio MIDI Setup and pop in these beauties! Gorgeous -PK

Avid Technology, Inc. announced that its audio division, Digidesign, will receive an Academy Award of Merit (Oscar statuette) from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. The statuette, which will be presented at the Scientific and Technical Academy Awards on February 14, 2004, will recognize Digidesign for the design, development, and implementation of the Pro Tools digital audio workstation, which is renowned "as the standard for creating and editing motion picture soundtracks."

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences presents Scientific and Technical Awards to the creators of devices, methods, formulas, discoveries, or inventions of special and outstanding value to the arts and sciences of motion pictures. In the 76-year history of the Academy, only 42 Oscar statuettes have been awarded for scientific and technical achievements. The award presented to Digidesign is the fifth Oscar statuette to recognize innovations in sound technology.

In the "blast-from-the-past category," it's the sequencer/audio program Metro, now owned by Sagan Technology. Here's the latest from Sagan. -PK

Due to repeated request, Sagan Technology has released Metro 6 LX. This is the middle sibling in their product line. Bigger than Metro SE yet much more compact than the full version of Metro. This product, like their others, is available for download only. However, unlike the other products, LX is an OS X only product. The price is currently $129.99 and upgrades from Sagan Technology's SE product are just $49.99. (more)

PowerFX has announced the release of a new collection of CD-ROMs entitled Apple Disc Jams. These Apple Loops libraries are optimized for use with Apple's Soundtrack & Garage Band applications. The first 3 titles of the series are available for $49 USD exclusively from the PowerFX website. The new products are:

- Invincible Dance: A fresh collection of Club & Dance oriented loops featuring everything from bass & drum loops to synth pads and FX loops.
- NuJazz House: Authentic acoustic & electric instrument samples in the Jazz vein that include drums, bass, electric piano, minor 7th chords & much more.
- Electro Clashmatic: A Neo-Retro combination of classic Vocoder & Electro style beats & bass as well as modern synth & FX one shots.

Ed: Garage Band users, tried these out yet? Apple's Jam Pack? Write a review if so. -PK

The Continuum Fingerboard shown at NAMM 04 is a different take on the traditional keyboard. But, as the name implies, your fingers are still involved. Lepetitmartin reports.

This controller offers a surface roughly similar in size to a traditional keyboard and can be played with the 10 fingers (sorry if you have 6 fingers per hand, it can only manage 10 notes simultaneously). Finger pressure controls tremolo (ask a violonist or a clavicordist) and glissandi.
Pitch (x axis), timbre (y axis) and dynamics (z axis) are controlled by finger position. Total pitch ambitus is 8 octaves. The unit is compatible with Kyma and any MIDI device with MIDI In/Out/Thru and supports a direct Firewir connection.

Ed: Just saw this fantastic device via a contributor to the U&I list. Looks tremendous. I hope to try one in person soon! -PK

Not to be outdone by Apple's Emagic Logic, MOTU's got some tricks up its own sleeve for the future of Digital Performer, the company's flagship DAW MIDI/audio environment. At NAMM, MOTU demonstrated several new features being worked on in Digital Performer, including a consolidated preferences window and enhanced MIDI arpeggiator. MOTU also previewed Digital Performer's Beat Detection Engine . This new audio processing technology examines the transients in waveform data and applies artificial intelligence to determine beat locations and the overall tempo of the audio, even when the audio file is not trimmed to measure or beat boundaries. This core engine has been deployed throughout Digital Performer, allowing users to manipulate the beats and tempo of their audio and MIDI data. That's without using predefined loops, so this is a major feature for DP that could set it ahead of the pack.

Digidesign announced the acquisition of Bomb Factory Digital's Assets, including their brand name and their catalog of 27 renowned plug-ins (those shipping as of December 29, 2003). Acquired Bomb Factory plug-ins will continue to be supported on Pro Tools|HD Accel, Pro Tools|HD, Pro Tools|24 MIX, and Pro Tools LE in TDM, RTAS and AudioSuite formats, and on the Apple Macintosh OS X.

