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New life for Nord Modulars

electro-music.com :: View topic – Nomad 0.3 pre-release available for DL

The Nord Modular was the first major synth hardware with required software for programming it. It was extremely powerful. I own two! It was also the gear that soured me on the whole idea. Why?  Because, Clavia never upgraded the editor to work with OS X. There was a beta release, but it didn’t work that well. So now, that very expensive hardware is mostly worthless.

Luckily, some bright hackers decided not to let it lie: Nomad is nord editing software written in Java for OS X, PC and Linux.

What would have been better would have been if Clavia had released their software as open source, so that folks didn’t have to reverse engineer it.

This is why I won’t ever buy a Nord Modular G2, by the way.

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Ableton Live 7 – sneak preview

Beatportal has a cool preview of Live 7 up that is a bit more interesting (to my eyes) than the Ableton marketing docs…

Ableton Live 7 – sneak preview

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Free kitchen percussion sample set

link: Welshs Synthesizer Cookbook: Analog Synthesizer Programming

Over 140 pots, pans, kettles, lids, bowls, containers and more

More unique than conventional drum samples

Multiple hits: bottoms, sides, rims with mallet and light stick

Recorded with a Marantz EC-335 split-stereo microphone

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Some good advanced Ableton Live tips

dum003.jpg Using dummy clips for automation
Making a wet-dry control for the rack

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Apple NAB announcement summary

lights-camera-apple.jpg

My favorite live blogging is always from Engadget.

My summary:

  • New Final Cut Digital Asset Management/Transcoding Server: $999/10 users or $1999 for unlimited users (available summer)
  • Final Cut Studio 2
    • Final Cut Pro 6
      • ProRes 422: compression for HD (1TB -> 170GB “at same quality”)
      • Support for Sony’s new HDCAM SR 1080p60, Silicon Imaging’s Red Camera
      • Aja-built IO-HD input box for encoding ProRes 422 in real-time on external box ($3495)
      • Open-format timeline: mix formats, resolutions, framerates
      • Smooth-cam camera shake elimination (from Shake)
      • Better Motion integration
    • Motion3
      • Match-moving
      • more 3D
      • Paint
      • Audio-driven animation
    • SoundtrackPro2
      • Better 5.1 support
      • 5.1 and stereo in same project
      • frequency spectrum editing (ripped off from Audition/Soundbooth)
      • Video HUD for better synching
      • “conform” feature (not sure what that is yet)
    • Compressor3
      • Faster
      • More codecs
      • Preview overlays and watermarks with a before and after slider
      • Integrated chapter markers
      • Better multi-threading
    • $499 upgrade, $1299 new, $699 to upgrade from FCP
    • Available May
  • Color (new application)
    • Color grading
    • looks like this what at least part of the Shake team is doing now (my guess)
    • Same UI for 3-way color correction with
      • RGB and luma curves
      • lift
      • gamma
      • gain
      • visualization of color in 3D space
    • Mattes from chroma, luma, saturation, custom vignettes, hue and saturation curves
    • Color effects — string them together with a node tree
    • Geometry
    • included in Final Cut Studio 2

Wow, so FCS 2 was expected, but a lot more was also expected in this announcement given that Apple announced the 8-core MacPro a couple weeks ago with crummy video cards and no new iLife for ’07 and lappys and iPod designs getting a little stale. Wonder what else would have been announced today if Apple hadn’t announced the delay of Leopard earlier this week?

I just realized that there was no update to DVD Studio Pro. Hrm, wonder why…

[added links to the apple website and comment about DVD Studio later at 3:51 pm]

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major music software news

content.png Ableton and Cycling 74 are going to be collaborating on new products. This is pretty major. Ableton is well established at creating software that is musical and easy to use. Cycling 74 know how to create really powerful, configurable stuff. Both companies claim that their work together will create new products and that their current product lines will continue. This is very exciting, hopefully, we won’t have to wait too long to find out what they will be producing.

Here is Cycling ’74’s take on the agreement
Here is the release from Ableton

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SonicBirth: now Free!

SonicBirth logoSonicBirth

Yesterday, Sonicbirth version 1.2 was released, and it was announced that it is now freeware and open source. SonicBirth is a tool that helps you build your own AU plug-ins reaktor or MAX-stylie.

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OS X 10.4.9 Breaks Some Audio Unit Plug-ins?

Create Digital Music » OS X 10.4.9 Breaks Some Audio Unit Plug-ins?

I’ve been hearing a number of reports that the Mac OS X 10.4.9 update causes significant issues with some Audio Unit plug-ins, including those from popular developers Audio Damage and Ohmforce. (See Analog Industries blog for a comment thread and reports on Audio Damage; there’s also discussion on the Core Audio developer list which I hope will yield some revelations. Update: Note that Audio Damage is having only development issues; their plug-ins will work just fine if you’re a user.) This update apparently installs yet another version of the AU validator, which could be one clue. Apple has also made significant changes to QuickTime in recent releases, which can also cause issues with audio software in some cases.

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Is Apple going after ProTools?

Ars Technica thinks so, and they think that Apple is going to leverage Leopard and Touch Screen displays to do it. On one hand this makes a sort of sense. They point out that it explains the delay in iLife’07 and Leopard details. Especially given how twitchy they have been about revenue recognition with their brush with the SEC, it actually makes a lot of sense. However, you can never be sure of the real truth with Apple until it is announced by Steve on a stage somewhere. NAB? Maybe, sorta, but it seems like this would warrant a Cupertino venue.

We’ll see.

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Free and Open Source Software | Audio/Video ngo-in-a-box

[via Chris Pirillo’s Picks]

Audio Video Edition: Specially Selected Free and Open Source Software | Audio/Video ngo-in-a-box

Nice collection of links to the best Open Source digital media software for all platforms.

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