Mac and Music News

There have been rumors of a trial between Cupertino and the Beatles about the use of "Apple" trademark in the music industry. Things seem to get better. Indeed Paul MacCartney has proposed four exclusive titles to the iTunes Music Store. The "46664,1 Year On" record is composed of songs which are a tribute to Nelson Mandela's "46664 project".

Songs will be available on the iTunes Music Store all over the world, and as soon as January 18th on the U.S. iTMS.

KS Chromatic Tuner 1.0 by Hidetomo Katsura is a 12-note chromatic scale tuner plug-in. You can use KS Chromatic Tuner to tune your guitar, bass, and other musical instruments.

Chromatic Tuner is now available as Audio Units version, in our softwares section.

This is a first set of NAMM's rumors : Universal Audio will be showing several new plug-ins for the UAD-1 and TDM platforms. Also the now-shipping eight and four channel pre-amps, the 4110 and 8110. Cycling '74 is growing leaps and bounds, with Windows versions of Pluggo and Mode, and a new mac plug-in, plus the new touchscreen controller called the Lemur. And of course Propellerheads will unveil Reason 3.

Moog Music has announced a new addition to the Voyager family, the MiniMoog Electric Blue. The Electric Blue incorporates virtually all of the functions of the original Minimoog Synthesizer (produced from 1971 to 1984) with sound and beauty all its own. The Electric Blue is housed in an ash cabinet with a fractal blue finish and the awe-inspiring electric blue backlit front panel.

The MiniMoog Voyager Electric Blue sells for $3295 and is immediately available.

Yamaha corporation announced that 01X Editor v2.1.0 and Studio Manager v2.1.3 are now available as download. The set of editing/managing software programs for 01X Digital Mixing Studio works now perfect with a DAW software which supports Total Recall function of Studio Connections such as Steinberg Cubase SX3.01 or Nuendo 3.01.

More info and download on Yamaha web site.

Rumor says that Apple will discontinue standalone version of Soundtrack audio software. Effective last week, the company reportedly told its distribution partners that all variants of the Soundtrack application and license bundles are "End-of Life" and no further orders would be accepted. Separately, sources also anticipate that the company will soon release an update to its industry leading professional grade audio production tool, Logic Pro 7. The update, which is expected to debut prior to the National Association Music Merchants show during the third week of January, will reportedly update the application to version 7.1.

M-Audio announced three drivers updates for FireWire 410, FireWire Solo and FireWire Audiophile audio interfaces. These new drivers (v1.4.1) features : added support for the Ozonic, uninstaller now removes preference files and improved performance on older CPUs.

Info and downloads in the MM softs section.

Symbolic Sound today announced that Kyma is updated to X.1, and is a major update to its sound design environment. Kyma X.1 delivers its enhancements in threes support for using a Wacom pen and tablet as a 3 dimensional control surface, 3 new kinds of oscillators, and modules for turning presets into a 3 dimensional parameter subspace.

Kyma X.1 is now available as a download to registered Kyma X owners.

Chopitch is a VST plug-in for pitch shifting without delay featuring : dramatic pitch swoops in perfect time with the music, intelligent gating system, instant octave down, play bass lines on any instrument, pitch can follow the volume of the input signal, for "talking drum" type effects , and more.

Chopitch 1.0 becomes shareware and now costs 30$.

Bidule is a realtime modular creation studio aimed mainly at artists seeking a new creative environment to experiment with. With Bidule, you create your own live music creation environment, inserting audio and midi devices, ReWire Devices, VST instruments and plugins. This new 0.7002 version features : AU can now save any presets not just the User preset, faster application shutdown, Group Config Dialog: changed max number of ins/outs to 128, Polyphony Config Dialog: changed max number of voices to 128.

Bidule is available in the MM softs section.

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.