PC and Music News

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).

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.

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.

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.

Sugar Bytes has just released WOW, a filter-box with 10 Filtertypes, including Vowel Mode, Overdrive and a modulation system. WOW offers a good collection of filter types : High, Band and Lowpass (each 12 or 24dB), Comb Filter, Band Reject, Band and LF Crusher.
The Vowel mode seems to come from their Unique synthesizer (which is worth a try) : 2 Vowels (U, UE, O, OE, A, A:, AE, E, I.) can be mixed via Cutoff, with all available filter types.
The modulators, Envelope Follower, LFO and Step Sequencer, can be mixed in the parameters right-click menus and can modulate each other.

WOW is available as VST and AU Plugin, for Mac and PC and cost 99 dollars (79 euros).
Note that there is a demo version.

Today Sims Audio unveils the INFRASONIC Quartet PCI recording interface, a 4X4 audio interface which uses an extremely stable PCI connection to connect with your computer and is capable of samples rates up to 192 kHz ADC with full 24-bit recording.

The Quartet features a high quality microphone preamp with +48v phantom power and a low pass filter. Additional input/output options include: line level I/O, digital I/O, MIDI I/O, and word clock I/O. Also included in the package is SIMS Audio's mixer software which allows the user to connect the Quartet to every part of your computer's I/O settings.

The Quartet has a MSRP of $199 USD and will be available in the 1st quarter of 2008.