Oxford Semiconductor will announce a dedicated FireWire audio controller at Macworld Expo 2004, the company announced today.

The new Integrated Circuit (IC) will be launched and demonstrated at the show. It is compatible with FireWire400 and FireWire 800 connections and offers eight digital audio output channels.

The product (the OXFW970) can be used to build high-quality surround-sound systems for Macs and PCs. It uses the bandwidth and quality-of-service attributes of FireWire to overcome the limitations of USB multi-channel audio solutions and removes the need for PCI-based soundcards.

The company says its FireWire audio controller can receive and process 32-bit audio data sampled at up to 48kHz at a streaming speed of up to 100MB/sec. FireWire's power-carrying capability also means that the speaker configuration does not require the use of external power supplies.

Evolution/M-Audio is looking for Beta testers for an application allowing users of their latest generation of hardware (MK-425C, MK-449C, MK-461C, UC-33e, X-Session) to configure all the memories/presets of their device, directly from the mac (OS X) by using drag&drop from a "library" of well known plugins and application settings.

Our friend Mark Coniglio writes us: "I am in the process of developing an OMS Emulator that allows applications running in Classic to communicate with CoreMidi devices. So, if you have that a legacy app you know isn't going to get ported to OS X, and you'd like to be a beta tester, please contact me." Sounds fascinating, especially since there are some apps that will never be fully ported to OS X. Keep us posted!

A new driver for the FW-1884 interface is downloadable on the Tascam Site. This version includes :
- Panther Compatibility
- Firmware update
- More control with the FE-8

Dear Worldwide MacMusicians, ALL the MacMusic Team wishes you an happy new year : good music, health, time stretching, Hard disks with no trouble, happiness and music again !!!

In 2003 our site have doubled the member number and with the Active Member contributions we get out of some financial difficulties and the MacMusic adventure was able to continue.

With our new server it was possible to cope with a higher trafic. So thanks to the active members and thanks to the Team which freely give a lot of time to share and offer you great services on your favourite Website. Champagne for MacMusic 2004 !!!