IK MULTIMEDIA STOMPIO-1

IK Multimedia (www.ikmultimedia.com) has put the power of its acclaimed AmpliTube software at your feet. The StompIO-1 (Mac/Win, $899) bundles five software products — AmpliTube 2, Ampeg SVX, AmpliTube Jimi Hendrix, AmpliTube X-Gear, and, for registered AmpliTube 2 users, AmpliTube Metal — with rugged stompbox hardware to deliver trouble-free stage and studio real-time control. Using only your feet, you can create, save, and recall 4,000 presets in five play modes, and you get 150 models with a total of 74 effects. Ten metal switches, six assignable knobs, and two displays — and jacks for six expression pedals (one is included) — give you total control. You get a USB 2.0 audio interface with instrument input, balanced and unbalanced analog output, and S/PDIF digital output.

MACKIE 402-VLZ3

Mackie (www.mackie.com) has incorporated most of the features of its popular VLZ3 series of mixers in a small, portable unit. The 402-VLZ3 ($129.99 [MSRP]) is an ultracompact 4-channel mixer that's perfect for smaller sound-reinforcement and recording applications. Two phantom-powered mono channels with mic preamps, highpass filtering, and 2-band EQ accept balanced or unbalanced, mic, instrument, and line-level signals through XLR and TRS jacks. You also get a line-level stereo channel and assignable RCA tape inputs. LED metering, mic-preamp gain controls, and separate main, headphone, and tape outputs round out the 402-VLZ3 control panel. For eight channels in a compact package, check out the new 802-VLZ3.

MOTU 828MK3

MOTU (www.motu.com) has raised the bar for its 828 series of FireWire audio interfaces without raising the price. The new 828mk3 (Mac/Win, $795) gives you an onboard, 32-bit floating-point digital mixer and features no-latency effects processing (with reverb, compression, and parametric EQ); 192 kHz operation, digitally controlled analog input trims; ADAT/Toslink optical I/O; and MIDI I/O. You get eight balanced TRS, 24-bit analog inputs and outputs, along with two additional mic/guitar preamp inputs and two XLR main outputs. The 828mk3 is equipped with Direct Digital Synthesis, a DSP-driven internal clock source, and two FireWire ports for daisy chaining. Cross-platform CueMix FX control software is included.

Prism Sound Orpheus

Prism Sound (www.prismsound.com) has brought the quality of its renowned ADA-8XR A/D/A converters to a FireWire audio interface designed for the serious project studio. The Orpheus (Mac/Win, $4,995) delivers eight channels of analog I/O simultaneously with ten channels of digital I/O (ADAT and switchable S/PDIF or AES3) and a separate stereo headphone bus with sampling rates of up to 192 kHz. You get four balanced TRS line-level analog inputs, along with four balanced, autosensing mic/line inputs served by Neutrik combo jacks. Built-in mic preamps provide 65 dB of boost, and each input has Prism Sound Overkiller to prevent overloads before A/D conversion. Included software makes the Orpheus fully controllable from either a Mac or a PC.

EIOSIS E²DEESSER

The E²Deesser (Mac, $222) is the first product in the Eiosis (www.eiosis.com) E²Processor series. This iLok-protected AU, RTAS, and TDM plug-in takes a different approach from other de-essing software by splitting the signal into voiced and unvoiced parts (like a vocoder), and then letting you EQ, mix, and apply effects to the parts independently. Sibilants make up the unvoiced part, and de-essing is accomplished by both gain reduction and filtering. Separate processing for the voiced part opens the way for a broad range of unusual effects.

AUDIO EASE SNAPPER

Audio Ease (www.audioease.com) has just released its long-awaited audio-auditioning utility, Snapper (Mac, $74). Snapper hides in the background until you select an audio file in the OS X Finder, when it pops up below the active Finder window displaying the selected file and, optionally, playing it. (You can also trigger playback manually by pressing the Spacebar.) Snapper's other tricks include varispeed playback; drag-and-drop file-segment extraction; file-format conversion, including MP3 encoding; and Spot-to-ProTools. Snapper supports most audio file formats, and a generous 100-day demo is available for download.

MU TECHNOLOGIES MU VOICE

Mu Voice (Mac/Win, $279 box, $239 download) is a VST-, AU-, and RTAS-format iLok-protected plug-in for generating background vocals from a solo lead vocal. Developer Mu Technologies' (www.mu-technologies.com) primary goal is to make the process as simple yet as flexible as possible. You start by creating voicing presets, which determine the voicing and character of the harmony parts. You then define a chord scheme, each of whose elements contains a chord definition, the voicing preset to use, and the position on the host song's timeline where it should occur. When you feed Mu Voice a lead part, either recorded or live, it follows the chord scheme to generate the background parts.

