Sound Burst has announced North Mood, a virtual reproduction of the Clavia Nord Modular player, available as a VST plug-in for MacOS X. It features 650 Presets. 30,000 samples, up to 64 voices of polyphony (CPU dependent), 24 bit/96 Khz quality and 32 bit internal processing.

North Mood will be available in May, 2005 with for $/€149. (grrr...manufacturers, please note that US$ 1 = 0.77 euros, thanks !!!).

Pure Data announces a new version which now features a Pd.app rather than an installer. Pure Data is a real-time graphical programming environment for audio and graphical processing.It was planned as a free, better and more stable Max/fts, which has also been developed by Miller Smith Puckette at IRCAM.

This update is available in the MacMusic softwares section.

At MusikMesse, Korg unveils a new compact 4 tracks recorder, the D4, which allows you to record one or two tracks at a time, to a CompactFlash removeable media card. This small unit features 8 virtual tracks per track, for a total of 32 tracks, two tracks of simultaneous recording, extended recording times using MPEG-1 Layer-2 compressed recording format, XLR and 1/4 inch inputs and Built-in mic.

After nightmares to get a working internet connection from the show, here is finally a nice set of 44 photos which should let you evaluate the Musik Messe feeling. Enjoy!

IK Multimedia announces an update to version 2.1 for Sampletank. The new SampleTank 2.1 will include an enhanced Stretch engine (with more control over the pitch, tempo and harmonics), improved sound and performance, stand-alone operation, 16 stereo outputs, enhanced sound set now on 2 DVDs, and much more.

SampleTank 2.1 XL will cost $499/499 Euro and is expected to be shipping in May 2005.