Mac and Music News

AudioWarrior has just released TRON 'Mello-Rack', a sample library for Kontakt 2 produced by Greg Giametta and based upon the famous Mellotron.

The original hardware version of the Mellotron was an electromechanical polyphonic keyboard musical instrument that was originally developed and built in Birmingham, England in the early 1960s. It was used on countless hits including The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Radiohead, etc... Unlike the original Mellotron the 8 second samples in TRON 'Mello-Rack' have been perfectly looped for the modern world however the loops may be turned off to recapture the vintage effect of certain voices ending at variable times.

TRON 'Mello-Rack' for Kontakt is available now for Windows XP | Vista and Mac OS X. Note that it requires Kontakt 2 or higher from Native Intruments.

Steinberg has issued an installer patch for the 4.0 versions of Cubase and Cubase Studio (and also for Sequel). The patch enables Cubase and Cubase Studio owners running Mac OS X 10.5 "Leopard" to install their version of Cubase from the installer DVD. Steinberg product specialists recommend then additionally installing the existing free update to 4.1.

While this installer patch allows Cubase 4 and Cubase Studio 4 to be installed on Leopard, it does not offer full and official compatibility with this Mac OS X version. Leopard will be fully and officially supported by Cubase and Cubase Studio with a later update to both products, which is planned for release in Q1 2008.

Steinberg has also released a version 4.1.1.749 update for Cubase Studio. This new update adds the missing UV22HR dither plug-in and fixes an issue with the MIDI loops not being able to be imported or previewed.

SM Pro Audio is proud to announce the immediate availability of their portable multi-purpose acoustic treatment panel The Mic Thing in white. Designed for minimizing room artifacts and improving separation during microphone recording sessions, The Mic Thing is great for a range of applications including helping to control room ambience, minimizing spill from instrument amplifiers, or even creating temporary control rooms.

It can be mounted on just about any microphone, drum, or speaker stand up to 1" (25mm) in diameter. Its two winged panels can also be adjusted to create anything from a flat planar absorber to a tight semi circle enclosing the microphone. This way, the amount of separation and absorption can be easily be manipulated to suit requirements.

Like the black edition the Mic Thing white is shipping with the Mic Stand for a limited time.

This week, Greg Paxton and our partner audioMIDI present a full review of Steinberg's Sequel, entry-level DAW.
That "entry-level" statement could be put into perspective, as says the author : "Sequel offers a feature-rich program for anyone getting started - on both a PC and a Mac. The instrument library provides a versatile palette of sounds[...]. The loop library and editing capabilities are more than impressive. Other features [...] make Sequel anything but "entry level"."

Sims Audio has announced the Primus A25 Midi/USB controller. Basically it's a 25 key MIDI/USB keyboard controller featuring both line and microphone level inputs so it can also function as a USB interface.

Features :

● 25-key MIDI keyboard controller with 16 channel MIDI I/O
● 24-bit / 96 kHz Audio interface
● 8 assignable MIDI controller knobs and encoders
● Function keypads and a data wheel with 3 digit 7-segment LED display
● 5 fully-editable internal user banks
● 4 presets optimized for bundled demo software and 1 useful preset
● Pitch bend and modulation wheels
● Sustain pedal jack
● 2 line inputs (1/4" TS), 1 MIC input (1/4" TRS) and 1 Hi-Z input (1/4" TS)
● 2 line outputs (1/4" TS) / Headphone output with level control
● Direct monitor switch for zero-latency monitoring
● USB 2.0 bus powered
● Additional 9V DC power socket
● Supports WDM, ASIO, DirectSound and Core Audio driver with low latency
● Native Instruments Pro53 DEMO, FM8 DEMO, B4II DEMO and Battery 3 DEMO software included

The Primus A25 has an MSRP of $270 USD, and will be available in the first quarter of 2008.

Ueberschall has announced the release of 80s Punk & New Wave, a new state-of-the-art Punk & New Wave library, including 23 construction kits which contain over 1.6 GB of loops, phrases and samples. Ueberschall's newest Elastik Player product is inspired by the rudest guitar driven LA Punk, NY Punk, UK Punk, Ska, Hardcore, PostPunk and New Wave from the early and up to mid eighties. This library is packed with loads of "intoxicating" licks from guitars, bass, keys, drums and more. All loops are based on live performances from mic'd stacks, kits and analog favorites of the time. The user has the choice of Dry mix or 80ies infected over-bloated commercial saturation for all loops. Drumkit multi-tracks from kick, snare and overheads for each construction kit mix are also included.

The sound library comes complete with the "Elastik" loop player which includes features like :

- Highspeed timestretching and pitchshifting in best quality.
- Innovative "LoopEye" for fast loop variations.
- All parameters MIDI controllable.
- Multiple content management.
- Each product separately installable.
- Mapping tools (automatic slice- & chromatic-map).
- Save audio of original and modified loops.
- Creation of user presets.
- Filter with "kill function" (-72db).
- Adaptable to tempos from 10 to 480 BPM.
- Audio engine for quick adaptation.
- And more...
- Compatible with Mac OS X / Windows - AU / VST / RTAS.