GVOX ENCORE 5.0

Gvox (www.gvox.com) has upgraded the Mac version of its Encore scoring software. Encore 5.0 ($399) is easier to use; offers more-flexible page layout, including guitar tablature; and features full MIDI playback with support for Garritan Personal Studio, DLS, and SoundFonts. A new Score Wizard and 30 score templates make it easy to get started, and, as a bonus, you get hundreds of preformatted scores of works by J. S. Bach. The Windows and Mac versions of Encore share the same format and are backward compatible, which, together with XML and MIDI file support, makes collaboration transparent.

SOLID STATE LOGIC DUENDE MINI

Solid State Logic (www.solid-state-logic.com) has released a little brother to its Duende Classic DSP hardware. The Duende Mini (Mac/Win, $995) is a 1/3-rackspace desktop FireWire unit with 16 mono channels of plug-in processing at up to 96 kHz. You can upgrade it to 32 channels and run two Duende Minis on a single computer to have 64 channels. The unit ships with the SSL EQ and Dynamics Channel plug-in. Other available Duende Plug-ins include Stereo Bus Compressor, Drumstrip, X-EQ, and X-Comp. Duende Mini supports all major DAWs on the Mac and the PC.

Get Smart

A K Peters Audio Anecdotes III
Audio Anecdotes III: Tools, Tips, and Techniques for Digital Audio ($79), edited by Ken Greenebaum and Ronen Barzel, continues publisher A K Peters's (www.akpeters.com) wide-ranging series of essays on audio-related topics. Its 27 essays touch on digital audio recording and mixing, sound and voice synthesis, signal processing with emphasis on speech, spatialization and synchronization, music composition, and psychoacoustics. Articles range from the highly technical “Modal Synthesis for Vibrating Objects” to the philosophical “Why the Audiocomputer Is Inevitable.” The volume's contributors include experts from academic institutions and commercial firms.

Course Thompson PTR Audio Post-Production in Your Project Studio
Casey Kim's Audio Post-Production in Your Project Studio ($29.99 [MSRP]), from Course Thompson PTR (www.courseptr.com), devotes 464 pages to all aspects of postproduction for the project studio. The material is not DAW specific and covers audio editing, mixing in a DAW, software-effects processing, monitoring, and mastering. The final chapter discusses how to run your project studio. Kim is a partner in postproduction studio Dark Red Audio (www.darkredaudio.com) and was a major contributor in the development of M-Audio ProSessions sample libraries.

HowAudio.com
HowAudio.com (www.howaudio.com) is a new video-tutorial subscription service that has more than 1,000 videos that cover most major music applications (for example, Ableton Live, Propellerhead Reason, and Digidesign Pro Tools). Also covered are general topics such as “How to Maintain and Repair Your Guitar,” “Demystifying B-3 Drawbars,” and “Fundamentals of EQ.” Monthly ($19) and yearly ($199) subscriptions give you full access to the tutorials. You can also buy individual tutorial DVDs. All tutorials are taught by working professionals; authors include Les Camacho (Pink Floyd, the Killers, Massive Attack), Carmen Rizzo (Seal, Coldplay, Alanis Morissette, Paul Oakenfold, BT), and PJ Morgan (Bobby Jones, Yolanda Adams, Al Green).

Sound Advice

PowerFX World Loop Spice Rack (Mac/Win, $79) is the latest in PowerFX's (www.powerfx.com) selection of downloadable sample CDs. The 598 MB compressed download expands to 890 MB of loops and riffs from around the world. Its 1,220 Acidized WAV files are split between melodic and rhythmic material. One of PowerFX's aims was to sample rare instruments — such as the Afghani Rebab, the Indian Sarod, and the Chinese Pipa — that have not been overdone in world collections. All loops were recorded by PowerFX especially for this collection and capture performances by indigenous masters of their instruments.

Sonic Reality (www.sonicreality.com), in collaboration with Allen Sides and Steven Miller, has just released Ocean Way Drums (Mac/Win, $895 Gold, $1,795 Platinum). Recorded at Sides's famed Ocean Way Studio, this library has 19 kits with 6 presets each in snare-on and snare-off versions. Each kit comes with Sonic Reality's proprietary I-Map drum mapping, and a new mapping for Roland V-Drum users. The Gold version is delivered on DVD and contains 40 GB of 24-bit, 48 kHz samples. The Platinum version comes on a 10,000 rpm, 150 GB USB 2.0/FireWire 800 combo drive and contains 80 GB of 24-bit, 96 kHz samples.

SoundSnap (www.soundsnap.com) is a free Web 2.0 site for sharing original sound effects and loops. Founder Tasos Frantzolas says you won't find sounds from commercial libraries; everything here is royalty-free and created by members of the SoundSnap community. The site has more than 35,000 original sounds and has attracted notable contributors such as sound designers Paul Virostek and Rick Viers. The site's promotional partners include industry leaders Ableton, Digidesign, Native Instruments, and Propellerhead Software.