Mac and Music News

As we announced yesterday ;-), Steinberg just released Cubase SX3, the new version of their well known sequencer. New features include:

Audio Warp: Realtime Time Stretching and Pitch Shifting offer extensive new audio editing and processing capabilities, including ACID® File support: loops automatically adopt a project's tempo; audio files can follow tempo changes in realtime.

Intuitive Play Order Track for pattern-based arranging: Divide your song into sections, and then re-arrange it on the fly. Compare alternative versions of your song and then convert them back into a linear form for mixdown and mastering.

New Inplace Editor supports ultra-fast direct MIDI event editing from within the project page. Edit MIDI events in context with audio or ...

Digidesign has announced Smack, a new professional compressor/limiter plug-in designed specifically for music applications. Smack features three compression modes, unique compression ratios, and harmonic distortion ideally suited for achieving a wide range of sonic variations and colorations. Additionally, the plug-in supports side-chain processing, multi-channel track types, and the full range of ProTools sample rates and plug-in formats.

Smack for Pro Tools HD & HD accel costs $595, and Smack LE (for Pro Tools LE) costs $395.

Synthtopia has published a set of Garageband Tips from author Jeff Tolbert. Many of these suggestions are taken from his book, Take Control of Making Music with GarageBand .

You Software Inc. is offering Mac iTunes music lovers a free download of You Control:iTunes, the custom menu tool for Mac OS X that lets you control iTunes from the Mac OS X menu bar. You Control iTunes is a custom menu utility for Mac OS X that gives you full control over iTunes even when you are not in iTunes. With You Control:iTunes you can take control of iTunes from any menu or customized set of hot keys that you define. Pause, play, rewind or skip any song from within any application. You Control:iTunes lets you set hot keys to select and adjust any or all of the iTunes controls including Next or Previous Track, Play, Pause and even the Volume.

You Control:iTunes is a free download.

Griffin has just announced a new amazing (!) product : the PodPod. The soft foam Griffin PodPod slips into any auto cup holder and provides a safe secure ride for any iPod or iPod mini. It also places the iPod in comfortable reach for easy adjustment and perfect placement for the iPod or iPod mini with an iTrip on top.

The PodPod will ship next month for $9.99 and is being shown this week at Apple Expo Paris.

The Reason Drum Kits Refill is a very realistic and detailed drum sounds library for Reason with 60 drumkits made up from about 10.000 samples. The use of 70 layers per note – velocity variation, mic placement – ensures you to never trig the same sample in a pattern from a midi controller.

This « Refill » allows you to add some more « human » drums to your compositions.

According to sources, Steinberg should launch the new Cubase SX3, friday during Apple Expo. New features will include audio warp realtime timestreching, a pattern style arranging (like ACID and Live) and new editing features. At least, may be this version could correctly run on OSX. (to be continued...)

Phil Schiller' Keynote was just a remake of the WWDC2004 keynote. But he unveiled the new iMac G5, featuring a G5 processor and a new design that integrates the entire computer right into the flat panel display. The iMac G5 packs a complete computer system into a mere two inches of depth. The new line offers 17- or 20-inch active matrix widescreen LCDs and G5 processors running up to 1.8 GHz starting at $1,299.


The new iMac G5, for a suggested retail price of $1,299 (US), includes:
- 17-inch widescreen LCD with 1440-by-900 pixels;
- 1.6 GHz 64-bit PowerPC G5 processor;
- 256MB of 400 MHz DDR SDRAM;
- Combo (DVD-ROM/CD-RW) optical drive;
- NVIDIA GeForce FX 5200 Ultra graphics processor with 64MB video memory;
- Two FireWire 400, three USB 2.0, two USB 1.1 ports;
- 1 ...

Here are our first photos from Phil Schiller' Keynote in Paris.

Korg has released the v1.1 update for the Legacy Collection with new features for the Wavestation (ability to edit multiple steps, new "Snap" function has been added) and the MS-20/MS-20FX (external modulation Patch Points have been added to the list of external modulation sources and 32 new sounds have been added).

Info on the Korg web site.