French composer Luc Ferrari is dead, monday August 22d, in Arezzo Italy. Luc Ferrari was born in 1929 in Paris. He studied with Arthur Honegger et Olivier Messiaen and at Darmstadt in Germany. As director of the Groupe de Recherche Musicale from 1959 to 1960, he worked closely with Pierre Schaeffer, who coined the term "musique concrète. Luc Ferrari also founded in 1981 "la muse en circuit" creation center.

Digidesign today announced the acquisition of Wizoo Sound Design, in Bremen, Germany. Wizoo is a developer of virtual instruments, sample libraries, and real-time effects such as Wizooverb, Latigo, and Darbuka. Currently released Wizoo-branded products will continue to be distributed worldwide through Digidesign's M-Audio business unit. All future products will be branded and distributed by Digidesign.

Amazing Slow Downer has been updated to version 2.7.8. This release willl save "real" aac/m4a files when running Tiger, adds support for CoreAudio files and miscellaneous Settings dialog with severall switches. Amazing Slow Downer is a time-stretching & real-time pitching application.

The new Rode NT6 is a compact condenser microphone, and is specifically designed for difficult mounting applications or discret placement. The capsule of the mic is connected to the main part of the mic by a 3-metre Kevlar fibre reinforced cable. The NT6 runs off standard 48V phantom power. The mic has a fixed cardioid pattern, a frequency range of 40Hz - 20kHz and a maximum SPL figure of 135dB. The NT6 is designed and manufactured by Rode in Sydney, Australia.

New Rode NT6 will be available in September at £229 ($414).

Digidesign has posted an update for Pro Tools LE to version 6.9.2 cs3 and version 6.9cs3. These updates both feature : fixed the key command sequence for fine-tuning automation breakpoints had changed (Item # 65387). The "fine-tune breakpoint" Command key functionality has now been restored to the pre-Pro Tools 6.9 behavior. The key command for "Write Level Constrained to Next Breakpoint" (new to 6.9) has been changed from "Command-click" to "Option-Shift-click." The key command for "Write Level Constrained to Previous Breakpoint" remains "Command-Option-click".

Thes updates are both available in MacMusic software section.

Focusrite, owner of Novation, announce that companies had been the victim of a major burglary, on August 15th morning. Missing stock - arround $250,000 - includes classic Reds, ISA and Platinum rack-mount units, Novation X-Station keyboards, and the new Saffire interface. Focusrite is offering a substantial reward for any information (you can contact Focusrite on 01494 836307 in England).

A list of the serial numbers for the stolen units is available on line.

McDSP will announce an upgrade program for those wishing to upgrade their LE plugin versions to full TDM/RTAS plugin versions for $300 - LE versions are $195 and RTAS/TDM versions are $495. McDSP LE plugins line includes FilterBank LE, CompressorBank LE and Chrome Tone LE.

This upgrade program will be available soon on McDSP web site, and recipients must provide a valid iLok account.

Flexatone has updated Athena CL to version 1.4.1. AthenaCL is a modular, object orientated, interactive command-line environment for music analysis and algorithmic composition. Scores are created in Csound as well as standard MIDI files. The software s open-source, cross-platform, and written in Python and XML. This new release adds new parameter objects, new Csound instruments, and several minor changes and bugfixes.

Bob Moog died August 21, 2005 at his home in Asheville, N.C. He was 71. Bob was diagnosed with brain cancer (glioblastoma multiforme or GBM) in late April 2005. He had received both radiation treatment and chemotherapy to help combat the disease. He is survived by his wife, Ileana, his five children, Laura Moog Lanier, Matthew Moog, Michelle Moog-Koussa, Renee Moog, and Miranda Richmond; and the mother of his children, Shirleigh Moog.

MacMusic pays all its sympathy and support to his family.

Sonic Flavours announces the release of the Mac OS X VST effect version of R66 Reverb. The R66 is a 32-bit stereo digital reverb built for the VST platform. The R66 is a musical reverb based on a new algorithm — not separate plate, hall and room algorithms.

R66 Reverb ships at $149.

Wave Editor is an amazing audio editing software by Audiofile Engineering is today available as version 1.0. This important update includes : added "Zoom to Display All" keyboard shortcut command, fixed dragging a new file from an unsaved file, fixed an issue saving files in place with new header info, fixed an issue moving the playback head to next/previous label during playback, fixed an issue displaying progress panels during analysis, made the progress bar indeterminate on long Wave Editor file saves, fixed a display issue with the Audio Unit editor window with a Carbon AU, fixed an issue adding labels to an offset layer, and added new application and file icons.

Wave Editor will run, without limitation, for 15 days. After that, you'll need to purchase Wave Editor for $250 to use any of the application's functionality

Metro, Metro SE and Metro SX are now availble as 6.3.2 pre-version. This new release features : All MIDI tracks can now be routed to accept input from a particular MIDI input controller, effects are now supported when placed on the ReWire Aux buss, support for dragging samples of stereo audio files from either the left or right channel, recent files under OS X show long file names, and several bugfixes.

Upgrades from 6.2 are free. All new purchases include access to this version. There is an upgrade price of $34.99 to upgrade any flavor of Metro from 6.x to 6.3.2.