Edirol has announced the PCR-1, a compact 24-bit/96kHz audio interface and keyboard controller made for the traveling musician. The PCR-1 features 25 full-width keys, 25 assignable controllers, RCA input & output, S/PDIF output and pitch & modulation controls. This very slim keyboard is USB bus-powered and needs a Mac PowerPC G3/233 MHz or higher on MacOS 8.5, 8.6, 9.x, and OS X.

Ed: Now the main decision for folks is whether to buy this or the similar product from Midiman. Want to weight in? Hit comments. -PK

The website formerly known as GBUsers.com has announced that it will now be known as MacJams.com. MacJams.com is one of the leading GarageBand communities, featuring news, information, and user discussion about Apple's popular music software and related topics. Users are asked to update their bookmarks prior to February 2, 2004, our former domain name will become inactive. Ed: Sounds good to me -- GB sounds too much like "Great Britain"!

IK Multimedia announces Sonik Synth 2 plug-in synth workstation, a cooperation between IK Multimedia and leading US sound designer Sonic Reality. Sonik Synth 2 is a RTAS, VST, Audio Unit and MAS plug-in for Mac0S9-Mac0SX. This virtual instrument features the Sonik Synth virtual synth module and more than 500 sounds and textures, more than 1000 sampled instruments and performance elements designed by Sonik Reality. Sonik Synth will be available by Q2, 2004 at 399 euros.

T-Racks 24, the stand-alone mastering software will be available for MacOS X by the end of January 2004 for a retail price of 299 euros.

The plugin version of T-Racks will be available for Audio Units and VST on MacOS X by the end of January 2004 for 399 euros.

And at last, AmpliTubeT, the guitar amp and effects plug-in will be available for Audio Units and VST for MacOS X by the end of January 2004 for 399 euros.: Amp

The Virtual Orchestra is a multimedia library of the contemporary orchestra. It includes sample banks with more than 15,000 instrumental sounds, pictures and the software sampler Osiris. The Virtual Orchestra is a system developed by Thomas Hummel at SWR Experimental Studio in Germany.

Virtual Orchestra goes now to Mac OS X and is available from Forum IRCAM.

Ed: You have to join Forum IRCAM to acquire this software, but what an impressive collection -- good reason to join! English readers, look for the flag in the upper right corner on the link below. -PK)

The 25th-anniversary festival and competition Ars Electronica will take place in Linz, Austria, from 2 to 7 september '04. The Prize Ars Electronica is devoted to new media artists, and a total of EUR 130,000 in prize money will be awarded in the following six categories in 2004: Digital Communities, Net Vision, Interactive Art, Computer Animation/Visual Effects, Digital Musics and u19 freestyle computing.

There's an open call in the "Digital Musics" category, as well as for works combining sound and media, computer compositions ranging from electro-acoustic to experimental music, and sound installations.

The international cyberarts competition kicks off on January 12, 2004 with online registration.

GT unveiled at NAMM beside the Groovy Comp some means to get sound In and Out, in tubes, as you can imagine…

- For the guitarist: the Power Pick, a Pick with a patented lever, to bring more power and harmonics than standard picks. $12.95 (hey, no tubes!)
- The PDI: Passive Direct Input, well it's a passive DI Line/instrument level to balanced low impedance level… $39.99 (hey! no tubes either!)
- The SFX Spacestation, that's the out ;) It's a compact powered stereo monitor with SXF (Stereo Field Expansion) 300-degree stereo sound field technology. Two models are available for guitarists $695 and for keyboards/voice $795. the units are build to stand going out so it'll spark tubes everywhere. (ahhhh!)
- Groove tubes announced also the availability of new "build to match the original standard" 12AX7M and 6CA7GE. (tubes everywhere!)

