Many years ago, Brian Eno popularised the term "generative music" to describe music that is ever-different and changing, and that is created by a system. Let me introduce you to Nodal, a generative software application for composing music designed by Peter Mcilwain.

Nodal uses a novel method for the notation and playing of MIDI based music. This method is based around the concept of a user-defined graph. The graph consists of nodes (musical events) and edges (connections between events). You interactively define the graph, which is then traversed by any number of players who play the musical events as they encounter them on the graph. The time taken to travel from one node to another is based on the length of the edges that connect the nodes.

Nodal is a freeware for Mac OS X.

Future Audio Workshop (FAW) has released a new bank of 30 sounds for Circle, their fabulous semi-modular software synthesizer. Designed by Dajan Izzo, this first Circle Sound bank is available now on the Circle downloads page, here.

Note that you will also find on this page a comprehensive template for using Circle with the Lemur multi touch control surface. This template can be used in its entireity or as base for making your own custom templates.

Sample Logic is proud to present its latest virtual instrument, Synergy. Weighing in at over 18 Gigabytes, this epic collection of 1200+ instruments, tempo-synced loops, and multis delivers the next generation of diverse sounds in an intuitive user interface.  

Powered by Native Instruments Kontakt Player engine, Synergy utilizes extended sample synthesis and effectual techniques to provide you interactive, ready-to-play instruments. With Synergy's flexible sound sculpting interface, control is in your hands. Simply put, all instruments can be modified, redesigned, and customized to your preference. This makes Synergy perfect for any performance and production environment.

Ambience (295 patches)
Bass (54 patches)
Drums (55 patches)
Impacts (269 patches)
Melody (173 patches)
Pads (57 patches)
Rhythms (270 patches)
Multis (40 patches)

Synergie is available now for Mac OS X and Windows in VST, AU, DXi, RTAS and Standalone versions for a fee of $299.

Ambrosia Software has just announced the release of WireTap Anywhere, a low latency audio tool that lets you take the audio output from any Mac application or hardware input device and bring it into your favorite audio recording application.

Any program that produces audio can appear as an audio input device, allowing you to record or process it in any other application that can record from a microphone or other audio input device. For instance, record both sides of a Skype or iChat conversation directly into Peak for editing... or go the other way, and pipe the audio output of Logic Pro over Skype or iChat for a friend to listen to.

Easily create and edit all of your WireTap Anywhere devices from System Preferences. Once your devices are created, simply change the input within your favorite audio application, and you're ready to monitor, process, and record.

Best of all, mix any combination of applications and input devices into a single, logical device. Simply select the software or hardware inputs you want, and WireTap Anywhere will handle the rest.

WireTap Anywhere costs $129, is a Universal Binary, and requires Mac OS X 10.4.11 or later.

Virsyn is happy to announce the release of Prism, The Pitch Designer. The multi-band pitch shifter Prism takes a fresh approach to solve the problem of shifting the pitch of complex sound sources in realtime.

Prism splits the spectrum in 27 bands and applies a different amount of frequency shifting to each band emulating a harmonic pitch shifting. This gives you perfect pitch shifting for all kind of drum sounds over a vast shifting range of +/- five octaves without disturbing the transients or introducing metallic distortions. With harmonic sounds you will get inharmonicities but it's much better behaved than pure frequency shifting. The extreme range of shifting gives you access to a vast field of unknown sonic territory.

Features :

- 27 band realtime frequency shifter.
- 27 band equalizer
- Linear phase precision filters for maximal transparency
- +/- 5 octaves frequency shift per band
- Envelope follower controlled pitch modulation.
- LFO controlled pitch modulation.
- Surround operation *
- Minimized latency ( 12 ms )

Prism is available now for Mac OS X and Windows in VST3, VST2.4, AU and RTAS formats at an introductory price of €129 till August, 31st.

*only available for AU / RTAS / VST3 version.