Ueberschall's 80s Punk & New Wave is available for $119 / €99.

Focusrite launches the online 'Liquid Mix Challenge'. This challenge provides ten different excerpts; each features a dry sample, followed by two processed samples, A and B. One of these is processed through the original vintage or classic hardware, the other through a Liquid Mix emulation of the same unit. The question is, 'which is which?'

For each excerpt, the user must decide which sample has been processed through the Liquid Mix, as well as decide which sample they liked the most. Your score is displayed at the end of the short test, alongside an aggregate of the world's scores to date.

Fancy yourself as a bit of an audiophile? Think you can you hear the difference? Then take the online 'Liquid Mix Challenge' now and have a chance to win a new Liquid 4PRE.

Spectrasonics has released Stylus RMX Xpanded, which includes Stylus RMX with all five S.A.G.E. Xpanders: Backbeat, Retro Funk, Metamorphosis, Burning Grooves and Liquid Grooves.
This new package is priced at $399US/349Euro and offers a saving of almost $400US off the combined price. The Xpanders libraries will add 5.5 GB of grooves and sounds to the current Stylus RMX's 7.4 GB remix-oriented core library.

Fully compatible with PPC and Intel Macs, and Windows PC (including Vista).

Addictive Drums is updated to v1.1, thus allowing use of multiple outputs in Logic8, offering selectable backdrops, fixing minor bugs and above all adding support for ADpaks.
Users have been waiting for some sound extensions, and here is the first : Retro. It features three classic Ludwig kits from the 60s and 70s, with cymbals from Paiste and Sabian. It also includes cowbells, tambourines and hand claps.
1300 MIDI loops and 70 presets will "get you groovin' in Motown, banging your head to booming heavy Rock, and tunin' out to psychedelic Rock'n'Roll" as claimed by the editor.

Update already available, Retro will be from mid-december.

Today Jazzmutant announces Dual Mode capability for their multi-touch controllers Lemur and Dexter.

Jazzmutant's hands-on, multi-touch controllers have revolutionized the way we interface with our computers, putting stylish, futuristic and – most importantly – ultimate functional control into creative environments everywhere.

But which controller is right for you? The Lemur, perhaps, that can be set up exactly to suit your needs, allowing for intuitive multi-touch control of instrument and effect parameters, mixer channels or anything else you need critical hands-on control of? Or perhaps Dexter is for you, hard-wir ...

Current versions of the PLAY-powered collections (Gypsy, Ministry Of Rock, Fab Four and Voices Of Passion) can be upgraded to include RTAS support through a free update posted on the company's website.
This software update (v1.0.035) is available for Mac platforms in both standalone and plug-in versions.
Other Play instruments, SD2-The Next Generation and Quantum Leap Pianos, are not currently available.
You can click on the thumbnail if you want to have a good look on another forthcoming instrument, eagerly awaited by Mac Intel users (and PPC too...), Symphonic Orchestra.

The PMD620 is Marantz Professional's newest and smallest handheld portable recorder. It offers direct-to-MP3 recording in three quality levels, as well as fully uncompressed, CD-quality 44.1/48 kHz .wav format in 16 or 24-bit resolution. Sound quality is enhanced by the inclusion of two condenser microphones as well as line and external mic inputs, and an external mic output. The new PMD620 also utilizes the SD flash memory card for data storage (up to 2-TB or 2048 gigabytes), a first for the PMD Series of recorders.

M-Audio has announced the availability of Pro Tools M-Powered 7.4 software for Mac OS X and Windows. This version offers numerous new music features and workflow enhancements including a powerful, multifaceted new music composition and production tool called Elastic Time which allows users to easily change the tempo and timing of loops, music, dialog and other sound files in real time without cutting up audio tracks.

Pro Tools M-Powered 7.4 software is now available for Windows XP-, Windows Vista- and Mac OS X (Tiger)-based Pro Tools M-Powered systems. Expanded Windows Vista and OS X (Leopard) support will be announced later. The standard upgrade cost is $75; the cost of upgrading from Pro Tools M-Powered 7.3 is $49.

Note that Customers who have purchased a new Pro Tools M-Powered system or upgrade on or after October 1, 2007 will be eligible for a free software upgrade.

Arturia has announced that version 2.0 of its Analog Factory software is now available worldwide.

New Features :

- Includes 3500 sounds instead of 2000
- Now includes presets from Jupiter-8V
- Improved effects management
- Vst 2.4 \ Cubase 4 ready

Main Bug Fixes :

- Preset switching has been improved to avoid any problems whilst browsing presets and playing simultaneously
- Improved loading time
- Hanging notes have been eradicated when used within a sequencer
- The preset database has been updated to avoid presets with same name and/or sound
- Fixed a bug in the minimoog engine: on mac intel, some preset parameters could go out of range and cause a bad sound
- The GUI (Graphical User Interface) has been improved
- Preferences are now saved automatically after each change to avoid any loss of midi configuration or snapshots

Analog Factory v2.0 is available now at a retail price of $249 / €199. Note that this update is free for all registered owners.