Mac and Music News

Minky Starshine v1.0 beta 1 by Expert Sleepers is a new additive and subtractive hybrid synth available in Audio Unit format for Mac OS X. It allows user to control 16 independent partials and to assign them to three groups (each group has an envelope generator and an LFO). A resonant filter is available and a flexible modulation section too (with chorus, flange and delay effects).

This beta version will expire at the end of November 2004.

VST Wrapper by AudioEase allows user to run VST Plug-ins as MAS (Motu Audio System) in Motu Digital Performer. The VST Wrapper 4.1 supports multiple outputs for instruments, VST bank and preset saving and loading, Sample Accurate MIDI timing, Beat lock and Parameter Automation.

The aim of the MBROLA project, initiated by the TCTS Lab of the Faculté Polytechnique de Mons (Belgium), is to obtain a set of speech synthesizers for as many languages as possible, and provide them free for non-commercial applications. The first release of the MaxMBROLA Package is online and is developed for Max/MSP 4.5 on Mac OS X.

The VST audio editor Audacity is a freeware which features an amplitude envelope editor, a customizable spectrogram mode and a frequency analysis window. This new version 1.2.3 fixes a bug that causes random crashes on Mac OS X. It also includes several updated translations, and some other minor bug fixes and improvements.

Audacity is available in MacMusic softwares section.

Sagan Technology has released a new update (again...) for Metro. The soft is updated to v6.2.2.1 and now features :

- Version number column has been added to the plug-ins window.
- Multiple Undo with user size setting in buffer preferences. -
- Plug-in editor windows are remembered and restored.
- new MIDI Document Icon for OS X.
- new 'wait for note' mode now works with audio and soft-synths.
- optimization should improve drawing speed of audio overviews.
- recognized files dragged to the tracks window are now accepted.
- plug-in editor windows are marked with their section and track location in the windows menu.
- soft-synths installed after other soft-synths in an effect chain are now flagged and an error message appears.
- Metro now only saves program names to .ins files. ...

FracturedSoftware announced the release of Rondo v0.85, a new Midi player for MacOS X. Rondo has been designed from the ground up to be simple, uncluttered and easy to use. Rondo has many innovative features including a vertical piano roll with live scrolling and a pull down playhead with a piano that will play along with the music. This version includes new column types, a preferences panel, proper cursors, application icon, and keyboard zooming controls. Rondo can also be started up and files opened by dragging on the Rondo icon in the finder.

Rondo is alpha software and requires MacOS X 10.3 (it may work on earlier versions).

Apple is bringing the world's most exciting retail experience to Europe for the first time, with a brand new store in the heart of London's West End. The Grand Opening of the Apple Store, Regent Street, will take place on Saturday November 20th at 10.00 am.

Free T-shirts will be given to the first 2,500 people through the doors, and 300 Lucky Bags worth over £700 will be available for just £249.

The famous Dave Smith Instruments Evolver synth (4 oscillator, 4 LFO, 3 Envelope, VCF, and VCA) will go into virtual world with the help of Psicraft Audio Designs. The forthcoming editor for the DSI Evolver will be the first in a series of "hardware virtualizers" by Psicraft.

The editor for the DSI Evolver is still in pre-beta and will be available in December, 2004.

Camel Audio have released the second in their series of add on sound banks for Cameleon 5000 additive synth. The add on sound bank is called Biomechaniks, and was programmed by designer Kolin Biomechanoid. It comprises of a collection of 128 futuristic sounds. The bank includes textures, effects, basses, pads and atmospherics.

Biomechaniks costs $24.95 or 19.95 euros. You also can download free demo presets or listen to an MP3 at the Camel Audio website.