Mac and Music News

Native Instruments will soon change the pricing and upgrade conditions for Komplete 2. This bundle consisting of eleven software synthesizers, samplers and effects. With Absynth 3, Battery 2 and a free upgrade to the upcoming Kontakt 2 now included in the bundle, the pricing for Komplete 2 will be adjusted to reflect the new value of the package. The new suggested retail prices for Komplete 2 are: Full Version $1499 /1299 Euro, 2 Product-User Upgrade $1149 /999 Euro, 4-Product-User Upgrade $689 /599 Euro and 7-Product-User Upgrade $229 /199 Euro.

The new pricing for Komplete 2 will take effect on April 1st 2005.

Digidesign and Line 6 release Amp Farm 3.0 plug-In. Amp Farm 3.0 allows users to plug any guitar directly into a Pro Tools|HD, HD Accel, or Venue live sound system and instantly hear it running through their choice of simulations of world-class guitar amplifiers and miked cabinets. Amp Farm 3.0 works on live input tracks as well as pre-recorded Pro Tools tracks and is compatible with Pro Tools 6.7 software on Pro Tools|HD and Pro Tools|HD Accel systems and supports the Digidesign Venue live sound environment.

Amp Farm 3.0 costs $595 and uprade from Amp Farm 2.0 is $95.

Airfoil... Give your audio wings... AirPort Express - It's not just for iTunes anymore. Airfoil lets you send any audio to remote speakers attached to your AirPort. Originally announced as Slipstream, Airfoll allows any audio from any application to be hear through remote speakers. AirTunes isn't just for iTunes anymore - now users longing to listen to audio from RealPlayer, Windows Media Player, and any other application over their remote speakers will be able to do so, with Airfoll.

Airfoil is immediately available for a free test download and wiil be available for an introductory price of $20 during the month of March. The regular price for Airfoil will be $25.

Expert sleepers has updated its tape-based delay effect Augustus Loop to v1.4. This new 1.4 release features : added 'clear loop' function to wipe the tape, added auto fade-in/out envelope, current loop length now displayed in host's bar/beat units as well as seconds, added auto punch in/out, loop input level can be controlled by punch in/out, extensive CPU efficiency improvements ans several bugfixes.

Jef Raskin, the man who gave his name to the Macintosh (nammed in reference to his favorite apple brand, the macintosh) passed away saturday from a pancreas cancer at the age of 61 years. Informatic professor, he was hired at Apple in 78 when the company only had 30 employees. In 79 he was asked to lead the development team in charge of creating a simple and economic computer. He was the creator of the famous "Drag and Drop" who was and still is a highlight of the grafic interface of Mac OS....He quit the project in 81 following a conflict with Steve Jobs.

DSP-Quattro is a powerful sound editor, a highly innovative product that uses the new millennium latest technology. This new update (v2.0.2) now features : the audio file Info dialog allows the editing of the sample rate to force this value without applying any resampling algorithm, the MIDI parameters are editable into the audio file Info dialog, DSP-Quattro keeps memory of the last mouse click position on the waveform when pausing the audio file player, and several bugfixes.

This new DSP Quattro update is available in the softwares section.

Before the keynote, the Mac sites firmly mentionned that an audio interface "made in Apple" may be released and this rumour apprently resurfaces. Indeed according to various sites (macgénération, appleinsider), it seems that this famous interface audio (Asteroid ou "Q97") does exist. Our colleagues base their judgement on the resources of the GarageBand 2 application, in which you can find an image file "asteroid.tiff" whose creation date goes back to November 13th 2004. We don't have any information about the progress in this interface project, which could though be a real one since it infuriates Apple when a site mentions it.

To Be Continued...

U-he has just released the VST version of the Filterscape plug-in for MacOS X. Filterscape is a flexible sound bending plug-in. It's a parametric equalizer. It's a virtual analog filter. It's a delay effect. It's a modulation device. It's all at once - and more. In addition to the effects plugin, there are 2 sister plugins included. One of which is Filterscape VA, a virtual synthesizer, the other one is Filterscape Q6, an advanced, dynamic 6-banded equalizer.

The user manual has also been finished.

X-SpatFX is a program for MacOSX to be used with the X-Spat card (made by A & G Soluzioni Digitali) and generates 3D spatial effects for one (assignable) channel of the card. It can be used in conjunction with A&Gs X-Spat controller to add the excitement of 3D special effects to live performances conducted in the 3-D soundspace that the X-Spat card provides. 'Snapshots' in X-SpatFX are recalled via MIDI program change messages, and the interface provides a 3-D graphical interpretation of the position of the sound source in the 3-D soundspace.

A demo version is available as download.

M-Audio has updated the driver for its Audiophile USB interface, which now fixes a problem with SPDIF not passing audio at 44.1 KHz, fixes a system hang on Powerbook sleep and improves AC-3 and DTS support.

This new driver is available in the MM software section.