Intuem is an unusual sequencer that tries to preserve a human feel to the music. Its makers, Companion, say “The most beautiful music doesn’t often come from a sequencer, it usually comes from the heart of an artist and is captured directly to tape. It has long been the problem that a sequencer cannot easily accommodate dynamic, free flowing, beautiful music that respects a sequencer’s bar and beat boundaries so looping tools and rhythm machines keep in sync. Intuem 3.5 puts an end to that.” Intuem version 3.5 adds a raft of new features, including extensions to Intuem’s core functions. There’s also external sequencer control, which means you can use Intuem to control the tempo of your entire studio — and tempo is Intuem’s speciality.

Here are some of the highlights of Intuem version 3.5.

Enhanced Note Refitters
They’re Intuem’s killer feature and we’ve made them even better. Not only can you squeeze and stretch notes to fit them into the bars and beats where they belong, but you can now shift notes in time to bring a section to the right starting point. The note refitters now automatically snap to the exact boundaries of a selection when you bring them on-screen and they also automatically quantise the appearance of your music giving you instant results.

No other sequencer for the Mac has the amazingly useful Note Refitters, and they are the key to making dynamic, natural sounding, variable tempo music with your computer. With Intuem’s new synchronisation abilities you can work with a beautiful, living performance in Intuem while enjoying the Apple Loops, video synchronisation and more through other sequencers running in sync.

Mix Easier
Intuem’s mixer controls add a new level of ease-of-use to software mixers. The controls show value ranges proportionally and are easier to read and control with the mouse than conventional linear or circular sliders. There’s even a dedicated controller for graphic equalisers and similar slider arrays.

Intuem’s mixer controls are unlike any other sequencers’ because not only do you get to control MIDI & AudioUnit parameters in the mixer, but you get to choose what kind of controls to use and how they appear on screen.

Low Overhead
You know that converting MIDI tracks to audio and freezing audio tracks into a single audio clip is a great way to manage a composition, but now you can reduce your CPU load even further. Intuem 3.5 lets you hide tracks so they’re off screen and removed from Intuem’s audio processing pathways. When you save your composition they’re saved too, and you can bring them back into the composition any time you need. Now you can keep all your hard work and not have your CPU pay for it!

Intuem does ReWire
Intuem is a complete ReWire mixer with the ability to use any ReWire device, like Reason for example. You can connect and control ReWire devices with Intuem and hear their audio output through an Intuem audio track, through any AudioUnit processing you want on the track and then through Intuem’s mixer out to your speakers. You can convert ReWire MIDI tracks to audio, and freeze ReWire audio tracks into a single audio clip as well as record un-processed audio from ReWire devices.

What you see is what you get
We understand that your music is much more important to you than a clever interface that fills the window with tools, dozens of pop-ups and columns of tiny buttons so we put all those things away in an info window you can call up only when you need to and laid them out in sensible groups so you can find what you need quickly and easily. What buttons we did keep on screen are arranged clearly, and take up a very small area, leaving you with lots of space to spread out and do what you love to do.

Dynamix is a sound shaping plugin from Hungarian company WWAYM. I have no idea how to pronounce their name, but this plugin sounds interesting. They call it “a completely new way to waveshape your sounds.” They say it’s not a traditional effect, but it can be used to emulate a compressor, EQ, distortion effect, and many more, as well as having its own tricks. Despite this fresh approach to sound shaping, the user interface has a nice retro feel, if you like that sort of thing.

WWAYM have more details on their website, along with a nice tutorial. They say: This plug-in gives you the control over the amplitude of your sound. At the same time it’s also able to boost up frequencies with the same algorithm. It’s not a compressor, limiter, maximiser, or distortion effect. It was not created on the way of thinking of analogue sound designing and mastering processors, it’s architecture is the result of a new way of thinking about sound.

With Dynamix it takes only the turning of 4 knobs to reach the highest average RMS level of a sound, but mostly the best workflow is to load up one of the numerous presets, and tweak a maximum of 2 knobs to the right place in order to reach the sound you want. You can use more instances of Dynamix to get a multiband dynamic processor. The main features are:

• Volume managing section with input/output/dry/wet section
• 12db/oct filter which is able to fade between Lp, Bp, Hp modes
• The unfiltered signal can be mixed to the processed signal
• Main section, containing everything you will need to process your signal

Key Rig is one of the first in a projected line of virtual instruments from M-Audio, who are better known for their music hardware. It’s an interesting idea — it’s a VST plugin that can also run standalone, and M-Audio intend it to be usable as an all-in-one keyboard sounds module. Simply load Key Rig onto your computer, plug in your keyboard controller and you’re away. And the really unusual thing about it is that the whole thing fits on a single CD.

