Brian Moore has updated its digital guitars line with a new iGuitar model. This iGuitar USB is the first guitar to offer on-board, class compliant USB audio to streamline the guitar to computer connection eliminating the need for an external audio interface. It allows instant access to popular recording software, like GarageBand and Logic and also gives direct access to guitars effect programs like Amplitube. There are no special drivers to load and the iGuitar USB is bus powered.

Just plug...and play ! But before : add $200 to the list price of any Custom Shop, i2000, i1000 or iGuitar model or $300 if you already own a Brian Moore or iGuitar model to upgrade to this new USB model.

That's a good news from Widisoft : they announce that their Audio To Midi VST 1.02 is now available for Mac OS X. This plugin is designed for real-time Audio to MIDI conversion. The plugin receives input from an audio channel and performs real-time music recognition. Resulting MIDI events can be sent to the VST host, System MIDI Out Device or to a MIDI file. The spectrum window displays streaming spectrogram in real-time, as well as recognized notes. Adjustable recognition parameters allow to improve recognition quality.

Rogue Amoeba has two minor updates, for Nicecast and LineIn. The update to Nicecast (v1.8.2) includes many small new features, including Smart Crash Reports and an updated VoiceOver plugin. As well, they fixed two important bugs related to Archiving and hijacking of widgets. Meanwhile, the LineIn update fixes a bug that caused crashes in rare cases, as well as adding Silence Input and Output devices. Both of these updates can be downloaded immediately. Please note that as of October 14th, Detour has been retired from active development. It is now freely available and will automatically register itself, enabling unlimited use.

Rogue Amoeba team has updated the face of rogueamoeba.com web site, where you can now also buy the plush "Ammo the Amoeba" if you want to improve your life !

Hartmann, the small German company behind one of the rare breakthrough in synth design these last years, is in great difficulties. Some may already know their software NeuronVS went sold at low price on some German stores. It was in fact a nervous move from the company which builds their hardware during some negotiations. It ended up to screw the distribution, annoy shops, not to talk about customers. In the end, Hartmann is facing financial difficulties as it is in a niche market and money has always been tight for them even with the help of Hans Zimmer who helped them a lot. They are fighting right now to keep up their production and save the day, and continue the development of their technology.

In difficult times for synth manufacturers, it's a shame some erratic moves from another company can endanger innovative breakthrough. I still hope the best for the Hartmann, which works on a solution hard, so they can come thru all this mix up fast. The Neuron synths deserve this.

Mawzer will ship their MIDI controlers in January '06 for early customers, press and exhibitions. They also will open their web shop in first quarter of 2006. Mazwer is a new modular MIDI controller allowing an infinite customizable combination of controls. You can cange the configuration in seconds to adapt your studio project or live situation, day afer day, just by pluging Mawzer Modules in the Backplane, assign midi controls in your favorite software, and you're ready to play !