Mac and Music News

Steinberg have released a pre-release "Public Beta" version of HALion v3.0.1.489 for registered owners of HALion 3. This public beta features : added 2 new User-Categories "Favourites" (3 before, total now 5), user-Categories "Favourites 1-5" can now be renamed by keeping Ctrl pressed when selecting added "Save Bank..."in Global Archive menu and fixes several bugs.

Info on Steinberg web site.

Moog Music announced a new software editor for the Minimoog Voyager, to be available this summer. The editor allows instant access to the Voyager's presets, banks, patches, and edit mode parameters through the computer's MIDI interface.

Priced at $79, the editor will be available for download from Moog Music's web site soon.

Done !! Audio Hijack Pro 2 is born today. This software by Rogue Amoeba allows users to record and enhance any audio played by their Mac. This version 2 features : records to AAC and Apple Lossless (ALAC) formats, Built-in CD Burning, Split on Silence/Remove Silence, One-shot and Recurring Timers, New User Interface, Automatic Timers to wake your computer (10.3-only) and launch Audio Hijack Pro, ID3 Tagging and Parallel Effects Processing.

Audio Hijack Pro 2 costs $32.

M-Audio has annouced the availability of the Evolution eKeys49, a little MIDI keyboard. The eKeys 49 is a 49 note-keyboard and features : Midi out, a volume/control slider, advanced function button for programming and a sustain foot pedal input. The keyboard is powered via USB and is class compliant with OS X (also includes drivers for Mac OS 9.1 and later).

Info about the Evolution eKeys49 will be soon online on M-Audio website.

Emagic has posted a beta version 3.1b2 of SoundDiver, a universal editor and librarian program which supports many MIDI devices. This is trial, pre-release, time-limited software meant for evaluation purposes only. this software should not be used in a commercial operating environment or with important data. before installing this emagic software, you should back up all of your data and regularly back up data while using this emagic software.

Info about SoundDiver is available on MacMusic Softwares section.

MakingMusic is an online Musical Instrument Encyclopedia, providing a description, an image and a sound clip per instrument. This is an ongoing Freeware project, with new instruments being added to the database as the research progresses. MakingMusic v2.5 now features 240 instruments & climbing.

All info on MacMusic Softwares section.

SimpleChord is a quick, handy reference to chords for musicians. It can aid in learning new chords, building progressions, transcribing, and other tasks. It displays the notes in a chord, their positions on the keyboard, and can even play the chord aloud. This new version features : chord spelling issue really resolved, new spelling section in preferences lets user choose between strict and simplified spelling, interface refinements and jaguar problems will be addressed soon.

Info about SimpleChord (shareware) is available on MacMusic Softwares section.

Spectrum XA1 by Mark's Recording Studio is a Real Time Spectrum Analyzer AudioUnit plug-in for Mac OS X. Unlike the wast majority of analyzers that use FFT for analyzing the audio, XA1 use Altivec optimized code to generate the display.

Spectrum XA1 needs G4, OS X 10.3.4 and Quicktime 6.5.1 or later and costs $199.

Digidesign has posted a 6.4cs5 update for Pro Tools Pro TDM and LE. In addition to all previous fixes from 6.4cs1 through cs4, these 6.4cs5 releases add these fixes: playing a session or auditioning a file could result in a DAE –9035 Error (files in folders named with certain ascii or European characters, file with more than 31 characters), deleting a selection on a track could cause other regions to be deleted, and object selector could not select regions on duplicated tracks.

This update is available on the Digidesign Pro Tools CS support page.