M-Audio say that Key Rig covers all the basic needs for today’s keyboardist in a single virtual rack. It includes a virtual rack containing the following four modules.
SP-1 Stage Piano — serves up grand pianos, Wurlitzer, classic electric pianos, FM, clavinet and more.
MS-2 Polyphonic Synthesizer — delivers a new, easy way to call up and edit great synth sounds.
MB-3 Electromagnetic Organ — emulates the classic Hammond sound complete with rotary speaker.
GM-4 General MIDI Module — great for sequencing the rest of your backing tracks.

There’s also a master MIDI/Mixer section, which lets you route, split, layer and mix these four powerful modules in whatever way best suits your performance and recording needs. A master effects section even allows for adding a common effect in addition to the individual effect section included with each instrument.

Keyboard magazine reviews Synchro-Funk, a package of loops from Sony for their Acid music composition software (but usable by any other package too). Laptop Studio doesn’t often feature sample libraries, but in this case the review itself makes pretty amusing reading: “Picture this: Prince and Kraftwerk decide to collaborate — Prince contributes the danceable funkiness, Kraftwerk provides the machine soul. But just before they begin recording, someone floods the studio with laughing gas.”

Some reviews give you useful information about the product; some are simply fun to read. This one is both. “The FX loops are pretty insane; if machines throw parties when you leave the room, this is probably what they sound like.” In case it isn’t obvious, they really like this library — it may be stylistically limited, but who cares when it’s such a great style. And you can’t beat this for a recommendation: “Synchro Funk is the most fun I’ve had with a sample CD in quite some time.”

SpectraFoo is a signal metering and analysis tool from Metric Halo. It looks useful for the pro sound engineer, not so much for the run-of-the-mill Laptop Studio musician, but it deserves mention here for its fun name at least. Metric Halo write: SpectraFoo provides all of the tools today’s digital projects demand. Whether you are a live sound engineer or a studio mixer, you need the power that Foo provides. Including standards-based level metering, high-speed, high-resolution spectral analysis, the unique Phase Torch, correlation metering, triggerable waveform display, power balancing and a variety of power, envelope and spectral histories and phase analysis on any number of input or output channels, the SpectraFoo range is absolutely essential for broadcast production and critical mixing & mastering.

Two versions of SpectraFoo are available. Both have just been released for MacOS X.

SpectraFoo is a collection of award-winning, high resolution metering tools in both standalone and DAW Plug-In configurations. SpectraFoo includes basic, sample-accurate metering, triggerable waveform display, power balancing and phase analysis on any number of input or output channels.

There’s also SpectraFoo Complete, which provides the engineer with sample code metering tools, a recording, playback, looping & static analysis system, and a complete transfer function measurement system.

The key features are:

• Lissajous phase scopes (X-Y, vectorscope and stereo field display modes)
• Full featured audio frequency oscilloscopes
• Power balance meters
• Full featured level meters with physical unit calibration
• Full featured audio spectrum analyzers
• Spectragram spectral history meters
• Correlation meters
• Correlation history meters
• Phase Torch frequency-sensitive phase meters
• Envelope history meters
• Band Limited history meters

Native Instruments Kontakt 2 is favourably reviewed by Keyboard magazine. They write: “Only at version 2, Kontakt is arguably the most flexible, creative, and usable sampler to take up residence on our hard drive since software instruments first became viable alternatives to hardware.”

They describe the Kontakt Script Processor, which lets you program the way samples are played. This enables very complex behaviour; for example, Kontakt 2 comes with a guitar instrument that uses KSP to switch amongst the many samples to allow for things like fingering and strumming direction automatically. As they say, “it’s scary how well KSP works.”

The included convolution reverb function is predictably “fantastic”. The other basic functions of this sampler are also impressive. You can change a sample’s pitch or remove it entirely, timestretch, and slice beats all within Kontakt 2. The only cautionary note was to do with importing samples: “Non-native format conversion largely depends on the source material. In other words, your mileage may vary. But with over 30 formats supported, Kontakt 2 is still way ahead of the pack here.”

Overall they are impressed with Kontakt 2. “Whether you’re a sound designer, composer, producer, or synthesist, there’s a lot to love about Kontakt. No other software sampler puts it all together quite like K2. Combining cross-platform compatibility, multiple sample-playback modes, high-quality built-in effects, powerhouse multitimbral capabilities, support for a variety of non-native sampler formats, intelligent MIDI processing, and much more, K2 is in a class of its own.”

Pro Audio Review take a look at Sony Acid Pro 5 and say it’s an excellent consolidation of all the features that Acid is famous in an improved interface. They are particularly pleased with the ReWire support in Acid Pro 5, as well as the new support for VST plug-ins and multiport VSTi soft synths. They also like the new Media Manager for organising your Gigabytes of samples and sounds. This kind of function is more and more necessary these days; some reviewers have found the Media Manager to be a bit heavyweight, here they found no problems with it.

