PC and Music News

Some news features in brief:

The Retina display transforms the entire iPad experience. Razor-sharp text. Richer colors.
To make sure everything on the new iPad looks crystal clear, Apple engineers elevated the pixels onto a different plane — separating them from the signals.
The A5X chip with quad-core graphics drives four times the pixels (3.1 million pixels) of iPad 2 yet it delivers the same smoothness and fluidity iPad is known for. Even with all that extra oomph, the new iPad still gets an amazing 10 hours of battery life.

The 5-megapixel iSight camera features a backside illumination sensor that captures great-looking pictures whether by sunlight or candlelight. Autofocus, tap to focus, and tap to set exposure functions mean every photo you take instantly becomes a frameworthy gem. The iSight camera on the new iPad lets you capture all these unpredictable, beautiful, and hilarious moments. In 1080p HD, no less.

With iPhoto in the picture, the iLife family of apps for iPad — including GarageBand and iMovie — is complete.

Ok, great news, but what about musicians?

We just receive some specs for FabFilter Saturn .

Some features:
- Sixteen different distortion styles, from subtle tube and tape saturation to heavily overdriven guitar amp models, time-smearing and bit crushing
- Multi-band processing (up to six bands)
- Per-band drive, mix, feedback, dynamics, tone and level controls
- Optional HQ mode (8x oversampling)
- Mid/side processing
- Interactive multi-band display
- Easy-to-use interface with FabFilter's innovative what-you-use-is-what-you-see concept
- Normal and wide interface layouts, with an option to show or hide the modulation section at the bottom
- Endless modulation options, with all the 16-step XLFOs, XY controllers, envelope generators, envelope followers and MIDI sources you will ever need
- Easy drag-and-drop modulation with 50-slot modulation matrix
- Modulation source signal visualization
- Over 150 factory presets included
- Stereo and mono plug-ins available

Here is a little video to see and hear something about Saturn and Thank's to Dan Worrall for this video.

It is a very sophisticated MIDI controller, allowing the player to articulate many parts of the sound – filters, envelopes, effects etc simultaneously using your left hand and feet.

The right hand plays a keyboard with the patented 'Vibe Bar' for imparting vibrato & pitch bend.

It consists of 36 wheels and 2 joysticks…….with a pedalboard – 2 peddles and 4 switches...
The MIDI circuit is Livid Instruments MIDI Brain.
A crazy controller by a crazy and Brilliant inventor!

A MachFive 3.0.3 update is now available for Mac OS X and Windows 7/Vista (64-bit and 32-bit).

The 3.0.3 service update is recommended for all 3.0.x users. Mac OS X Windows 7/Vista 64-bit Windows 7/Vista 32-bit.

Version 3.0.3 provides the following enhancements:
- Right-click the word Search in the browser to cause MachFive to re-index all currently indexed sound libraries.
- Many minor enhancements.

DSP Trigger is a VST drum brain that processes the audio output from drum pads and converts it to MIDI to be passed on to a drum sampler.
It allows you to enhance an existing e-drum kit, offering new features and functionality that your drum brain doesn't natively support.

Some new features:
- Now includes a Mac AU 32 / 64 bit version for Logic.
- Clip Compensation, detects clipped signals and restores the peaks on the fly.
- Positional Edge Scaler, a new control that helps level out the response of a mesh pad as it's played from center to edge.
- Improved preset system, redesgined to make it more intuitive and user friendly.
- New graphical input type selector.

Hal Leonard Books is now shipping Sound Design, Mixing & Mastering with Ableton Live ($16.99) by Jake Perrine.

This book is part of Hal Leonard‚s Quick Pro Guides series and is designed to be a companion guide to help readers get the most from their software.

Go beyond the basics of Ableton Live with this book of audio-making and audio-mangling recipes, tips and mixing/mastering techniques.
Ableton Live is undoubtedly the most flexible audio application available today: use it for sound design for music, film, theater, and games; composition; improvising with other musicians; live looping; DJing; and of course, mixing and mastering music.