PC and Music News

PreSonus has just announced that they will showcase the StudioLive 16.4.2 Digital Performance and Recording Mixer next week in Frankfurt.

Designed for both live performance and studio music production, StudioLive is a powerful and flexible sixteen-channel digital mixer loaded with sixteen high headroom XMAX microphone preamplifiers, built-in 22x18 FireWire recording and playback engine, "Fat Channel" processing with 4-band EQ's, compressors, limiters and gates, DSP effects, six aux buses, four sub-groups, extensive LED metering, talkback and much more.

Key Features :

- 16 inputs, 6 auxiliary mixes, 4 subgroups
- 16 class A XMAX microphone preamplifiers
- Hi-Definition analog to digital converters (118dB dynamic range)
- Unlimited headroom 32-bit floating point digital mixing an ...

VertexDSP has released version 2.2 of MultiInspector, its FFT and 31-band spectral analyzer designed to be used in a multitrack environment.

Enhancements :

- The controls area on the right side can now be switched to a name panel. Every signal can be given a name to clarify the usage in a mix setup. The names are shared between all instances and are shown with selectors for the signal color.
- The memory switches can now be used in combination with the alt
- key to access a complete row with one mouse click, e.g. for storing all signals at the same time.
- Pause button added.
- Additional zoom buttons for setting the level range.
- The maximum peak hold time has been increased from 5 sec to 20 sec.
- New measurement tool: By clicking into the frequency display area the mouse cursor changes to a crosshair and shows the frequency and the level at the current position.

INFRASONIC, one of brands of SIMS audio (Samick Innovative Music System), releases and starts shipping its 2-in 4-out FireWire Audio Recording Interface, DEUX.

Key features :

- 2-in/4-out FireWire audio interface v
- 2 balanced inputs with 1/4 inch TRS phone jack — A/D converter: SNR 102 dBA @ (44.1 kHz)
- 4 balanced outputs with 1/4 inch TRS phone jack — D/A converter: SNR 106 dBA @ (44.1 kHz)
- Supports fully balanced I/O
- Supports up to 24-bit/96 kHz
- Small footprint with a heavy duty aluminum case
- 1 x FireWire (IEEE 1394a) port
- Bus-powered with 6-pin connector
- External power supply is available
- Supports zero latency direct hardware monitoring
- ASIO2.2, WDM, DirectSound and CoreAudio supports
- Windowsฎ XP/VISTA (32-bit and 64-bit) or later, Mac OS X (10.3 or later)
- Native Instruments ABSYNTH 4 DEMO, MASSIVE DEMO and TRAKTOR 3 DEMO software included

Vienna Symphonic Library announces the release of seven Extended Libraries complementing its already existing Vienna Special Edition download products. All Special Edition modules including the PLUS libraries now offer additional instruments, available at Vienna's web shop as of today :

- Special Edition Strings — Extended Library
- Special Edition Strings PLUS — Extended Library
- Special Edition Woodwinds — Extended Library
- Special Edition Woodwinds PLUS — Extended Library
- Special Edition Brass — Extended Library
- Special Edition Brass Plus — Extended Library
- Special Edition Percussion & More — Extended Library

Blue Cat Audio has just released Digital Peak Meter Pro v3.0, a totally redesigned version of its audio analysis tool which includes many new features and enhancements.

What's new :

- New user interface design.
- Bob Katz's K-System scales support (K-12 / K-14 / K-20).
- You can now blend RMS and Peak envelopes for the transformed output.
- New mid-side mode: you can now easily switch from Left-Right to Mid-Side stereo mode for instant mono compatibility check.
- Average values display.
- The output envelope can now be a combination of the peak and RMS envelopes.
- Main MIDI settings are now available from the main panel.
- Undo/Redo support.
- Import/Export presets in a host independent format and share them between the directX and VST versions.
- Window Opacity Management: make the plugin window transparent and see behind.
- New toolbar to access main functionality.
- Main MIDI settings are now available from the plugin user interface.
- Curves are now anti-aliased.
- Improved the display of parameters values in the MIDI settings panel and the host application.
- Improved graphs refresh rate.
- Reduced memory consumption when using several instances.
- Improved Skins loading performance.
- Default values for MIDI controllers have been changed to be more convenient.
- Blue Cat's Skinning Language 1.4.2 support.

This plug-in is available alone or within Blue Cat's Master Pack and Blue Cat's Analysis Pack bundles in DirectX and VST formats for Windows. A limited time offer is available for these products until the end of the month.

Prices :

- Blue Cat's Digital Peak Meter Pro: €41.65 (instead of €49) or $58.31 (instead of $68.60) [-15%]
- Blue Cat's Analysis Pack: €220.15 (instead of €259) or $308.21 (instead of $362.60) [-15%]
- Blue Cat's Master Pack: €269.10 (instead of €299) or $376.74 (instead of $418.60) [-10%]

Numerical Sound has announced the release of the Hollywood Impulse Responses (HIR), a collection of reverberation impulses inspired by the ambience of 20 major Hollywood blockbuster films released between 1977-2006. This selection of films was recorded in several famous recording studio's sound stages and symphony halls.

The impulses were designed to change the perceived timbre of an individual instrument, ensemble or even the entire orchestra. The user can now adjust the tone of a track by selecting the appropriate Dark, Warm, Flat, Clear or Bright impulse when mixing the wet signal in with the dry.
On top of that, 6 sets of RI's are high pass filtered at points of the frequency spectrum that match the range of acoustic instruments. These points are at the notes C2, G2, C3, G3, C4, and G4. According to Numerical Sound this instrument designed approach offer "much more sonic precision and clarity than any other currently available hardware or software reverberation".

The Hollywood Impulse Responses Package includes 2 CD Rom's, 1.1 Gig's in size, and is priced at $129.95 (MSRP).