By now many have forgotten that Adobe Audition was once the great free tool, CoolEdit. I fondly remember the days of CoolEdit and their ability to morph effects from one setting to another (something Soundforge is barely able to do now). It has been interesting to watch Adobe beef up the program and constantly improve it. I look forward to trying out some of these interesting new features.

From the Adobe Website:
Recording, mixing, editing, and mastering — Adobe® Audition® 3 software is the all-in-one toolset for professional audio production.

Use Adobe Audition 3 to:

• Create your own music
• Record and mix a project
• Produce a radio spot
• Clean up audio for a movie
• Compile and edit a soundtrack

Whatever you do with audio, Adobe Audition 3 software helps you sound your best.

Top features in Adobe Audition 3

VSTi virtual instrument support

Enjoy support for a wider range of virtual instruments. Simply add a MIDI host track to your mix, choose an instrument, and then record new audio in the Sequencer.

Improved multitrack editing

Save time and increase accuracy by editing grouped clips together. Auto-crossfade clips in multitrack view to quickly mix files together. Click-and-drag fade handles on multitrack clips and in the Edit View for faster editing.

Enhanced spectral editing

Make a free-form selection in frequency space with the Effects Paintbrush and apply effects in varying degrees to that selection. Smooth over a selected region to automatically repair clicks, pops, and other noises using the Spot Healing Brush.

Top/Tail Views

Need a quick and easy way to tweak the start and end of a loop or other audio file? The new Top/Tail Views allow you to zoom into the beginning and end of a file so you can quickly add precise fades while keeping the whole file in view.

New effects

Adobe Audition 3 includes new effects such as Convolution Reverb, Analog Delay, Mastering tool, Guitar Suite, and Tube-modeled Compressor.

Superior performance

Get superior performance and take advantage of the new multicore processors. The optimized mix engine allows for more tracks and effects on the same machine, offering more variety and faster processing.

Audition Product Page

After making the rounds on YouTube and various blogs the reacTable synth was spotted by Bjork and later incorporated into her live show which brought a large amount of attention to this unique hands-on synthesizer. The developers are now looking into a short production run of the innovative machine.  We look forward to seeing this in some upcoming shows!

From reacTable: 

The reactable is a collaborative electronic music instrument with a tabletop tangible multi-touch interface. Several simultaneous performers share complete control over the instrument by moving and rotating physical objects on a luminous round table surface. By moving and relating these objects, representing components of a classic modular synthesizer, users can create complex and dynamic sonic topologies, with generators, filters and modulators, in a kind of tangible modular synthesizer or graspable flow-controlled programming language.

The instrument was developed by a team of digital luthiers under the direction of Dr. Sergi Jordà. The “Interactive Sonic Systems” team is working in the Music Technology Group within the Audiovisual Institute at the Universitat Pompeu Fabra in Barcelona Spain. Its main activities concentrate on the design of new musical interfaces, such as tangible music instruments and musical applications for mobile devices.

The reactable intends to be:

• collaborative: several performers (locally or remotely)
• intuitive: zero manual, zero instructions
• sonically challenging and interesting
• learnable and masterable (even for children)
• suitable for novices (installations) and advanced electronic musicians (concerts)

The reactable hardware is based on a translucent, round multi-touch surface. A camera situated beneath the table, continuously analyzes the surface, tracking the player’s finger tips and the nature, position and orientation of physical objects that are distributed on its surface. These objects represent the components of a classic modular synthesizer, the players interact by moving these objects, changing their distance, orientation and the relation to each other. These actions directly control the topological structure and parameters of the sound synthesizer. A projector, also from underneath the table, draws dynamic animations on its surface, providing a visual feedback of the state, the activity and the main characteristics of the sounds produced by the audio synthesizer.

visit reacTable Home

Zero-G has announced the launch of an online Sample Download Store. The store, something that Zero-G should have done years ago, contains many classic and previously hard-to-find Zero-G titles, as well as all their new releases.

Features:
• Numerous titles which have been discontinued on CD/DVD.
• Many early titles (e.g. from the early 1990’s) that have become hard to find, or are not always stocked by some Zero-G CD distributors.
• Some titles that were previously only available as part of a plug-in software instrument, but are now provided as a sample library only (for example, Altered States, Beats Working In Cuba, Sounds Of The 70s, Nu Jointz). These titles are typically very large and some have been divided into a series of Download Packs.
• You will also find one completely new release - CLUB TECHNO - which is only available by download (no CD/DVD version is planned).

More information on the Zero-G Online Sample Store.

Native Instruments unveils Traktor Scratch, yet another DJing system using timecoded vinyl or cds to control digital music files off a laptop. So much for a new and innovative piece of equipment that we were all hoping for that bypassed the whole timecoded vinyl thing. The new package comes with a version of their industry leading DJ software, Traktor, and has a nice high quality sound card for audio output. Nothing new really. The thing about these systems that really prevents me from using them is that you can’t just show up, plug into the mixer and go. You have to disconnect the turntables or cd decks and plug them into the hardware interface then back into the mixer. What a pain in the ass! Now if Technics built in a second set of RCA outputs into the back of some 1200s it wouldn’t be such a bother and you wouldn’t have to worry about some surly sound guy breathing down your neck for messing with his setup.

Native Instruments Traktor Scratch Product Page

M-Audio has given a teaser of a new product they plan to announce at the upcoming NAMM show in Southern California this week.

It appears to be a DJ Controller which will hopefully be compatible with all of the current software on the market. FutureMusic has announced that it will be a controller for M-Audio’s Torq, while others have speculated that it could be a controller for Live or Traktor. Either way it looks like a nice piece of kit with all of the backlit buttons and knobs. Can’t wait to see it!!

 
 

Image Line Software has announced the imminent release of FL Studio 7. In version 7, particular emphasis has been given to improved workflow through enhanced interface design, so that ideas can be crystallized and creativity captured.Key new features and changes: