Back by Popular Demand!
Back by popular demand (the demand of the Publisher being quite popular), Software News! by Brett Moss, 10.31.2006
For those of you new to Software News, no doubt only a few people new to the audio industry and those who have been living under a rock the past few years, Software News is a source of information about audio software products – mostly but not limited to digital audio workstations and plug-ins: product introductions, upgrades, bug fixes (‘There were no bugs in our product and besides we just fixed them!’) and, best of all, Free Stuff!
Halls of Moscone
Those lucky enough to be in the hallowed halls of Moscone Center for the AES show (www.aes.org) in early October expect to see lots o’ new software goodies.
Top of the list might be Steinberg’s Cubase 4 (www.steinbergusers.com). New features in Cu 4 (I just made that up!) include SoundFrame, a “universal sound manager”; Control Room, a monitoring interface; new VST3 plug-ins; new VST soft synths; enhancement of the Score and Notation function and Mac Universal Binary status. Windows folks feel free to ignore that. See more below…
Also in San Fran, Digidesign’s backyard, Digi will be showing the new Mbox 2 Pro – a new FireWire interface for getting the masses hooked on Pro Tools. Ships with Pro Tools LE and a mess of cool plug-ins (www.digidesign.com).
Still in the same neighborhood, McDSP (www.mcdsp.com), has reorganized and bundled many of its plug-in offerings – McDSP Classic Pack Native and McDSP Emerald Pack HD. All in TDM, RTAS and AudioSuite flavors. McDSP has also expanded its Project Studio Bundle with seven new plug-ins.
The man with a name more appropriate for a Sponge Squarepants Bob character, Chris Lord-Alge (who has more hits than Sponge Bob!), has teamed up with the folks at Waves (see my aquatic theme here?) for the Waves SSL 4000/Chris Lord-Alge package (TDM and Native). Oh, I left out SSL in that description
. These plug-ins emulate Lord-Alge’s settings he uses on an actual SSL 4000 console. So if you can’t fit an SSL 4000 into your bedroom (or buy one or get Lord-Alge to pop over and lend a hand) you can now get a software version (www.waves.com).
Apogee Electronics (www.apogeedigital.com) has a new PCI Express Mactel driver for their Symphony card.
And speaking of Mactel stuff… (Windows people may skip this section)… (Drum roll, please) The Universal Binary Roll for this month!
Roger Nichols Digital (www.rogernicholsdigital.com) has announced that pretty much everything they (he?) makes is now available in Universal Binary versions. IK Multimedia (www.ikmultimedia.com) says AmpliTube 1 Live and T-Racks 24 are UB. The whomping big Ivory piano synth/sound library package from Synthogy (distributed by Ilio) is available in Universal Binary (www.synthogy.com).
Not done yet…
Eventide’s Anthology II plug-in bundle is also now UB (www.eventide.com). Ditto for users of MOTU’s Digital Performer 5 (www.motu.com). And The Sound Guy has put the SFX Machine into UB mode.
Windows people may now rejoin the herd…
The Sound Guy (www.sfxmachine.com) has announced the release of SFX Machine Pro 1.0 – “an audio multi-effects plug-in for Mac and Windows.” And to show what a nice guy he is, The Sound Guy he will pay the VAT for European buyers.
Wow! Can you ask for more!?!
End commercial for The Sound Guy.
Lastly, FREE! Macolites might want to visit MacMusic (www.macmusic.org) to try out some cool little freeware and shareware audio widgets. Itsy bitsy EQs, funky processors, adapters and a whole lot of VST, RTAS, Audio Units and other plugins are avialble for downloading. Of course, if one of them ruins your beloved Mac don’t blame Software News (We use Windows so we have no problems, ever!).