Week of January 2, 2005 Thursday, January 6 2005 | dmac Kyma X.1 Released as Free Update Transforms a Wacom Tablet into 3-D Controller and Continuous Keyboard Pen Status Window Timeline Window Symbolic Sound has announced that Kyma X.1, the next major update to the sound design environment, is now shipping. Kyma X.1 delivers its enhancements in threes: support for using a Wacom pen and tablet as a 3 dimensional control surface, 3 new kinds of oscillators, modules for turning presets into a 3 dimensional parameter subspace, plus other enhancements and improvements to the Kyma X sound design software. Using a Wacom Tablet as a 3-D Sound Control Surface Sound designers can use a Wacom pen and tablet to perform creature voices or match SFX to picture. Musicians can quickly and intuitively explore the parameter space of a patch or even perform the tablet as a new musical instrument. "Our goal is for sound designers and musicians to be able to shape sounds with their own hands. The human hand is virtually a direct connection to the human brain," said Symbolic Sound president Carla Scaletti. "Using your ear and your hand, you can explore and refine sound design patches with incredible speed." With the Wacom Intuos3 or Graphire3 pen tablets, sound designers and musicians can use the eraser-end of the pen to simultaneously control up to 8 sound parameters using pen position plus (on the Intuos) pen tilt. You can map any sound parameter to pen orientation by using the Pen Status window. By flipping the pen over, musicians can use the tablet as a continuous microtonal musical keyboard, sending KeyDown, KeyPitch (left/right), KeyVelocity (up/down), plus an additional key event called KeyTimbre (front/back). Sounds designed for the Continuum Fingerboard (hakenaudio.com) are fully compatible with Sounds designed for the Wacom tablet in keyboard mode (and vice versa). You can see a video demonstratipn of the pen tablet in use with Kyma on the company's web site. Kyma X.1 runs under Macintosh OS X, Windows XP, and Windows 98/ME/2000 and Macintosh OS 9.2. Wacom Graphire3 and Intuos3 USB versions are supported under OS X and Windows XP operating systems only (no support for OS 9 or Windows 98/ME/2000). For more information, visit their web site at symbolicsound.com. Thursday, January 6 2005 | dmac Plogue - Bidule updated to v0.7002 Changes: AU: can now save any presets not just the User preset. Faster application shutdown. Group Config Dialog: changed max number of ins/outs to 128. Polyphony Config Dialog: changed max number of voices to 128. Windows: ASIO devices now reporting channel names as other bidules. Bug Fixes: AU: doesn't load the correct values if the plug-in has no factory presets and only file presets. Audio Monitor: sometimes stop working when changing buffer size/sample rate. Groups: re-saving groups doesn't keep the display path. Learn mode: crash if in learn mode and the MIDI device is deleted. OS X: crashes on startup with some Digidesign card/driver combination. Undo/Redo not always keeping the correct links for Group Selection. VST Scanning: sometimes always try to re-scan the same bad plug-in at startup. VST: crashes when loading a fxb on a plug-in with no preset. VST: some plug-ins not saving correctly. VST OS X: glitches in drawing with some plug-ins. VST OS X: crash on deleting some plug-ins. More @ plogue.com. Thursday, January 6 2005 | dmac r8brain PRO Sample Rate Converter Updated r8brain PRO is a sample rate converter for Windows, which frowns upon some common CPU-saving techniques in favor of higher quality conversion. Version update 1.1 fixes a minor issue related to EBU BWF data storage in WAV files. This version also features a new output bit depth option which forces converter to preserve original bit depth without changing it during conversion. Another new feature is a special option which disables appending the "r8bp" file name suffix to all created files. r8brain PRO features: Reads 8-, 16-, 24-, 32-bit PCM and IEEE files Reads both WAV and AIFF files Writes 16-, 24-, 32-bit PCM and IEEE WAV files Multi-channel file support Extensible wave format support EBU BWF extensions support Linear- and minimum-phase modes Batch support Automatic normalization Supports all standard sample rates The demo version of r8brain PRO allows you to evaluate all features of the software, but its conversion is limited to the first minute of an audio file. The demo version does not support batch conversions. You may register to obtain either a Full or Light license of r8brain PRO. The Light version offers you a linear-phase conversion mode and up to 48 kHz output sample rates only while supporting all input sample rates. The Full version offers you all features of the software. For more information, visit their web site at voxengo.com. Tuesday, January 4 2005 | dmac Blue Cat Ports Plug-Ins to VST, Adds New Phaser Effect SpacePhaser Digital Peak Meter Pro Blue Cat's Music Software's DirectX plug-ins have been updated and several also ported to the VST PC format. In addition to the Flanger and Chorus plug-ins (both of which are available for free), a Phaser is also available (the mono version is free, but the stereo version is shareware). The Digital Peak Meter plug-in has also been updated, and a "Pro" version created, but these are DirectX compatible only. The Flanger, Chorus and the new Phaser all come in mono and stereo versions, offering real-time control over parameters without "zipper" noise. All parameters can be automated as well. The new phaser offers common controls, as well as a "Stages" control to change the number of internal filter stages used. All plug-ins have received some fixes since their initial release. The Flanger, Chorus, and Phaser plug-ins feature: DirectX and VST plug-in formats "Smooth Update" mechanism so you can modify parameters in real time without clicks. Random preset creation Factory presets included Full automation support (all parameters can be automated, with smooth and continuous update, on both VST and DX platforms) Any Sample Rate supported No extra latency Supports mono and stereo streams 32 bits Floating Point streams support, as well as 8 and 16 bits PCM streams (DirectX only) Stereo versions include a slider to control the stereo width of the effect. Blue Cat has also created a "Pro" version of their Digital Peak Meter plug-in for DirectX only. The free version provides a real-time peak meter, clip indicator, and the abililty to record peak level information as an automation envelope. The affordable "Pro" version provides some additional controls for tweaking the created automation envelope, letting you reverse the envelope, change the level, and add an offset. All the plug-ins are available now for free download, with the exception of the Stereo Phaser, which costs 10 Euro, and the Digital Peak Meter Pro, which costs 5 Euro. For more information, visit their web site at software.bluecatonline.org. Tuesday, January 4 2005 | dmac Clavia Releases Software Demo of Nord Modular G2 Now you can experience the sounds of the Nord Modular G2 synthesizer, along with the graphical editing capabilities, using just your PC - no specialized hardware required. Just download the new software demo for Windows and you can get a taste of what Clavia's modular synthesizer can do. Viewing dedicated hardware as the proper tool for the job, this demo is not intended as a virtual instrument, but just to give you an idea of what the Nord Modular G2 platform is capable of, since you may not find a complete set up with a PC for the editor application in your local retail store. The demo is limited compared to the hardware version. The software demo is capable of producing only one voice of one sound, as opposed to the 32 voices per sound on the 4-part multitimbral hardware. A few of the modules in the demo are disabled, and the demo doesn't support audio input for processing and MIDI output. Actual performance of the demo is of course subject to the speed of your processor. You can download the Nord Modular G2 Demo software right now for free. For more information, visit their web site at clavia.se.