Other features they like are less glamorous but still useful — Folder Tracks, for example. These allow tracks to be grouped and hidden in folders. “Unfortunately, unlike … other programs, trim/expand editing operations cannot be done directly on a folder track, though the editing of clusters (overlapping events within a folder displayed only when the folder is collapsed) allows easy cut/copy/paste operations across multiple tracks. Folder tracks also provide much-needed grouping functions in Acid. Groups of samples and alternate arrangements can be auditioned in the project by muting or soloing folder tracks.”

On the other hand, they call Acid Pro 5’s lack of support for external hardware controllers “devastating”. A bit harsh perhaps, but the ability to use controllers would make the most of Acid Pro’s ease of use.

In summary, they approve of this upgrade, and think it brings Acid Pro to the next level: “Sony Media Software has done a highly admirable job of bringing a unique and much-loved application into the professional production arena.”

3D World magazine reviews Ableton Live 5. They talk a lot about the general features in previous versions of Live and how they are useful to various types of musician — live performer, DJ, studio musician — and also mention their favourite new features: “DAW features have been added to Live 5 enabling audio professionals to access high-end studio effects and processors such as clip-freeze and compression. This is a fantastic addition to Live as in the past I have found many Live users still using other sequencing software to master a Live mix.”

Live’s interface tweaks also get a boost: “Artists can now make parameter changes to a whole group of samples as opposed to individually — and clip browsing and navigation have also been improved for faster and easier access.” The Live tutorials also get a mention. Previous versions (at least Live 4) had tutorials too, but this feature didn’t get as much attention in reviews as the music production features. Here they do get their due. “New software is never easy to learn, but Ableton has made it as simple as turning on your Mac or PC. Live 5 comes packed with a host of tutorials and samples to learn your way around the myriad of features included. Titles such as ‘DJ with Live’, ‘Acoustic and Voice Recording’ and even ‘Setting up latency compensation’ are included all with easy-to-follow interactive steps.”

The conclusion follows on from the rest of the review. Simply put: buy this software. “Live 5 is not just an upgrade, it contains way too many new features to call it that. It is a total music solution for the garage, bedroom, studio or stage. The only way to really see what I mean is by grabbing a copy and testing it yourself.”

Bhajis Loops is a software DAW for Palm PDA devices. It looks surprisingly full-featured — it contains a complete sample editor, virtual instruments with wavetable synthesis, pattern editor and sequencer, effects and automation. And like every other music production software these days, it has a special mode for live performances — Ableton Live has a lot to answer for. It sounds perfect for those long commutes on the subway in the mornings.

The website has a lot of information about the product, unsurprisingly, and about the workflow and features. Not much about Indian food though. Here’s a summary: Import your favourite samples from your collection of .wav files or SoundFonts, use a SamplePack or directly record a new sample with the built-in microphone of your Palm. If necessary, edit your samples with Bhajis Loops integrated sample editor. Then, make them sound exactly like you want using the numerous options of the synthesis section: low-pass and high-pass filter, LFO, envelope, layering.

Bhajis Loops has a powerful pattern editor in which you can create the basic blocks of your song. Use the Piano roll view to compose melodies, or the Grid view to compose rhythms. Forget the mouse: Entering notes with the stylus is so easy! With the pattern recorder, you can even record a melody by playing on the on-screen piano keyboard, or create drum patterns with the buttons and keys of your Palm.

18 effects plug-ins are provided with Bhajis Loops — from an extreme distortion or bit-crushing to a smooth reverb or chorus, through a variety of EQs and filters.

Finally, any work done on Bhajis Loops can be seamlessly exported to the desktop as WAV or MIDI files.

Other standout features:

• An XY pad on which you can control in realtime 2 synthesis or FX parameters with the touch screen.
• Freely redistributable song player and WinAMP plug-in: let your friends listen to your tunes!
• A special mode for live performances — chain patterns, mute instruments and control synthesis parameters in realtime.
• A lively community of users — hundreds of enthusiastic musicians ready to share their tunes and skills with you.

Ableton Live 5 gets a top review in the October issue of Future Music magazine. They have always had good things to say about previous versions of Live, and they think this new version is a huge improvement on an already great program. They give Live 5 their Platinum Award for general all-round excellence. It scores 8 out of 10 for value for money, 9 for build quality, ease of use and versatility, and a perfect ten for quality of results.

They say that no other program matches Live 5 in its intuitiveness and ease of use, and praise its “inventive integration of live performance into the DAW paradigm.” When they start talking about “paradigms” you know they’re getting serious. More usability does not mean less power though– this version is “the best Live yet; version 5 takes this deceptively powerful system to new heights.”

They conclude by wondering if any of Ableton’s competitors will ever catch up with Live 5. “There’s still nothing out there like it, and with Ableton genuinely basing most of their high-velocity development program on user feedback, it’s hard to imagine that there ever will be.” You get the impression that only one program will ever overtake Ableton Live 5 — and that will be Ableton Live 6.