Behringer has introduced the U-Control UMA25S, a super-slim controller keyboard with a fully fledged USB audio interface.
From the product page:
This little monster has 21 assignable controllers to give you total control. We included the DAW software energyXT2 Compact BEHRINGER Edition plus a plethora of software widgets allow you to rock straight out of the box. Fun guaranteed!
U-CONTROL UMA25S features
- Stage performer and producer keyboard featuring 25 velocity-sensitive, full-size plus half-action keys.
- Built-in USB audio interface to connect your instruments and mixer to your computer for recording and playback.
- Powerful multi-platform digital audio workstation software energyXT2 Compact BEHRINGER Edition included.
- Audacity audio editor, comprehensive podcasting software and over 100 virtual instruments plus more than 50 effect plug-ins included.
- 21 assignable controllers storable in User Presets: 8 knobs, 8 buttons (with transport-control option), 2 wheels, 1 fader and 2 pedal ports.
- Advanced control features such as drawbar mode (control inversion), drum triggering, incremental value step and octave +/-.
- Soft gig bag, high-quality headset and guitar strap for direct live jamming on stage included.
- Plug and play with Mac OS X, Windows XP and Vista operating systems; additional low-latency driver included.
- Separate MIDI output allows controlling external samplers, synths and other equipment.
- Runs via USB bus, batteries or power adapter (not included).
- High-quality components and exceptionally rugged construction ensure long life.
- Conceived and designed by BEHRINGER Germany.
The UMA25S has a US MSRP of $189.99 USD.
Visit Behringer for more information.
A new beta of the free cross-platform sound editor Audacity has been released: 1.3.3 (beta).
New in v1.3.3 beta
- Opening/saving formats
- Import: Import of audio from QuickTime (mov, aac, m4a) files now supported on OSX, Broadcast Wave Format (BWF) wave files can now be imported
- Export: Metadata can be added to OGG files, Improved Export option selection, Additional export options added to MP3 and FLAC file formats, Command line exporter now supported on Windows and OSX
- Effects
- EQ effect: Responsiveness improved, Several enhancements added, Batch support added
- New Auto Duck effect
- Added previewing to AudioUnit effects
- Much improved Noise Removal effect
- Effects previewing can now be canceled
- New DTMF Tone Generator effect
- Additional options available in Noise effect
- Improved the Tone Generation effects
- Other features
- New built-in screen capture utility
- Major speed improvement in Spectrogram rendering
- Increased support for drag and drop on OSX
- Support added for building against wxWidgets 2.8.x
- Can now open multiple Audacity Projects at once from Explorer on Windows
- Improved main window sliders
- New support for snapping while selecting and sliding
- Improved track focus handling and visual feedback
- Speed improvements and handling of resizing/zooming in tracks
- Spectrum view can now be zoomed
- New internal file cache to improve handling of project files over networks
The new beta also has many improvements to language specific translations and numerous stability improvements.
Visit Audacity for more information and links to download Audacity.
The stable version of the free cross-platform sound editor Audacity has been updated to version 1.2.6.
Changes in Audacity 1.2.6
- Fixed memory leaks on Windows
- Corrected font size problems
- Enabled missing FLAC support
- Fixed Mac OS X (PPC only) screen redraw issues
There are still a few known problems in the stable branch as well:
- Audacity can import and display MIDI files, but cannot play or edit them
- Linux: Recording in full duplex (playing existing tracks while recording) on some systems causes mono recordings to sound distorted or low-pitched. To work around this problem, set Audacity to record in stereo
- MacOS X: Audacity cannot work with files or folders that are contained inside folders with non-English characters (accents, symbols, etc.) in their names. Files with accented characters work, and Audacity projects with accented characters work. Only folders with accented characters in their names will cause problems
Visit the Audacity website for more information and a link to download the latest stable version of Audacity.
Two new versions of the free cross-platform sound editor Audacity have been released: 1.2.5 (stable), and 1.3.2 (beta).
While the stable version gets a few bugfixes and support for some new file formats (including FLAC), the beta is where it gets interesting.
Check out what’s new below.
Beta version 1.3.2
- Usability improvements
- New selection bar
- New features for label tracks
- Improved toolbar docking flexibility
- Menu renaming and reorganization
- Selection, ruler, and playback control improvements
- Major improvements to some built-in effects
- New Repair effect
- Improved Equalization effect
- Many fixes and minor improvements to other effects
- Improved accessibility for the visually impaired
- Improvements for screen readers, accessibility of tracks, and hot keys
- Timer recording
- Auto-save and automatic crash recovery
- New features and bug fixes for Nyquist
- Restructured Preferences dialog
- Improved batch processing
- File format export improvements
- Intel Mac support
- Many bug fixes and stability improvements
Furthermore, a set of 92 LADSPA plug-ins has been ported to Windows (LADSPA is the standard open source format for Linux audio plug-ins) and are now available on this platform for both Audacity 1.2.x and 1.3.x.
You can also use your VST plug-ins in Audacity with the optional VST Enabler plug-in.
Visit Audacity for more information and links to download Audacity.
Audacity 1.2.4 is a new stable version of Audacity.
It includes a couple of bug fixes and minor improvements and is recommended for all users.
Audacity 1.3.0 is a beta release that contains hundreds of new features, but this version is unfinished and unstable, and is recommended primarily for advanced users. You can install both Audacity 1.2 and 1.3 simultaneously.
Changes in Audacity 1.2.4
- The File menu now includes a list of recent files.
- The “Generate Silence” effect now prompts for a length.
- Audacity is now built with Vorbis 1.1, which features better encoding
quality and file compression. - Dragging sound files into the Audacity window now works on Mac OS X
and Linux, as well as Windows. (Before, it worked only on Windows.) - Better support for certain audio devices on Mac OS X 10.4 “Tiger”
- The “View History” window can now discard old undo levels to save disk
space on Windows. (This previously worked only on Linux and Mac.) - “Preferences” command is now in Edit menu.
- “Plot Spectrum” command is now in Analyze menu.
- Opening a project file saved by a later version of Audacity displays
an intelligent error message. Also, trying to import a project file
(instead of open it) displays an intelligent error message. - Audacity now compiles in Visual C++ .NET 2003.
- Other minor bug fixes.
- New or updated translations: Arabic (ar), Czech (cs), Finnish (fi),
Hungarian (hu), Japanese (ja), Norwegian (nb), Slovenian (sl),
Simplified Chinese (zh_CN), Traditional Chinese (zh_TW).
New features in Audacity 1.3
The new features in Audacity 1.3 have been grouped into the following six major categories. Click on the links below for more information.
- Collapse/Expand Tracks
- Multiple clips per track
- Selection Bar
- Improved Label Tracks
- QuickTime and Audio Units on Mac OS X
- Other features
More information and links to download the new stable and beta are available at the Audacity sourcefore site.
