We announced a few time ago the future availabitily of North 2, a new set of folk instruments from North India, by Swar System.

It's done: North 2 is available today, for OS X only.

One by one, Panther compatibility issues are being resolved. This just in: Steinberg's HALion has been updated to 2.0.2.2 for OS X with full compatibility for OS X 10.3 plus improved file loading times. Not familiar with HALion? Check out MacMusic's Software Pages for HALion info.

We kick off our series of interviews with Mac Maestros, outstanding Mac-based developers. musicians, and composers, with a chat with composer and developer Tom Erbe. Tom has become legendary in the Mac music community for creating SoundHack, the free spectral sound processing software. Tom has been involved with various other projects from his own music to the creation of an electronic violin and spatial audio processing for NASA. I spoke to Tom about music and technology on the Mac on the eve of the release of new realtime audio plugins inspired by SoundHack.

An update of Mark of the Unicorn's virtual sampler MachFive is avaliable for download from the company's web site. Versions of MachFive for MAS, VST, RTAS, and HTDM are all posted. An update of the UviX sample format converter and Interlok Extensions is also included.

No mention of what fixes/features/changes are included in the update.

Steinberg has announced that Cubase SL is now shipping in the latest 2.0 version. This new version has many new features : a VST 2.3 audio engine, a new look with configurable toolbar, a redesigned mixer now offers the added flexibility of FX return channels, the Freeze function for VST Instruments, and the support of multiple parts (users can open and work on several MIDI or audio parts within the same editor).

Cubase SL 2.0 needs a G4 867 MHz PowerMac (G4 Dual 1,25 GHz or faster recommended), with 384 MB RAM (512 MB recommended) with Mac OS X 10.2.5 or higher, and with any CoreAudio compatible audio hardware.

Cubase SL is priced at EUR 344.00 (excluding VAT). The Upgrade price to Cubase SL 2.0 from Cubase SL 1.0 is EUR 85.00 excluding VAT.