Sony SoundForge 10 Released Today

Please bear with me because most of this information is from a press release and I thought you’d want to know. I’ve personally not tried it myself. So I can’t give any opinions at this time. But with the feature list, I can give a little of what I’m thinking.

As a side note, I was always a fan of Sonic Foundry, the company that used to produce this package, but I’m not a big Sony fan at all.

Sony has released their new version of SoundForge. The new features are event-based editing, disc-at-once CD burning, iZotope 64-bit SRC (sample rate conversion), MBIT+ dither (bit-depth conversion), musical instrument file processing, and Pro timestretch/pitch shift plug-in.

Event-based editing – This is mostly aimed at mastering from what I can gather. There’s nothing new here.

Customizable Window Layout – I’m glad they added this option for their users. That’s about all I can say only that it should have been standard in the first place.

Izotope powered mastering bundle – Now this is impressive. It comes standard with the new version?

Interactive tutorials – Ok, so yes a lot of other packages have this but it’s nice to know this one does too.

So, I have to be honest. I had version 8, wasn’t too impressed with it, and when I got a new machine I didn’t bother putting it back on.

It looks like most of the improvements for this version is in the mastering arena.

I do have an interest in film, so this will likely change. With what I’ve read in the press release, I’m going to consider getting this. But I have to see what else is out there, as I said, I’m not a big fan of Fony. I mean Sony.

POD Farm For Nothing

Line 6 is offering their POD Farm for free to anyone that uses either an iLok USB Smart Key or a compatible Line 6 product. POD Farm has 42 guitar amplifiers and cabinet simulations (all patterned after famous amplifiers and cabinets), 10 bass amplifiers and cabinets, and even 29 stompboxes and studio effects with 6 mic preamps simulators.

That’s an awesome array of stuff. And I can tell you, being a user since POD 2.0, this is a high quality product they’re giving away.

As much as I’d like to believe they’re doing this for the love of guitarists everywhere, I don’t. Usually when someone offers a piece of paid software for free, it means they’ll be upgrading the product extensively and they want to get into the upgrade market.

I’m sure that’s what this is. But who cares really? It’s free and it’s a quality product. If you’re a line6 user and you don’t already have POD Farm, you need to download this.

Presonus Studio One

Presonus is about to release a music creation-editing-production software called Studio One. It isn’t available yet but you can download a free demo from their website.

It has some stipulations to it though. It only works for 30 days, you can’t save, and you can’t import mp3 files.

But they  say it’s good though.

Is anyone else getting tired of companies joining the “We’ve got a music creation-editing-production software available”?  So how many is this now. Is anybody keeping count?

It has to be something revolutionary for people to change the software they’re comfortable with. My only question to the new software packages is “What are you doing different?” If your answer is “nothing”, you shouldn’t be wasting your time and money.

Mackie Working With Protools?

Mackie seems to have a firewire analog mixer  that they’re about to release and it supposedly works with Protools M-Powered. I’m not sure how much Protools knows about this or if they’re in on this or not. Something tells me they are.

But just in case they’re not, I tip my hat off to you Mackie for fighting the power. Protools have been a little too protective of their hardware for far too long.

Maybe Protools is actually trying to see the light. Maybe they’re finally figuring out that this could be a nice boost to their bottom line in this terrible economy. Who knows?

But Mix Magazine has a report about this piece of mail from Mackie that’s a little gimicky if you asked me. When you get a chance, check it out.

IK Multimedia GrooveMaker

I’ve been playing around with IK Multimedia’s new iPhone software, Groov.eMaker and I really like it. There’s so much this little thing can do, and it’s well worth the money. As far as it “changing everything”, I’m not so sure about that.

I basically see this is a neat little toy that I can accupy myself for hours on end. Like, at the doctor’s office, or some other place like that.

I don’t see this as serious software. But it sure is fun to play with.

WordPress Support For Soundcloud

I’m not going to say much about this because I’ve only been on wordpress for a short while. I don’t really feel it’s my place too. But I really like that WordPress.com is supporting soundcloud.

You can see what WordPress.com said about it in this blog post. And here’s what Soundcloud said about it on their blog as well.

IK Multimedia’s iPhone App

So it’s an iPhone app. I must admit, I’m a little bummed. I thought it was going to suprise me. Well I guess it’s ok.

It’s called GrooveMaker and here’s the feature list from their website:

• Instantaneous control over 8 stereo loop tracks
• Massive loop library of drums, bass, bass-drums, lines, pads, percussion, effects included
• Play, Mix and Randomize loops on the fly
• Combine studio-quality loops to produce a million possible grooves
• Manipulate loops in real time (pan, volume, mute, solo, group, tempo)
• Arrange grooves easily with drag and drop to create full-length tracks
• Save, preview and recall your mixed tracks
• Upload your tracks as hi-quality WAV file to your Mac/PC (Wi-Fi network required)
• Interactive Help feature allows for quick learning, simply follow the indicated steps

If you have an iPhone or iPod touch, they have a free adition that comes with a nice amount of samples.

Of course, if you don’t have an iPhone or iPod touch, you’re shit out of luck! Any rate, the price is really good. For the club version it’s $4.99. The house version is $9.99. And the hip-hop version is $9.99.

In all fairness, it’s probably worth the little bit of money to buy it. It would have to be sheer crap for it not to be worth 10 bucks. The novelty alone is worth it.

One More Day For IK Multimedia

It’s almost the 13th. I’ve about decided to stop guessing what this new thing they’re doing is. That’s exactally what they want us to do. Try and figure out what they’ve got for a week before they actually tell us.

I’m sure it’s going to be great. They’ve never put out crappy stuff as far as I’m concerned.

It is a little aggrevating because I’m not a very patient man.

So what do you think they’re releasing tomorrow? Could it be a DAW or a special kind of plugin or VSTi?

Native Instruments Kontakt Player

Native Instruments released the new version of Kontakt Player this week. It includes over 600 MB of samples taken from their archives.

You can use it as a stand alone or a plugin. It is also fully compatible with all other Kontakt libraries.

They did leave one thing out of the free version, it doesn’t have the full editing ability as the full version. But it does come with a library if you haven’t tried Kontakt before.

Of course, by giving it away for free, they’re wanting you to get addicted to it so you’ll buy more libraries from them. This is still worth the download. You might find Kontakt to be just what you’re looking for.

And since it’s free, you won’t be out much if you don’t like it. I believe more companies should be doing the same thing.

In The Studio With Michael Jackson

If you haven’t seen the peice on Bruce Swedien in Mix Magazine yet, you should really check it out. In the interview, he shares a couple of stories about Quincy Jones.

He also talks about his upcoming book “In The Studio With Michael Jackson”. Here’s one quote from the interview:

“Though the book was in production for many years we did not anticipate its release coinciding with the events of the last few weeks,” states Aaron Lefkove of Hal Leonard Books. “As engineer, Swedien was, along with producer Quincy Jones, one of the creative partners and architects of Jackson’s sound. The book is part anecdotal memoir, part technical reference, and paints a vivid portrayal of Michael Jackson as an artist.”