It's a vocal synthesis double-header today! First Voxynth, which is designed more for synthetic sounds and formant filtering and morphing, was updated; now the wizards at VirSyn have released Cantor, a new vocal synth that can actually "sing" from text lyrics. That's right, with Cantor you can finally turn those lyrics into vocals without involving a human being, with a sonic effect ranging from weird to . . . weirder. Check out the details below from our team on MacMusic Soft.

MHC has released version 2.0 of its Voxynth AudioUnits plug-in (on Mac OSX). As the name implied, the plugin is designed for synthesizing vocal sounds. Central to Vocynth are lots of formant-based filtering and morphing options for creating wild, synthetic sounds. This update has a new graphic interface, 18 new additional filters and 192 new presets. Voxynth 2.0 belongs to the MHC studio bundle (price 99 euros). A 30-day demo is downloadable on the link below.

NAB has wound up being a blockbuster show, not just for video people but audio people, as well. I've talked to a number of people coming back from Las Vegas with drool all over their shirts from all the new gear. One of the drool-afflicted is our friend Scott Shepard, who sends us galleries full of lust-worthy photos!

Gallery 1: Apple presentation; break out the champagne!
Gallery 2: HP's Fiorina keynote (with Oprah!), Apple booth, Digidesign console
Gallery 3: Did we mention this show is HUGE? Show floor, with the future MacMusic News Truck
Gallery 4: Console, workstations, and mics galore, from Tascam to Audio-Technica
Gallery 5: Show floor, with the future MacMusic Helicopter
Gallery 6: Vegas strip (Hey, is that the Eiffel Tower?)
Gallery 7: Digidesign ICON Dream Setup

Developers are beta testing since a week the future 10.3.4 release of OSX. Be aware that despite retouching bugs here and there, Apple is making changes into important parts of the OS and, most of all, important parts for us: Core Audio, OpenGL, Graphics, Core OS, High Level Toolbox. It also corrects things on SCSI drives, iPods, USB flash media (think USB keys) and PCMCIA cards management. And last: updates to Audio FireWire and USB 2.0 connectivity for the iPod. It seems to me to be on the cautious side of thing. The update is supposedly a correcting one, but as it touches a lot of stuff you may use, some for work, try before you switch! For the release date, ask Apple, they are bug chasing now ;)

Nomadfactory release a new plug-in : "Rock Amp Legend" made by Jimmy Crespo.
It's an OSX plug-in which emulates british and american amps. Available as HTDM/RTAS/VST formats, it also includes several FX : auto-pan, spacialisator (stéreo), chorus, phaser, delay, compressor, noise gate, EQ, Reverb...

This plug-in costs $299. A 10 days demo is also available from the following link.