Mac and Music News

Ericlc writes us to let us know that GVOX, new owners of the once-leading Encore notation software, is aggressively pursuing its competitors' customers with a US$129.99 competitive upgrade offer from Finale and Sibelius, an enormous savings of US$270 off list. Both Finale and Sibelius has competitive upgrade offers of their own.

MusicMath 3.0 adds two new functions: conversion between notes, MIDI values and frequency as well as a SMPTE calculator for converting tempo beat values to time. The new version also improves TapTempo accuracy and delay conversion and adds support for ms values in the Sample section. MusicMath includes five other conversion functions: Tempo, Transpose, Delay, Tap Tempo and Sample. This software runs under OS9 and OSX and all for free!

Ed: A must-have in your toolbox, simple as that. If you don't have it in your dock already, download it now! -PK

Minimoog V software, announced at NAMM, will offer all the features of the original Mini Moog, plus polyphony, MIDI management, and preset handling. Additional functions are hidden beyond the control panels: a modulation matrix, a LFO, an arpeggiator, a chorus and a delay. Arturia has now posted a demo version and the final version will come very soon.

Ed: This is one of the most exciting announcements, soft synth-wise, to come out of NAMM: the Arturia software has the blessing of Moog and does a lot the Mini Moog can't. Arturia did a superb job with the Moog Modular, and now they'll bring one of the most successful synths ever, THE classic synth, to software form. OS X as a Mini Moog? Pure heaven. -PK

Applied Acoustics has launched a US$199 crossgrade program for Nord Modular users to the Tasman 3 Sound Synthesis studio. Tasman is a sound design environment based on physical modeling for Mac OS 9.x/ OS X.2 (RTAS,VST, Standalone). This offer is for a limited time and is exclusively available as a download. As part of the offer, Nord Modular users will have the opportunity to upgrade to Tassman 4 for free.

Innovason has announced its new Sy80 console. Designed for live sound and touring, fixed installation and broadcast, the Sy80 digital console features 80 faders, 80 inputs, up to 80 outputs, 48 mixing buses and the advanced Sensoft 8 software. More on the website.

SimpleChord, a freeware application written by Dan Grover, was released today by Wonder Warp Software. The application is a quick, handy reference to chords useful for musicians. It can be helpful in learning new chords, creating chord progressions, transcribing, and many other tasks. It's available for free at www.wonderwarp.com.

Thanks, Dan; could be a good tool for beginning musicians learning chords. -PK

Wave Arts has announced the availability of WaveSurround Pro version 4. This plugin is a spatial enhancer that uses psychoacoustic methods to expand sound beyond the conventional stereo field. The version 4 has a new user interface and is Mac OS X Panther (10.3) compatible.

WaveSurround Pro 4 is available for US$99.95. Registered users can upgrade for $20. A demo version is also available.

Ed: Digidesign recently acquired Bomb Factory, and now we're seeing the fruits of that purchase: a whole lot of plugins completely free for users of Pro Tools TDM or even Pro Tools LE on OS X! -PK

Digidesign has announced a complete series of free Bomb Factory Plug-ins: Bomb Factory BF76 , BF Essentials Clip Remover, BF Essentials Correlation Meter , BF Essentials Meter Bridge, BF Essentials Noise Meter, BF Essentials Tuner and Funk Logic Mastererizer.

For the record, Bomb Factory BF76 is available with TDM, RTAS and AudioSuite formats. Those plug-ins are downloadable on the site below. You'll need your Digidesign ID and password, but fortunately, no iLok authorization is required.

Good news for those who are looking forward to ProTools LE 6.2.3!