IR-1 is a convolution reverb which has flexible classic controls of the key reverb parameters and comes with an extensive library of samples and presets that recreate the sonic environment of over 60 carefully sampled real acoustic spaces and over 60 samples and presets created by classic hardware devices. IR-1 introduces the first Convolution based reverb that allows classic parameters to actually affect the convolution, not just "filter the result" in order to produce parameter changes.
Supported on selected hosts via RTAS - HTDM - VST - MAS - Audio Units.
Requirements: G4 867mHz or faster, OS-X 10.2.2 or later, 512MB RAM, 800x600 minimum display.

Matt Ingalls, well known for his CSound work, has announced the Soundflower utility, developed with Cycling '74. SoundFlower is a virtual audio driver for OSX. It provides an easy and simple way for any application to send audio to another application.

SoundFlower is available as a free download on Cycling '74 web site. Ed: this is great news -- think Inter-Application Communication in OMS, but for audio. -PK

Grooves Tubes was showing its all-tube Glory Comp at NAMM, a compressor with more tubes than it's healthy to have. As you can expect, the beast has a distinct character. Key features are entry levels -10dBV and +4dBu, Attack, Release and Compression Threshold controls, and ratios from 1:1 to 10:1. The unit uses ceramic multi-decked switches instead of potentiometers to provide long life and repeatable settings and a sidechain EQ. An additional touch is the Glory knob (must have something to do with the name ;) that works on the 2nd harmonics to bring more presence between the "Hearth" and "Heaven" settings.
The unit will be available in Spring for US$2999.

Ibanez has decided to reissue its mythic TS808, the other 808. The overdrive stompbox "Tube Screamer" is back this year and each one features the original hand-picked chip of the original stomp -- not a DSP model -- packed in a tough-on-the-job green box. Rumour says it's tough enough to resist laptops ;)
It will be available for US$240.

You can now download a demo of MidiBridge9X, a combo OMS Driver/Application that allows OMS applications running under Classic to communicate with CoreMidi devices.

Some of the programs that were tested with MidiBridge9X: Finale 2003, Band-in-a-Box, Nightingale, Reason, Applications created with MAX..
The one application that doesn't work right now is Opcode's Vision. Troika Tronix are investigating to see if there is a way to get Vision working with MidiBridge9X.

This version has a 15 minute time out. When the beta testers will have reported back on the current version, Troika Tronix will release a public beta for sale.

Yamaha has annouced its new portable 1 unit rack audio interface: the i88x. This new 24 Bit/96kHz audio interface works on the Yamaha mLAN (FireWire) protocol and features 2 instrument/mic phantom-powered inputs, 6 line inputs, ADAT I/O, S/PDIF I/O and MIDI I/O. The i88x ships with mLAN drivers for Mac OS 9 and drivers for Mac OS X are under development.

The i88x can be used as extension for 01x or MOTIF using mLAN16E due to mLAN support as well as a stand-alone Audio/MIDI interface.

Ed: Well, it's great to see Yamaha finally shipping some mLAN stuff, but with few products supporting the protocol and no OS X support, I think I'll stick with my plain-vanilla FireWire audio interfaces! -PK

At NAMM '04, M-Audio annouced a new FireWire audio interface, the FireWire 18/14, featuring 2 FireWire ports, a 24 bit/192 kHz AD/DA converter, 2 Neutrik phantom powered mic inputs, 6 line inputs and 4 line outputs. The FireWire 18/14 will manage 18 inputs channels (8 analog inputs, 8 ADAT and 2 S/PDIF) and 14 output channels (4 analog outputs, 8 ADAT and 2 S/PDIF).

The M-Audio FireWire 18/14 audio interface will be available in March '04 for EUR/US$700.

Crackle... hiss... rumble... click... pop... hum... When it comes to audio, it can be a filthy mess out there. So Bias announce SoundSoap Pro, a new high-end audio restoration solution for Mac OS X as a companion to its existing SoundSoap, featuring multiband noise reduction; click, crackle & hum removal; plus noise gate - all integrated into a single RTAS, AU or VST plug-in.

SoundSoap Pro will be available Q1 2004 for a retail price of EUR599.