The Mac Observer

Skip navigational links

You're viewing an article in TMO's historic archive vault. Here, we've preserved the comments and how the site looked along with the article. Use this link to view the article on our current site:
New Pro-Audio Products Prominent at Macworld

TMO at Macworld - New Pro-Audio Products Prominent at Macworld

by , 3:40 PM EST, January 11th, 2006

To the joy of audiophiles, there is a definite audio vibe at Macworld San Francisco 2006. The noise of the show floor is impossible not to notice, and besides the regular crowd hullabaloo, a plethora of companies are demoing new audio hardware, software, and gizmos. The Mac Observer has found the hot pro-audio products introduced at Macworld or new this past year.

Notion

If you ever used a computer music notation software, it's always a disappointment listening back to the MIDI quality score. Notion from VirtuosoWorks (Booth 327) uses sampling from the London Symphony Orchestra for the playback engine.

With more accurate playback, it's possible to place dynamics more accurately thus cutting down the number of revisions needed after listening to it from a real orchestra. Notion also features real-time performance control allowing you to test out rubatos, vamps, and other speed controls.

Notion will be available February 15th, 2006 and will retail for US$599.

Jam Studio

The next audio program comes dressed in art. Techne Media's Pixsound Jam Studio (Booth 2207) takes the RGB color information in pictures and converts them into audio frequencies. Jam Studio offers another opportunity for audio and video or graphic designers to collaborate.

You can either mouse around a picture to conduct the music, or crop a selection to autoplay the music. You can control the instrument and tempo the frequencies play through and choose different scale modes and underlying beat tracks.

Jam Studio retails for $99 and is available today. For MIDI support, a pro MIDI license is bundled in for $249. A demo is available from Teche Media's Web site.

Sonoma Wire Works

New to the Mac from Sonoma Wire Works (Booth 307) is a guitar recording program called RiffWorks. To start recording, simply choose a tempo, number of bars to riff on, and a pre-recorded drum track and you're ready to find the perfect lick. After recording, play back the recording or add it to the looping track to layer onto it.

Once you have a few riffs saved, it's drag and drop to string them together into a song. In GarageBand, you often have to play double duty as musician and recording engineer putting down base tracks and tweaking effects layers. Much of the engineering aspect is managed by RiffWorks allowing the user to focus on the music. RiffWorks, currently in beta, will be available in March. It retails for $189 bundled with GuitarPort USB hardware or $99 alone.

Again for the home or small studio is the TASCAM FW-1082 10 channel FireWire Audio/MIDI control surface. The FW-1082 control surface works as a Hardware User Interface (HUI) through the nine touch-sensitive faders that allow you to control faders in programs such as Logic, Cubase, ProTools (Cubase LE is bundled with the FW-1082). It features 10 inputs, 4 outputs, and 2 MIDI inputs and output.

The FW-1082 retails for $999.

Observer Comments

Show: Subjects Only | Full Comments
Close Name:Guest
Subject:

Pity that virtually all of the audio booths have, in fact, terrible audio--from tinny little iPod speakers to the poorly tuned subs of the H/K/JBL booth to the odd Bang&Olafsen speakers at another iPod vendor booth.

Close Name:hughster Posts: 15 Joined: 17 Mar 2005
Subject: Audio quality at shows

With the ambient noise level at trade shows, putting Genelecs to demo work would be a waste of money.

By the way, the FW-1082's been out for some time now. Does what it has to to pretty well and nice sound, too.

Close Name:Guest
Subject: Notion scoring software

System requirements on the Notion website says it's only for windows XP operating system..... ???

Close Name:Guest
Subject:

Mac and PC is there now.

Comment on this Article


You cannot edit your comments.   You cannot delete your comments.

Comments are currently closed. Please email the author instead.


Recent Headlines - Updated November 8th

Sat, 7:58 PM
News - Apple TV 3.0.1 Update Fixes Missing Content Bug
Fri, 7:45 PM
Rumor - Taiwan Leak Shows Verizon UTMS/CDMA iPhone for Q3 2010
6:40 PM
News - iPhone Moves Into RadioShack
6:30 PM
News - Apple to Open Stunning Paris Apple Store in Le Louvre on Saturday
5:43 PM
Free on iTunes - Dictionary, Dictionary, Dictionary, And More
4:09 PM
John Martellaro's Blog - Particle Debris (week ending 11/6) Failure IS an Option
3:32 PM
Games - The Latest App Store Games: Gravity Sling, RocketBird, Ground Effect, Checkers!
2:25 PM
Games - Star Soccer 2010 for Mac Puts Gamers in Role of Up-and-Coming Player
2:15 PM
How-To - The Mysteries of Rosetta Housekeeping
1:33 PM
News - iPhone Game Developer Sued for Collecting User’s Cell Numbers
1:17 PM
Games - Warhammer Online Expands Trial Play Option
11:19 AM
Rumor - Apple May Be Bringing RFID to the iPhone

The Mac Observer Reader Specials

  • TypeStyler For Mac OS X is Now Shipping! Download The Free Fully Functional 60 Day Tryout at www.typestyler.com
  • RamJet Memory: Mac Pro 8-core 8GB Kit $199.99, 4GB Kits $109.99! Sale on MacBook and MacBook Pro 8GB kits $549.99! New MacBook DDR3 2GB for $49.99. iMac and Mac mini 4GB Kits for $79.99! 1TB SATA Hard Drives for $109.99! Click here
  • OWC: Get the Right Memory / Ram for your Mac. Top Quality, Competitive Prices, Lifetime Warranty. Expert Support and Video Installation Guidies too! 4.0GB Matched Sets from $87.99, Options up to 32GB. Click here
  • Poker Mac If you're using a Mac, then you've gotta check out Full Tilt Poker for Mac. This Full Tilt Poker bonus code does the unthinkable, it actually rewards!
  • For the latest Apple products use Ciao, a price comparison website, to find laptops like MacBook Air. Then find the best prices on MP3 players and use our comparison tool to evaluate mobile phones like the Apple iPhone.

  • Laptop Hardware Provided by TechRestore - Overnight Mac & iPod Repairs.
  • __________
  • Buy Stuff, Support TMO!
  • Podcast: Mac Geek Gab
  • Podcast: Apple Weekly Report
  • TMO on Twitter!