Mac and Music News

Jean Piché announced a new update for Cecilia, its graphical interface for CSound. This 2.5.3 release features : 4.23f12 engine with full 24-bit support, all modules have been updated, new Streaming FFT modules: PV-Harmonize, PV-FreqShift, PV-MaskFilter, PV-CrossSynth and PV-SpectralDelay, and some minor bug fixes in the interface.

Steinberg has just released pre-release update versions of Nuendo 2, Cubase SL 2 and Cubase SX 2. These new 2.2.0.39 pre-release version feature the same bugs fixes :shuffled VSTi automation lanes when using Freeze, clicks in cross fades, changing sample rate with MOTU audio interfaces leads to a freeze, using dual processor Macs and Rewire produces crackles and lyrics copy/paste problems in Cubase SX/Nuendo score editor.

Amazing Slow Downer allows you to slow down the speed of the music - between -50% and 400% time-stretching without changing the pitch. Real-time processing-all described above is done in real-time - just insert the CD and press the play button. Also slows down MP3, AIFF and wave files on your computer in real-time. This 2.7.2 version adds programmable keyboard commands.

Amazing Slow Downer is avaiable in the MM softwares section.

Announced on November, it seems that Virtual Bassist by Steinberg will come soon. Virtual Bassist is an addition to Steinberg's virtual player range of virtual musicians. Utilizing a huge array of samples and phrases in 25 styles, Virtual Bassist covers any possible music genres, giving lots of samples of rock, pop, reggae, metal and hip hop among others. Virtual Bassist will be available from 1st quarter 2005 as VST and Audio Units formats, Virtual Bassist also runs as a standalone mode.

Virtual Bassist will cost $250.

Expert Sleepers has announced that Meringue 1.0.2, Multitap Delay 1.0.3, Phaser 1.1.2 and Ping Pong Delay 2.0.4 are now available as VST format. More info and download in the MacMusic software version.

The Zicos team is proud to announce that its "shortcut to news" site is now online and available to all. Zicos is an useful aggregate web news extractor. It allows visitors to quickly keep track of every news published by over 90 renowned web sites over the world. Zicos news are refreshed every 15 minutes and covers the following topics: Pro Audio, Mac, Tech/PC, Downloads and more to come... The engine on which Zicos is based was originally developed for the internal needs of a famous internet portal. It's developers worked for several months designing a smart and efficient engine, helping their news editors, quickly see if they missed important informations. The developers as well as the owners of this great engine agreed it would be a shame not to offer such a nice tool to everyone.

Zicos is now open to all !

AudioEase announced that they're working on Altiverb version 5. This new release will support surround formats up to 192 Khz, and will deliver more instances and less CPU overhead. Dates and upgrade fees are to be announced but the upgrade to version 5 will be free for users who purchased Altiverb after December 1, 2004.

More to come...

Apple has released a new Xserve G5. It offers dense power in a 1U server with dual 64-bit G5 processors at speeds of up to 2.3 GHz and features unlimited clients, up to 1.2TB storage, PCI-X expansion, dual Gigabit Ethernet, fast I/O ports and an optical drive. The new Xserve starts at $3999. Apple also introduces Xsan, a storage networking solution. Xsan lets multiple computers concurrently access terabytes of storage on Xserve RAID over high-speed Fibre Channel. Xsan costs $999 per node.

Vanguard 1.1 by ReFX is a VST synthetizer for Mac OS X. Equipped with 31 different types of oscillators, including rarely found digital oscillators with new modulation options, Vanguard also includes 13 filter types with different slopes and includes a new kind of combined dual-filter variations. Along with a delay and reverb, Vanguard features the Trancegate and Arpeggiator tools. Trancegate is a 16-step gate allowing you to create rhythmic gated patterns while the Arpgeggiator features inspiring patterns and several play modes.

More info in the MacMusic softwares section.

"Le Synthé" by Pierre Couprie is the third version of an AKS Synthi emulator, and is based upon a modular matrix to construct your sounds. This new version fixes several bugs, adds a new GUI, and features a new external module : the spectroscope, and of course contains all features of previous version : MIDI, VST plugins support, and more.

DrumThing by Ron Miller is a compact and simple application designed be a software version of a drum machine for creating drum patterns, loops and grooves. This 1.7 update features a new "Save creation before quitting" alert dialog, a Play counter for visual interest, a new option to automatically create new random creations per loop mainly for its entertainment value and more.

Info and download in the MacMusic softwares section.