Week of November 2, 2003 Wednesday, November 5 2003 | dmac A Trio of VST/Audio Unit Plug-Ins from Yamaha Yamaha has announced three Virtual Studio Technology (VST) and Audio Unit compatible plug-ins for specific audio applications. The three plug-in modules are currently available, and are compatible with Windows (P, 2000, ME, 90 or 90SE) and Mac (OS, 9.x or OSX). Pitch Fix (MSRP $299), the first implementation of Yamaha's proprietary formant pitch correction and pitch shifting technology, will operate with any VST or AU compatible software. This pitch correction utility uses formant shifting to preserve the quality of the original signal Pitch Fix also features user scales, custom pitch detecting algorithms, pitch correct rate control and formant shifting. Based on Yamaha's proven algorithms, Vocal Rack (MSRP $199) assembles their ultimate tools for vocal processing. This VST/AU plug-in includes 20 presets using several valuable processing tools specifically designed for vocal processing, including a High Pass filter, Compressor, Harmonic Enhancer, three-band EQ, DeEsser, Gate and Delay. Final Master (MSRP $199) is a VST/AU plug-in based on Yamaha's compression algorithms, and delivers the tools needed for audio mastering. Features include a multi-band compressor/limiter with adjustable frequency control, three soft clipping models and pre-seek look-ahead technology. For more information, visit their web site at www.yamaha.com. Tuesday, November 4 2003 | dmac Moog PianoBar Now Shipping An accessory now available from Moog Music transforms any acoustic piano into a versatile electronic instrument. The fully portable PianoBar opens new musical vistas to musicians. Select sounds from the PianoBar's self-contained library of more than 300 instruments and effects, or use its MIDI capability to access the world of contemporary music technology through a source of your choice. You can even play a MIDI file from a computer into the PianoBar and convert your piano into a virtual player piano. The 3-piece PianoBar attaches to any acoustic piano in minutes; its portability and effortless setup afford easy movement from rehearsal room to worship space. What makes the PianoBar unique is the patent pending infrared sensor technology utilized in the Scanner Bar. The Scanner Bar sits ever so slightly above the piano's keys; nothing touches the keys, leaving the touch and feel wonderfully unaffected. The Scanner Bar is less than 1/2" thick and rests against the fall board, out of the way of flying fingers. The Pedal Sensor rests underneath the piano's pedals to register their motion. The Scanner Bar and Pedal Sensor work together to capture the full range of your expressive touch -- from resounding chords to delicate passages. The Control Module, a small box placed at a convenient spot on the piano, ties the Scanner Bar and Pedal Sensor to a MIDI output/input. The Control Module's internal sound generator houses a large array of high quality sounds that can be played by the piano keys. These sounds, layered with the sound of the acoustic piano, can add an exciting new dimension to your playing. The Moog PianoBar sells for $1495 and is available now from Moog Music and through authorized piano stores. For more information, visit their web site at moogmusic.com. Monday, November 3 2003 | dmac Clean Up Audio with Voxengo's Redunoise VST Plug-In The next plug-in Voxengo has brought to you is Redunoise. Redunoise is a high resolution audio noise reduction system in PC VST plug-in format. Broadband noise is generally a very simple entity. Cassette and vinyl recordings have plenty of it. Sometimes recording to the line input of audiocard can also lead to broadband noise, especially after normalizing. With noisy audio sources such as these, the natural desire is to reduce this broadband noise content while preserving all necessary musical components - the most important part of the noise reduction process. Redunoise uses advanced, high-resolution analysis and filtering to provide a very musical-sounding noise reductiona according to the company. It does take a great deal of CPU power to run Redunoise and Voxengo suggests at least a 1.3 GHz non-budget processor. The processing also introduces a large amount of latency (close to 33,000 samples), but Redunoise does delay the analysis display to sync up with the audio output for easier operation. Feature Summary: High resolution spectrum analysis Analog-prototyped filtering Real-time spectrum display Residual output monitoring Logarithmic/linear scale switch Multilevel undo for each parameter "A-to-B" comparisons Highly optimized assembler DSP Stereo-to-Stereo processing mode Support of sample rates up to 96 kHz Demo factory presets 64-bit internal precision Redunoise is being offering at the introductory price of $79. A demo version is available for download. For more information, visit their web site at www.voxengo.com.