Mac and Music News

EastWest announces the availability of URBAN ELEMENTZ by Zero-G, over 1350 samples and 1.5GB of the coolest, freshest hip hop and R&B in the business - direct from NYC developed and recorded in cooperation with Xfonic. URBAN ELEMENTZ is a brand new collection of East Coast Hip Hop and R&B loops and samples crammed full of earth-breaking beats, cool keys, pimpin' basses, slinky guitars, synths, strings, licks, fills, percussion, fx and much, and much more. There are 35 full construction kits with BPMs ranging from 65-114, plus hundreds of scratches and a bonus section of drum hits making this the current definitive sound of R&B and HipHop.

Urban Elementz will cost $99.95 and will ship next week.

Nomad Factory announces the release of four new products :

- The Limiting Amplifier LM-662 is a recreation of the classic Fairchild 670 limiter.
- The Program Equalizer EQP-4 is a full range stereo channel unit, featuring low and high cut, low and high frequency boost and attenuation.
- The Studio Channel SC-226 is a stereo channel recording plug-in, featuring four band equalizer, an analog "signature" optical compressor and at the heart of the shelving and bell filters, a tube simulator and Brick-Wall peak limiter.
- The Nomad Factory BlueVerb DRV-2080 is a vintage-style world-class recording studio reverb.

These products are available in RTAS, VST and Audio Unit formats, for Mac OS X.

Every week in the run up to the Frankfurter Musikmesse Native Instruments is featuring one of its new Kore system's central aspects. This week NI focusses attention to the way in which the sounds themselves are handled within Kore. The new KoreSound format enables you to find sounds and presets based on their musical attributes and also allows you to create new sounds based on multiple instruments and effects.

Full details about KoreSound are available in the "Kore Chapter Two" from the Natice Instruments web site...

Cakewalk has announced that Rapture, its new wavetable synthesizer designed to produce pop, dance and electronic sounds, is now shipping worldwide. Rapture combines an advanced modulation system with an non-aliasing wavetable resampling engine. It features 40 Envelope Generators, LFOs, and Step Generators per patch, and comes with more than 500 programs including Basses, Leads, Pads, Arpeggios, Textures, Electronic Percussion and Sequences.

Rapture ships (AU, RTAS, VST) for $259,00.

Quikquak has udated RaySpace to version 2.2.1 VST . This version now features : Patches from RaySpace 2.0 and 2.1 now working and upgraded, A new EQ display that can also be directly adjusted on the graph, for much easier editing, Vertex editing of walls, for quick adjustments, Mirror mode for creating symmetric rooms quickly, Undo now works on whole edits at a time.

Apple has just unveiled its new iPod Hi-Fi system. This new device is no revolution, because it keeps the same idea already developed by all iPod accessories manufacturers for some years. So the iPod Hi-Fi, as it is called, is a sound system with an iPod dock station, featuring three speakeers, with a center 130mm dual voice coil woofer, and a S/PDIF optical audio input. Expect an update for all iPods to support the iPod Hifi.

This iPod Hi-Fi system (whose performances are not mentioned) is shipping at $349,00.

From Cupertino, Steve Jobs, Apple CEO has announced, as expected, a new Mac Mini range, with new Intel-based Mac Mini. They both feature FireWire 400 port, 4 USB 2.0 ports, Analogue audio i/o, DVI out, Dolby Digital 5.1 out. New range includes :

- Mac Mini Solo 1.5GHz Intel Core Solo processor featuring : 2MB L2 Cache 667MHz Frontside Bus, 512MB memory (667MHz DDR2 SDRAM), 60GB Serial ATA hard drive, Combo drive (DVD-ROM/CD-RW), Built-in AirPort Extreme and Bluetooth 2.0, FrontRow and Apple Remote, shippiing at $599.00.

- Mac Mini Duo 1.66GHz Intel Core Duo processor featuring : 2MB L2 Cache 667MHz Frontside Bus, 512MB memory (667MHz DDR2 SDRAM), 80GB Serial ATA hard drive, double-layer SuperDrive (DVD+R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW), built-in AirPort Extreme and Bluetooth 2.0, FrontRow and Apple Remote, shipping at $799.00.

All info about these new models is available on the Apple Store.

CharterOak Acoustic Devices develop high quality products and professional audio equipment for the recording industry. They show us their two new microphones : models SA538B and SA538. So MacMusic is now very happy to give you our very first impressions about these two - very - serious microphones.

Just go to the 'Articles' section...

Digidesign is currently looking for early adopters of the Intel Based Mac iMacs and Macbooks who would be interested in beta testing an upcoming version of Pro Tools LE and M-Powered that supports these new machines. Candidates would be required to: test and use the software for at least 10 hours a week, run various performance tests on their systems, per intruction, integrate the software into their existing workflows and provide bug reports and feedback.

If you're interested please contact Digidesign with the following information: system specifications (i.e. Macbook pro 2.16GHz, 1 GB Ram, etc.), Pro Tools Platform (i.e., 002 Rack, M-Audio Firewire 1814, etc.), brief description of type of work you do, and your experience with Pro Tools.

As a talented but totally unknown music composer, I have often been asked by friends, folks neighbors or other Z movie producers to supply great film soundtracks that suggest suspense, fear, terror, drama, etc, in order to magnify their video masterpieces.

So here is how you and I can from now on brightly get away with it, producing within minutes outstanding soundtracks simply loading "The Best of ProSessions—Vol. 2 - Liquid Cinema" compatible Apple Loops into GarageBand, Logic, SoundTrack or Final Cut software. Indeed, M-Audio's - Best of ProSessions—Vol. 2 incorporates highlights from the seven-volume series called Liquid Cinema by Hollywood composer Jeff Rona (Traffic, Homicide, Black Hawk Down, Chicago Hope, etc). Each sample is finely recorded and assures maximum quality and flexibility.

This 2 GB DVD provides many difficult to reproduce sound effects enabling anyone to create great cinematic atmospheres in direction of action, drama, horror or sci-fi movies. It is also pleasant to find useful percussive effects as well as '70 series like grooves that include drums, bass, guitar and keyboards fills.