This week begins MacMusic's exclusive wrap-up / closer look at Musik Messe. Tune in all week for a look back at the deluge of new products out of Frankfurt!

One favorite from Musik Messe has to be the new Native Elektrik Piano, due in stores 22 April, just one of a number of new products from Native alone. Given an unlimited budget, a larger apartment, and new muscle tone, I'd be more than happy to lug around a Fender Rhodes MK ITM and MK IITM, a Hohner Clavinet E7TM, and a Wurlitzer A 200TM. Until I've bulked up and bought a pickup truck, though, the Native plugin looks like the best alternative: all four of these classics packed into one piece of software.

According to ZDNet : "Apple Computer was investigating a reported security flaw Friday in its OS X operating system that could allow vandals to trick Macs into opening dangerous files, such as Trojan horses and viruses."
Does a new era begin ? Time will tell. The first OS X trojan is born. Pffff.

LilyPond is an Open Source score editor coming from the linux community. Notes can be entered using any text editor (using LaTex language). Output is possible in Postcript format (easy to convert into Pdf files or image files). LilyPond has a very comprehensive manual (170 pages, 400 exemples...) and works on MacOSX using Fink. Moreover this software is completely free !

In the April issue of Recording Magazine's French edition, the bundled CD features a free VSTi, Carbon by Native Instrument (OS 9, OS X and PC). Carbon features four oscillators, a noise generator, a multimode resonant filter, drive FX, 4 band EQ, 2 LFOs, 2 envelopes, delay and stereo chorus, all with low CPU consumption. 100 patches for Carbon are on the CD, as well. A no-brainer at less than 6 Euros!

Ed: Anglophones, don't despair -- certainly you'll find an import in the UK and many larger booksellers here in the US carry French publications. Hit comments and let us know if you're able to track one down. -PK