Dr. Fink’s Funk Factory is a new sound library from Sony. New sound libraries are released all the time, but this one is noteworthy because the cover design is so groovy. I thought it would jazz up this website. That’s the only reason this is here. Really. (more…)
The MZ-M100 and MZ-M10 Portable Audio Recorders breathe new life into an old format. Remember the MiniDisc? Me neither. I thought they had pretty much died, but Sony has resurrected the format by improving it (more storage, no lossy compression) and releasing some portable recorders. Perhaps they already have others in their range, but these two new ones may be worth a look when they are released next month. (more…)
M-Audio has announced shipment of their MicroTrack mobile digital recorder. Think of it as a recording iPod. It records 2 24-bit channels at 96kHz to CompactFlash aas WAV or MP3 files. It has the inputs you might expect, including phantom power for microphones. Looks interesting if you need this level of recording quality, but there are recording MP3 players out there that fulfil the basic function. (more…)
The R-1 Portable 24-Bit WAVE Recorder & Player looks like a very nice device for field or live recordings. The best thing is that is has almost everything you could want in one smallish box — it’s (just) small enough to fit in your hand. It has built in stereo mics, and onboard effects if you need to tweak the sound. (more…)
MacWorld gave a top review to Apple’s SoundTrack Pro audio editing application. They gave it five mice — their top award — for its excellent user interface and powerful, easy-to-use sound editing features. It doesn’t do everything (MIDI, for example) but the sound editing and cleanup tools are fast and comprehensive. (more…)
Cakewalk has released SONAR Home Studio version 4. The Producer and Studio editions have been at version 4 for a while, so finally the home version has caught up. There are too many different SONARs to keep track of! To add to the confusion, there’s also SONAR Home Studio version 4 XL, which is just Home Studio with more bundled effects, instruments and sounds. (more…)
Cakewalk have released a free performance upgrade to SONAR 4. Unfortunately, they still insist on spelling the product name in CAPS. Anyway, the press release describes the SONAR 4.0.3 maintenance release highlights. (more…)
Ableton Live 5 has been released. The public beta program only lasted about 15 minutes, so I guess they decided very quickly that there were no big problems with the new version. As mentioned here earlier, version 5′s new features include MP3 support, automatic tempo matching, a better sampler, and plugin delay compensation. (more…)
Tascam are about to release GigaPulse VST, their convolving reverb VST plugin. As expected, this allows you to model the reverb from real-life rooms of various sizes and types. It also allows you to model the effects of different microphones, either standalone or combined with room modelling. (more…)
VocalWriter 2.0 is out now from KAE labs. This is a Macintosh-only vocal synthesizer — you use it like a normal piano roll sequencer, typing in English lyrics, and it sings them in tune in the voice you specify. The voices enunciate quite well, though they all sound a bit, well, computery. Still it’s shareware, so you can play with it before taking the plunge. (more…)
