Mac and Music News

Ultimate Sound Bank has released the fifth UVI Soundcard, Retro Keyboards, which includes seven legendary instruments - three "eras" of a classic tine-based electric piano, a famous electro-acoustic piano; a soulful reed piano; one funky keyboard plus his "little brother". Each instrument is organized into "families" of presets to simulate the essential vocabulary of these classic keyboards, including Amp simulator, Tremolo, Vinyl emulation, and more. These presets can be designed thanks to the Plugsound Pro sound design section, which allows you to add up to four effects per instruments, from convolution reverberation to analog modeled Chorus and Flanger, from a Studio Limiter to high-class EQ, etc. This section also provides Filters and 4 LFOs per instrument. Plugsound Pro can import up ...

HairerSoft has released version 0.9.9 of Amadeus Pro. This is the latest public beta release of Amadeus Pro, the brand new sound editor from HairerSoft. It brings a wealth of new features to the Amadeus family of sound editors, like multitrack editing, batch processing, CD burning and many more.

Version 0.9.9 is a release candidate and will not be altered substantially before release version 1.0.

Synful Orchestra has been updated to version 2.3.2 for Mac OS X, which is now a Universal Binary. This version runs on both new Intel Macs and older Power PC Macs and has no new sounds or other new features compared to version 2.3.0 so the only reason to download and install this is if you want to run Synful Orchestra on a new Intel Mac.

Manytone Music has announced the release of ManyOne, a fully-featured, high-quality, sample player plug-in for Mac OS X (UB) in VST and AU formats that comes with a wide range of sounds classified in four categories: electric pianos, ensembles, organs, and waveforms (which include classic analog waves). The waveforms can be used as they come or some of the synthesis tools can be applied through the simple interface to tweak the sounds. For speed in programming, there is a Sound Wizard with a range of preset synthesizer settings for all purposes. ManyOne also includes an FX rack with ten units: Tremolo; Overdrive; Mono Phaser; Stereo Phaser; Dual Chorus; Quad Chorus; Mono Flanger; Stereo Flange; Echo (with three varieties—warm, crush and light); and an Output Limiter. Like the Sound Wizard, ...

Vir2 Instruments has released Acoustic Legends HD, a new acoustic guitar virtual instrument plugin for Windows and Mac OS X. Powered by the Kontakt Player 2 engine, Acoustic Legends HD delivers 19 gigabytes of acoustic guitar, including picked notes, finger-picked notes, natural and artificial mutes, chords, harmonics, harmonic chords, release layers, and even fret noise sampled for each guitar. It contains several different steel string guitars, nylon strings, twelve strings, acoustic bass, as well as a bonus folder featuring mandolin, ukulele, and banjo. Acoustic Legends HD features guitars from McPherson, Taylor, Gibson, Martin, and other manufacturers.
Acoustic Legends HD has an MSRP of $299.95 and is available for Windows and Mac OS X in VST, DX, AU, RTAS and standalone formats. Audio demos are available. For more detail see their web site.

SoundHack has released Spectral Shapers plugin bundle version 1.2 now compatible with Protools 7.0 and above. The new version also adds Universal Binary support to its VST, Audio Unit, and RTAS plugins, enabling them to run natively on Intel-based Macs. The four plug-ins in the Spectral Shapers bundle are filters which reshape the timbre of sound:

+spectralcompand: a spectral version of a compressor/expander which can be used for broadband noise reduction

+spectralgate: a multi-band noise gate and ducker

+morphfilter: morphs between two filter settings that can be drawn or learned

+binaural: a spatialization plug-in optimized for headphone use

Spectral Shapers 1.2 is available for $99 as an electronic download from SoundHack web site, or $150 from authorized dealers. It is a free update to registered users.

Image Line has released version 1.4 of Toxic III.

Changes

* Fixed denormals on some Intel systems.
* Removed clicks in some hosts.
* Banks are now saved in a compressed format, saving space.
* 36 new presets added.
* No more external wave files.

Note that this version will have to be registered again.

Massey plug-ins has released THC, a highly accurate analog-modeled distortion stompbox plug-in. THC delivers true analog-like sonic quality in either RTAS or TDM plug-in formats. A highly functional demo which never expires is available for download. The full version is available for purchase at a price of US$69.

You have a Nintendo Wii? You have a Mac? Try DarwiinRemote, which is in its early developments but enable you to send controls from and to the Wii controllers: 3 axis acceleration sensors, all buttons except power button on/off from the Wii, the LEDs and Force Feedback on the Wii remote. it's aimed at the moment at FrontRow but MIDI or OSC is not far away… Mr Hiro, please please please!

DarwiinRemote is Open Source and free, under early development so uncomplete and unstable so be careful! Works on PPc and Intel Macs running OS X 10.4 and better in Universal Binary.

Alien Connections has announced the imminent release of ReValver Mk II which is the follow-up to ReValver and uses new modeling techniques to accurately model many classical guitar amps and stomp boxes. It contains more than 50 chainable sub-modules and also has the capability to host 3rd party VST plug-ins anywhere in the chain. The Speaker module uses over 150 Impulse Response files to accurately model well known speakers and cabinets. It is possible to import / export your own Impulse Responses (IRs). Cabinet stress & speaker distortion is included in the modeling, as well as power supplies, transformers, 17 tube types with over 15 programmable parameters per tube.

ReValver Mk II feature summary:

* Advanced valve modeling, with amps and stomp boxes inspired from the original sch ...

IK Multimedia has released version 1.1 of Miroslav Philharmonik, their integrated Orchestral Workstation combining the legendary Miroslav Orchestra and Choir sample collection masterpieces with a dedicated plug-in instrument. This update provides Intel-Mac / Universal Binary compatibility and is free for registered users. In addition to Mac Intel compatibility there are several other enhancements that have been implemented into Miroslav Philharmonik 1.1:

* Standalone version included.
* Improved load time when loading instruments.
* Improved MIDI CC real time performance.
* Improved search function reliability.
* Improved Audio Units multi-channel support.
* USB iKey or dongle no longer required.

Sonic Studio has announced the release of Broadband DeNoise native, the first member of the NoNOISE II native suite of restoration tools for Mac OS X. Broadband DeNoise native is an hight fidelity native application for wideband noise removal in post production. Employing the "noise fingerprint" method, it can aggressively suppress noise in an imperfect recording without altering the room tone or contaminating the result with artifacts.

For more information visit their web site.