PC and Music News

First introduced during the 2006 Winter Namm, PSP Xenon is now available.

Xenon is a full band, dual-stage limiter plug-in (AudioUnit, VST and RTAS for MacOSX UB ; VST and RTAS for PC) featuring an integrated Leveller, advanced K-System metering and psycho-acoustically optimized wordlength reduction. PSP Xenon offers 64-bit precision processing throughout its entire signal path, and can operate at sample rates up to 192kHz.
One of the good news is that it is available for PPC G4 and G5 : when introduced last year, it was only planned for Intel Mac.

A 14-day demo is also available (iLok required).

Are you wondering if it's worth updating to Kontakt 3 ? Or are you just curious, or perhaps have you never tried Kontakt before ?
Native Instruments answers by offering a free demo (version 3.0.1) for Mac OS 10.4 or higher (458 MB) and Win XP (407 MB). You can use it as a stand-alone and as a plug-in via Audio Units, VST 2 and RTAS.
You will benefit by complete function range with all presets, the full PDF manual, and play with a demo library instruments from the categories Band, Orchestral, Synth, Urban Beats, Vintage and World. Demo limits are sessions limited to 30 minutes and no Save and no Total Recall.

Yamaha offers new drivers and firmwares (available here) for the following FireWire/mLAN products : the G046 audio interface, the Motif XS workstation and the n Series digital mixers.
The new drivers make the GO46 compatible with Windows Vista. The firmwares for MOTIF XS, n8 and n12 mixers improve network capability over mLAN (without further precision).

This update offers many features, such as the new Full String Playing modes (string pizzicato, bartok-pizz, col legno, sul ponticello, tremolo, sul ponticello tremolo, mute).
The String Playing modes are the first to use Synful new synthesis engine, preserving full 24 bit fidelity while allowing the flexible morphing capabilities needed for Reconstructive Phrase Modeling (RPM), their proprietary technology.
Numerous features have been added, like new controls (release time, noise level, sforzando, tremolo speed, etc.), the ability to map any MIDI continuous control to any parameter, natural divisi (the players arrange themselves automatically across the notes of a played chord)...
Many bugs have also been fixed. This update provides support for Mac OSX (Leopard) UB and Windows XP/Vista 32/64 (in AU, VSTi and DXi plugin formats).

Camel Audio has updated CamelSpace to v1.42 (PC) and v1.44 (OSX), and CamelPhat to v3.42 (PC)Win and v3.44 (OSX). These updates fix MIDI learn and preset selection issues in Cubase 4 and problems with automation in Digital Performer.
These updates are available for free to registered users only, and are downloadable in the support area.
Camel Audio also offer 30% off their preset banks for Absynth, Massive and Cameleon, by entering WINTERSND as the coupon code. And it's 50% off Cameleon 5000 (a bargain, at only $99!), by entering WINTERCAM as the coupon code.

Acoustic Labs has released the Multitrack Plus which is basically a multitrack recorder, editor, sequencer and mixer. available at a very low cost.

Features :

- Record new tracks while existing tracks playback synced up in realtime
- Up to 24 stereo tracks available, record up to 4 tracks simutaneously
- View up to 8 tracks at once and drag-and-drop audio snippets
- Fully supports loops and adjusting different tempos to mix loops seamlessly
- Various realtime effects (echo, reverb, tempo shift, chorus, flange, EQ, etc)
- Apply various editing features (cut, copy, paste, amplify, reverse, stretch, compress, etc)
- Razor sharp editing: Zoom in and edit at the sample level (less than a fraction of a millisecond)
- Import audio files and mixdown projects to wave (WAV) or MP3 audio ...