Mac and Music News

New JazzMutant web site has just been launched! In addition to its really slick design and global revamping, the main new feature of that web site is certainly its Workshop section. Workshop : You will find in that new section a collection of essential tutorials and examples to get the feel of your new Lemur in a couple of hours while using your favorite software. Already available tutorials: "Surround Panning Strategies" with Cubase SX ; "Exploring Granular Synthesis" with Max/MSP and a Lemur project template destinated to control the most popular loop-based sequencer: Ableton Live 5.

Behringer has released the FCA202, a new low-cost and compact FireWire audio interface. The FCA202 includes two 1/4 inch connector inputs and outputs, 24-bit A/D and D/A converters offer 96 kHz sampling frequency, and volume-controlled headphones output. This new interface comes bundled with Ableton Live Lite 4 Behringer edition, Kristal and Audacity applications.

The FCA202 will be available in the 4th quarter 2005 for $100.

PrintMusic, Finale's little brother, is now available in version 2006 and inherited several features from Finale 2006 : Setup Wizard, input via midi keyboard, mike, mouse, keyboard, scan. Includes sounds of the Software Synthesizer & marching percussion by Row-Loff; Human Playback & Band-in-a-Box Auto-Harmonizing.

PrintMusic costs 69,95 $.

Wwaym announces the release of the Mac OS X version of their virtual analogue VSTi synth, nWSynth. This synth features 2 filters, 2 oscillators with various modulation options, unison, portamento, distortion, echo, presets (with 2 additional preset banks), and full MIDI automation with MIDI learn.


nWSynth costs 95 euros and a demo version is available.

 

CDxtract has released Samplit, a new solution for recording and converting your MIDI instruments to sampler instruments. Samplit sends the midi notes to the midi hardware, records all the individual sounds and create ready-to-play Sampler instruments with a few mouse clicks. Samplit can also be used to record non-MIDIfied sounds such as real instrument, human voice, special effects, noise, etc. Samplit has already been used to record the Bösendorfer piano included in the MOTU MachFive standard library.

Samplit is available for Mac OS X (multi-format version $239, mono-format version $99). Demo versions are available.

Digidesign just announced they are in the last qualification stages for PCI Express versions of their Pro Tools|HD cards. They should be available before the end of the year. In fact, Digidesign has been collaborating with Apple for some time already to bring the HD system to PCIe on the new G5 range as fast as possible, including the G5 Quad coming in november.

So you can expect the new cards in the forthcoming weeks. Check the compato page at Digi website.

Luxonix announces an updated version (1.1.3) for its LFX-1310. This release now works correctly with Logic 6 series, fixes a crash on some dual CPU systems and fixes the crusher effect bug. LFX-1310 is a plug-in multi-effector including 24 types of algorithm and 3 serial slots.

Myriad Software announces that Melody Assistant is now available as version 7.1.9, and that Harmony Assistant is available as version 9.1.9. Melody Assistant is an application for writing and composing music, with a friendly interface and many powerful features, is a lite version of Harmony Assistant.

List of new features, improvements and bugfixes are available in the MacMusic software section.

Lexicon announced the Lambda, a new USB desktop recording solution including the Lambda Studio USB interface, Cubase LE and the Lexicon Pantheon reverb VST plug-in. The Lambda Studio interface features two XLR microphone inputs, with TRS inserts and switchable +48V phantom power, two TRS balanced 1/4" line inputs, two TRS balanced line outputs, a 1/8" front-panel mounted high-power headphone output jack, a front-panel ultra-high-impedance instrument input, and MIDI input and output.

Lambda Studio will be available for $199.99.