Mac and Music News

Reminder : Apple announced in July its "recording deal" : "When you buy Logic Pro 7 with a PowerBook, Power Mac, or Xserve, you'll save $500 — and get the massive music toolkit the pros use to compose, arrange, record, and produce. Because every musician deserves a big break".

It seems that this special offer is extended to November 30, 2005.

Rolf Spuler creates digital music instruments. This designer announces, in collaboration with BridgeCo, a new FireWire guitar called "Paradis". After USB-powered ukulele, or FireWire instruments projects, it's now time for this guitar. It is real, it works, and thanks to FireWire, each string can be recorded to a separate audio channel.

We all know that iTunes 6.0 is now available. You can now preview, buy, and download over 2,000 videos on the iTunes Music Store and sync your music and purchased videos with iPod to enjoy on the go. But our friend Lo76 informs us that this new version of iTunes needs Quicktime 7.03, which doesn't run with the QuikTime Pro 6 option.

Sony announces a new portable digital recorder. The PCM-D1 features 96K-24 bit recording capability, 4GB internal flash memory, removable Memory Stick Pro high-speed storage and a built-in USB 2.0 port for Macintosh and Windows/PC operating systems. The new PCM-D1 recorder also includes built-in condenser microphones (X-Y configuration), WAV recording file format capability and a LCD display.

The Sony PCM-D1 recorder wiil be available in December for $2000.

One more Apple "event" : According to several sources, Apple, the famous iPod maker, wiil organize a new event (the third in only one month !), which will take place on October 19 at the Photo Plus Expo in New-York. Rumour sites say that the iPod maker will unveil Apple's latest "pro" innovations.

Prehaps a "Pro iPod" ?

Ardour is coming on Mac with a new 0.99 downloadable version ! Ardour is a digital audio workstation. You can use it to record, edit and mix multi-track audio, to produce your own CD's, mix video soundtracks, experiment with new ideas about music and sound or generate sound installations for 12 speaker gallery shows. Please note that Ardour needs X11 and JackOSX utility installed on your computer.

Vanguard has been updated to version 1.5.1 in order to improve the "resize" function of the Audio Units version, to improve filter-shapers and to fix several bugs. Vanguard is a virtual synth equipped with 31 different types of oscillators, including rarely found digital oscillators with new modulation options, It also includes 13 filter types with different slopes and includes a new kind of combined dual-filter variations.

The demo version has also been updated.

Freeverse and Felt Tip Software have announced the imminent release of Sound Studio 3. This easy-to-use recording tool for Mac features 24-bit / 96 kHz sampling, in stereo or mono, low latency monitoring, using Core Audio, markers with text labels, Applescript and Automator support, Audio Units support, and serveral effects (compressor, expander, chorus, flanger, echo, and more).

Sound Studio 3 costs $79.95 and will ship before the end of this month.