Mac and Music News

From now through September 3, Sweetwater is making unheard-of deals on guitars, keyboards, recording equipment, and more gear! Call your Sweetwater Sales Engineer for prices too low to advertise on hundreds of items in their huge inventory.

Use your Sweetwater Musician's All Access Platinum Card to make a purchase between now and September 3, 2007 and make no payments until July 2008! Or, if you pay in full by July 2008 there's no interest! Call now for complete details : 1-800-222-4700

Mu Technologies recently released the Windows and Mac OS X Universal Binary VST versions of Mu Voice, a new plug-in that allows you to tune your vocal recordings, apply special effects and add natural sounding harmonies when mixing your track. Mu Technologies has developed proprietary spectral analysis and synthesis techniques for vocal processing providing a unique tool for your recording studio. With an internal delay of 5.8 ms Mu Voice is the ideal vocal processor to perform live on stage.

Mu Voice is currently available for the introductory price of $199 ($259 MSRP); demo versions are available. AU, RTAS and stand-alone versions are expected to be released soon.

CEntrance, Inc., announced that MicPort Pro has begun shipping. MicPort Pro is a portable, low noise USB mic preamp featuring 24-bit/96kHz performance, 48V phantom power, zero latency monitoring, loud headphone output, and knobs for input and output level. MicPort Pro offers driverless, "wizard-free" installation and lets users record with most Windows XP/Vista and Mac OS X audio applications. MicPort Pro ships with a 6' USB cable and a carrying pouch. Users can download free software tools for recording and mixing from the CEntrance website.

List price for MicPort Pro is $149.95 in the U.S. with a MAP of $124.95.

Sonnet Tech launches the new ExpressCard 34 card allowing any MacBookPro or PC laptop (with and ExpressCard port) to benefit from 2 additionals firewire 400 ports and one USB2 port. Available from october, this card will only cost EUR 65.

VirSyn introduces REFLECT, an algorithmic reverberation plugin which combines the flexibility of vintage algorithmic reverbs with the sonic quality of convolution based reverbs.

The creation of high quality reverb needs a realistic simulation of the important early reflections together with a smooth and colorless reverberation tail. The early reflections are the most important clue for the human ear to get a feeling about the dimension and character of a room. Most algorithmic reverbs offer a number of different algorithms to simulate different natural rooms like chamber, halls or artificial ones like plates.

REFLECT uses impulse responses from real acoustic spaces and classical reverb algorithms to emulate their acoustical properties.

BandmateLoops unveiled three new Sounds Like Drums Universal Virtual Instruments today. SLD's Hip Hop/RnB Kit offers multiple styles of Hip-Hop drums in one package. Firstly, the SLD 808 set provides classic emulation of the legendary drum machine. This
set is a powerful hybrid of real drum samples and synthesized sounds. Secondly, The Old School set provides the perfect backdrop for traditional Hip-Hop tracks, offering classic Hip-Hop sound. Finally, the RnB Kit is ideal for contemporary RnB sound. (ala Alicia Keys, Mary J. Blige, John Legend, etc.)

Each kit utilizes a one-hundred percent analog recording process. The result is sound with a warmth and richness that is simply not achievable with even todays digital recording. Supported instrument formats include Mac and PC versions of Kontakt 2, Reason and others.

The 440Network.com team and myself are so proud to let all of you loyal MacMusicians know that we will be celebrating our 10th anniversary on September 27th during Apple Expo in Paris.

Ten years... Wow! When I launched the MacMusic mailing list on September 29th, 1997, I would never have imagined (even in my most enthusiastic dreams) that we would count, 10 years later, over 70,000 subscribed members and host close to one million visitors every month! I guess that follows the place internet took in our lives in a general way...

When I was a teenager studying electronics, music and sound engineering, I would have loved to access such useful content as the one we now deliver online through our news items, forums, article sections, etc. Now days, students, well versed amateurs and even acclaimed professionals can quickly get very useful answers to precise technical questions within minutes as these will be consulted by thousands of passionate users throughout the world that just love to share their knowhow and tech experiences.

Audio Impressions has updated their website with down loadable demos and the latest information on their Realtime Strings Powered by DVZ. Consisting of 70-Stradivarius and other prized instruments this amazing library offers natural orchestral balance and audiophile quality that result in a realism never before heard in a virtual instrument.

Change the size of an ensemble from a soloist to a full symphony or anything in between while continuously controlling the acoustic environment and instrument location in real-time all with intelligent articulations all controlled by a single intuitive user interface.

Realtime Strings is ideal for anyone using computers to create music for television, film, live theater and for use in music education.

McDSP has discontinued sales of individual LE products. For existing LE customers, McDSP is for the first time ever, offering the chance to upgrade individual LE plug-ins to Native for $195. Individual Native products have never been offered before, so take this opportunity and upgrade your LE plugs to Native.

Native products are full version plugs that are RTAS /AS compatible. Only individual LE sales have been discontinued, the Project Studio Bundle is still available, containing all LE products for $495.