Tascam has released a major upgrade for the FW-1884 Audio/MIDI Interface and Control Surface. Version 1.30 allows the control surface to send commands to soft synths, plug-ins, and MIDI sequencers directly through its FireWire interface. In addition to plug-in control over FireWire, FW-1884 update 1.30 adds improved compatibility with Apple PowerMac G5 computers.

Info on Tascam web site.

Encore, prehaps the most simple and user-friendly music score editor, get out of a confused period (original editor out of biseness, ghostly purchaser, Mac OS 9 & X crash with new version). With this new version we can say that one of the pioneer of musical score editing is back on Mac again and good alternative to heavyweights of this category such Finale or Sibelius.

Info and download from the MM Softs section.

Vinyl 1.7 creates a vinyl simulation to an audio file as if the audio were a record being played on a record player. This software is a plug-in for Mac OS X and woks in Pro Tools, VST, MAS, and Audio Unit formats.

Vinyl 1.7 is available as free download from iZotope web site.

The twice in a year auction of Peter Forrest will be held between the 1st and the 13th of November. It will offer as usual all kinds of synths and studio equipment. The list of items on auction will appear in the next weeks as usual. The site seems to run way better too (on mac).

Monkey Tools announces an update to version 2.0 of their audio file conversion utility, Sound Grinder. This new release features the new Rapid Convert utility which provides direct audio file conversion, new file formats (OGG Vorbis, AMR Narrowband, Apple Lossless, support for MP3 LAME codec), folder hierarchy recreation, and 31 character naming compatibility.

Sound Grinder 2.0 costs $39. A free upgrade is available for users who purchased versions of Sound Grinder between March 1, 2004 and October 4, 2004.