Mireth Technology Corp. has released a new version of Music Man, its Mac OS X ripper, converter, burner, player digital music software. Version 2.1 of Music Man adds an automatic MP3 Clip making feature. It also addresses a problem that prevented some users from burning MP3 CDs and MP3 DVDs.

Music Man v2.1 is available for immediate download, or on CD-ROM, starting at $19.95. Registered users of previous versions of Music Man can take advantage of upgrade pricing by contacting them. Educational pricing and volume discounts are available.

When version 4.1 of Tassman came out, AAS announced the compability of all the plug-ins with Intel processors as well as with the RTAS format. The update also fixes some bugs. Note that demo versions are available on their web site as VST, AU and RTAS.

Native Instruments has released Elektrik Piano v1.5, which includes Universal Binary support on Mac OS X. Now based on the Kontakt 2 engine, this version 1.5 features greater stability, much faster loading times, host automation capacity, an improved voice allocation algorithm, thoroughly reworked 'authentic' patches, and numerous other small improvements from version 1.

New features :

- new instruments (16 new "Authentic Instruments" presets, four for each piano)
- new impulse-response room and cabinet simulations
- new effects (the A200, MK1 and MK2 instruments include a tremolo effect, the E7 instruments include a Wah-Wah effect, etc...)
- new options for setting the dynamic range and random values for velocity, volume, and pitch
- redesigned voice allocation algorithm which ...

PowerFX announces the release of "Grand Colour", the virtual instrument piano library from Colour Sonics. This huge library has been split up into individual downloads of particular pianos with each download including patches for Kontakt 1, 2.1 and HALion.

The acoustic pianos consist of the Bösendorfer 290, the Steinway D, the Baldwin Vertical and the Yamaha C7. Each piano has been recorded in Moscow, by Russia's top classical recording engineers using up to 20 different stereo dynamic levels for 40 seconds plus release and noise layers in a perfectly acoustically tuned environment. The end results are highly accurate emulations of these legendary instruments. The Bösendorfer download is $89 and the other pianos are $59 each.

Also available for download are the Colour Sonics "Vintage ...

ExpDigital has just released SCal V5, a music calculator which calculates delay, time to BPM, BPM to time, BPM note shift, timestretch, tempo shift, lfo rate and more.

SCal V5 is a standalone application available for Mac OSX (UB) and it is free so... well, you know, just enjoy !