Synths and workstations

Moog wins award from Appliance design

Moog wins award from Appliance design

Moog Music is proud to announce that the Etherwave Pro theremin has won the 2005 Excellence in Design Award from Appliance Design Magazine. This stunning instrument was selected for consideration based on its pleasing aesthetics and fine craftsmanship. The award, given in the leisure appliance category, was judged based on three factors; appearance, human factors and innovation.

Musicians Friend buys Harmony Central

Musicians Friend buys Harmony Central

Harmony Central, the leading information site and online community for musicians, has been acquired by Musician’s Friend, the largest online and catalog music gear retailer. Both companies serve the general musical community and share a common culture of values and goals. With the support and resources of Musician’s Friend, Harmony Central can now look forward to an even greater future.

DigitalMusician.net offers a free service

DigitalMusician.net offers a free service

DM Digital Musician has now finalized their pricing structure. Digitalmusician.net will launch as a free service in August 2005 with a standard account that will offer full access to the digitalmusician.net (DMN) community web site and free use of the Digital Musician Link VST plug-in for real time audio and MIDI recording via internet with audio transmission rates that are equivalent to 128/bit mp3 compression.

Novation news and OS updates for A and K-Station

As evidence of Novation’s continual commitment to improving existing products and supporting customers, multiple updates have been uploaded to the site over the last week. These include learn files for Logic 7 and Cubase SX3, a new OS for the A- and K-Station and an updated ReMOTE Template Editor, MIDI Driver and OS.


The new OS for the A-Station (2.1.02) and K-Station (2.1.01) offers several significant modifications, affecting the sound and operation of the synth. Clicks caused by changing the patch whilst the previous one is still sounding have been addressed and MIDI clock synchronization has been greatly improved. The A/K-Station can now accept very high levels of jitter from the incoming clock and even clean up and retransmit an unstable clock, as well as being able to act as a master MIDI clock. In addition, the A-Station’s arpeggiator can now work identically to the K-Station’s, offering the ability to transmit arpeggiator notes to its MIDI output.


The ReMOTE has had a revamping in several areas, with a new OS and MIDI driver both eliminating minor bugs. Many improvements can be seen in the new Template Editor (1.1), including fixed excessive idle CPU usage and crashing after multiple undo/redo. The memory usage and download size has also been reduced and the MIDI Library and Tooltip behaviour have been expanded and enhanced.


Last but by no means least, in response to floods of requests from Novation customers, new learn files with instructions for Logic 7 and Cubase SX3 and accompanying Templates have been added to the ReMOTE and X-Station Download sections. Simply downloading all learn files using the link and then opening the folder for the relevant software wanting to be controlled will show instructions for how to set up the new Templates and import the relevant learn files. Once done, the ReMOTE/X-Station can be used to control the Transport window, 8 channels of the mixer (volume, pans, mutes etc.), open up the edit matrix, call up certain tools and a host of other useful things.


All of the above can be downloaded from the specific product Download pages in the User area of the site. To make these pages even more user friendly, dates have now been added to all items; Operating Systems, Drivers, Learn files etc.


On other matters, for those wondering about Novation product compatibility with new software, the following products have been tested with Tiger + Logic 7.01 / GB 2.01:

Bass Station 1.4 AU

V-Station 1.4 AU

ReMOTE MIDI Driver

Speedio MIDI Driver

X-Station MIDI Driver



Speedio Core Audio Driver

X-Station Core Audio Driver

X-Station Beta Core Audio Driver



All work fine, however you cannot use multiple X Stations or multiple Speedios with Tiger’s soundcard device aggregation feature (being able to use multiple soundcards together). One X Station and one Speedio will work together using this feature. The Novation team are currently busy working on a version of V-Station that will run with Logic 7.1.


For more information please visit www.novationmusic.com

Roland ships the V-Synth XT

Roland ships the V-Synth XT

Named the “Synthesizer of the Year” at the recent International Press Awards, Roland’s groundbreaking V-Synth now has a travel-friendly offspring. The XT is a portable new V-Synth with some spectacular tricks up its sleeves — and with enough synthesis and audio-processing power to make heads spin. It’s fully stocked with a potent array of synthesis types, including the V-Synth’s famous Elastic Audio Synthesis engine, plus analog-synth modeling, vocal modeling, and classic D-50 emulation. Add to that a rich lineup of COSM® effects, external audio processing, a touch-sensitive color display, eight universal edit knobs, and you have an instrument that redefines rack/tabletop technology.