Mac and Music News

Christopher Penrose presents Hyperupic, a tools now available for Mac OS X, that allows users to create sounds from digital images. Hyperupic can create AIFF, uncompressed AIFC and SND formatted sounds with 16-bit linear, 24-bit linear, or 32-bit floating point, and can work with TIFF, JPEG, Photoshop, GIF and PNG images. Hyperupic is freeware for Mac OS X and is available on download.

Ed: A NeXT app lives again! Have to take a look at this to figure out exactly how it works. The inspiration here is Xenakis, so I expect this to be quite different from MetaSynth. -PK

This first software update ofthe newest member of the iLife family will upgrade your version of GarageBand 1.0 to GarageBand 1.0.1. "This update clarifies specific alert dialogs regarding system performance." So now, if Apple could made GB a litte more CPU efficient...

Ed: Yes, this one is baffling. An update that does nothing but reword dialog boxes? Think I'll skip that, Apple, unless there's something you're not telling us. -PK

The RM IV by Lineplug is a flexible drum machine that combines analog-style percussion synthesis with a fully featured percussion sampler. The new version 4.0.4 adds support for Mac OS 10.3 Panther and Audio Unit format. The RM IV bundled with more than 170 sample-based and synthesized drum kits.

The RM IV 4.0.4 costs EUR149. A VST demo version is available for download (Audio Unit demo version coming soon).

The guys behind the unofficial site have let me know that they were able to "suck" the whole public FTP from Waldorf shortly before the demise. Once the intellectual property questions solved, they plan to offer all the public content to users as waldorf can do it no more. You'll see soon, OS updates, presets etc. available again.

That's a great news!

Musnoz writes us with this tip: Finale 2004 was released a month ago for Mac OS X, but you can now download (65 M) the demo version from MakeMusic!'s website. Take it for a spin and let us know what you think. -PK

Waldorf, the famous German synth maker, has officially declared bankruptcy. The Alliance with Terratec didn't go for the better, unfortunately. The website waldorf-gmbh.de, its forums and mailing lists are dead as of today.

Digidesign has announced that its SampleCell-to-SampleTank 2 XL crossgrade program is extended to March 31, 2004. This promotion applies to owners of all versions of SampleCell: SampleCell I, Nubus SampleCell II, SampleCell II PC, SampleCell II PCI, SampleCell II Plus, and Soft SampleCell. The offer allows SampleCell users to move up to IK Multimedia's full-featured SampleTank 2 XL at a discounted price of EUR349. Ed: Also good for North American customers. Brings back some SampleCell memories, huh? (Sniff.) -PK

BuzZer, one of our favorite freeware synths, has just been updated. This simple synth emulates an analog VCO VCF VCA Synthesizer. New in this version: added linear to cubic curve control switch, added 2nd filter control panel, added a global octave switch, improved cpu performance. Make some noiZe. (Warning: not preset compatibile with previous releases, if you have some saved presets.)

OUTI, a realtime tool for live loops reording and manipulation, is now available in version 1.31. The new version fixes bugs and introduces a manual sync option. It also includes a manual in English. OUTI is a freeware so help yourselves.

Ed: Makes me want to switch my TiBook 400 to OS 9 to run this and Cosmo live, side by side with my 17" PB on OS X. -PK

WormHole 1.1 by Apulsoft is an Audio Unit that can transmit audio via TCP/IP between applications or to send audio between multiple computers. The new version 1.1 is AudioUnit and VST Mac OS X compatible and works with Ethernet, Firewire or Airport / Wi-Fi. A demo version of WormHole 1.1 is available on dowload and the full version costs 25 euros.

Ed: We'll give this a test. Granted Software's iMIDI had a similar mission but hasn't so far gotten beyond prerelease testing stages, because of the difficulty of developing this sort of software. Let's see how both work. -PK