The first Freedom update to version 1.0.1 is now available for all registered users in the Yellow Tools web site. The update mainly contains improvements of the automation, stability and the basic performance for the interfaces VST, RTAS and AudioUnits (Mac OS X only).

The free update is recommended to all Freedom users.

Wavemachine Labs has updated its Drumagog to version 4.0.5 in order to add a new samples page layout and features, an 'add fromTrack' feature, and to fix several bugs. Drumagog is a plug-in that automatically replaces drum tracks with a vast array of other samples. Engineers and producers worldwide use Drumagog to fix and enhance existing drum tracks. Drumagog is extremely easy to use. Just insert it onto a drum track and select your favorite sample. Drumagog does the rest. For advanced drum replacing, Drumagog is packed with powerful features for the ultimate in control. Drumagog comes complete with a drum sample collection containing hundreds of samples to get you going.

As a happy owner of the new Digidesign Mbox2 Audio and MIDI interface, I am very happy to publish in our 'Articles' section a short article, not really a review or a benchtest, but nothing more than my very first impressions after using the Mbox2 for two weeks.

Good reading !

Kyma is now available as version x.32 Universal Binary for both Intel-based and PowerPC-base Macs. This UB version runs 3.3 times faster on a MacBook Pro than on the Powerbook G4 1 Ghz. Kyma is a visual sound design environment that runs on your Macintosh. It's a graphical language for creating, modifying, and combining sounds. Kyma is an unusually open-ended, flexible, and real-time controllable environment for creating new sounds. Kyma provides you with hundreds of basic modules and over a thousand complex examples that you can combine to create your own synthesis algorithms, your own effects algorithms, and your own forms of sample manipulation that can be performed in real time with responsive controls.

This update is free for registered users.

Ableton today announced the release of Live 5.2, which delivers immediate native Intel-based Mac computer support. Intel-based Mac Live 5.0 users can purchase a Live 5.2 serial number for 49 USD/39 EUR via the Ableton webshop. Customers who purchase the upgrade to Live 6 from the Ableton webshop will receive a full refund of this 49 USD/39 EUR. Live 6 is scheduled for release in the third quarter of 2006. Intel-based Mac users who purchased Live 5 after Steve Jobs' announcement of the new Intel-based Macs (January 10, 2006) will receive the Live 5.2 download at no additional charge.

For all other Live 5 users on non-Intel-based Mac machines, Live 5.2 will be released as a free bug-fix update.