PC and Music News

Muse Reseach unveils a low-cost portable virtual instrument player called The MuseBOX in booth 6729 at the Winter NAMM show. The MuseBOX is based on the same MuseMachine software technology that powers the company's RECEPTOR 2 line of virtual instrument players and features a solid state drive for storing both the OS and many plug-ins, a CF card slot for removable storage of additional plug-ins or smaller "ROMPLER" libraries, and an option for installing an internal hard drive for storing large sample libraries.

The hardware I/O features 1/4-inch stereo line outputs, a 1/4 inch input, stereo S/PDIF output, front panel headphone outputs, a VGA monitor output, MIDI input, and a 2-line LCD display and rotary encoder similar to its bigger brother, the RECEPTOR 2. Like the RECEPTOR 2 line of music instruments, The MuseBOX is both a highly efficient and ultra-stable way to run virtual instruments and effects.

The MuseBOX will retail well below $1000 US, and is expected to ship in late Q2 or early Q3 of this year.

IZotope announces that it is shipping the latest update to its software mastering suite, Ozone 4, on January 30th. iZotope is demonstrating Ozone 4 at the NAMM show at booth 6700.

Ozone 4 builds on the program's reputation for high sound quality and industry-standard mastering tools with new innovations and refinements. iZotope has updated and expanded Ozone's processing algorithms, optimizing them for today's low-latency DAW environments. Ozone 4 features a new Intelligent Loudness Maximizer mode, mid/side processing for superior control over the sound stage, hybrid crossovers, a re-designed interface and a completely updated preset manager featuring innovative MacroPresets. In addition, numerous interface improvements and ease-of-use additions make Ozone even more accessible to music ...

Steinberg has also announced a remote controller application for the Apple iPhone and iPod Touch products.

Utilizing the iPhone and iPod Touch onboard WiFi capability to directly control Cubase 5, Cubase RC supports a large range of functions, including comprehensive transport control, Marker location, toggling of essential functions such as Metronome, Cycle Mode and many more. Cubase RC also controls the unique Cubase Arranger functionality, allowing iPhone and iPod Touch owners to play segments of a production live, display the song position and chain status and use the Jump control to skip to a predefined song section.

Cubase RC is based on the powerful Steinberg Kernel interface (SKI) technology for seamless integration into the Cubase software core. Cubase RC controls Cubase 5 running on both Mac OS X and Windows platforms.

Cubase RC will be available free of charge exclusively through the Apple iTunes Store from Q2 2009.

Steinberg announces Cubase 5 and Cubase Studio 5. They both offer a host of new capabilities including new beat creation tools, an integrated vocal pitch editing toolset, extended composing features, a convolution reverb as well as many other workflow and technological enhancements, including full support for Windows Vista 64-bit Editions.


Pricing :

- Cubase 5 : €599 (Update from Cubase 4 or Cubase SX3 : €199).
- Cubase Studio 5 : €399 (Update from Cubase Studio 4 or Cubase SL3 : €129).

Cubase 5 and Cubase Studio 5 will be shipping in February 2009. For more information, please visit the link below :

Steinberg Cubase 5

Ableton unveils Live 8 and Suite 8 which enhance their vision of creative, real-time digital music with a wealth of new techniques, effects and most-wanted workflow improvements.

New in Ableton Live 8 :
• New groove engine: new groove library, extract grooves from audio or MIDI, real time groove quantize
• New warping engine: warp audio events by adjusting the events on the timeline, updated Beats Warp Mode, new Complex Warp Mode, slice audio files to MIDI tracks based on transients
• Looper: classic sound-on-sound looping without the limitations of a hardware device. Record, overdub, undo and more without touching the computer. "First loop sync," simple loop management
• New effects: Vocoder, Multiband Dynamics, Overdrive, Limiter and Frequency Shifter
• ...

Arturia has also announced that Brass, their award-winning software recreation of three wind instruments - a trumpet, a saxophone and a trombone –, is now coming in version 2. All the characteristics of the real instruments have been analysed and modelled by Ircam
Paris through mathematical algorithms, to offer extreme realism and expressivity.

In version 2.0, Brass offers an entirely redesigned interface with major new features and improvements :

- New physical modelling of the saxophone
- Two new Saxophone mouthpieces
- Possibility to play four instruments at a time using a new Harmonization
module.
- Advanced spatialization possibilities
- Improved MIDI control
- Better integration into DAW software.
- Entirely redesigned interface

This upgrade will be free for all registered users.