McDSP has announced that finally non-Pro Tools users will have access to McDSP plug-ins in the form of AU. I’ve said more than one time in the past that McDSP is actually one of the reasons to use Pro Tools so I consider this a blow against Avid. But I’m happy! Finally I can use ML4000, Channel G and Analog Channel in Live. They will show the plug-ins at NAMM, but we of course already know what they got to offer.

What we don’t know is what the new plug-ins will be. They have stated that they’re working on some very eye catching plug-ins that will blow you away!”. That of course remains to be seen, but I have much faith in McDSP. I’ll be sure to check out their booth at NAMM and give you the full story.

Avid has released an update for Eleven Rack but it’s in fact recommended for all systems regardless if you use Eleven Rack or not. The reason is to provide session compatibility with other users that may have an Eleven Rack.

From Avid/Digidesign:

What’s Fixed in This Update?

Runtime error, access violation, crash, and possible session corruption with Pro Tools 8.0.3 and Eleven Rack (Item #121196)

• The Eleven Rack Update for Pro Tools 8.0.3 resolves an issue in which Pro Tools 8.0.3 (HD, LE, or M-Powered) with Eleven Rack could experience a Runtime error, access violation, or crash after creating a new session. In some cases, Pro Tools would quit without saving the session.
• On Mac, problems with the appearance and use of the Eleven Rack user interface window in Pro Tools were also seen in some cases.

Grab the update it requires 8.0.3.

Waldorf released version 1.5.0 of Largo. It’s a free update with a completely new Browse page, a new 6-stage Chorus effect, new parameters in the Oscillator section and in the Arpeggiator. Several bugs has also been addressed. Still no RTAS support in sight, but Waldorf has tested it with the FXpansion VST2RTAS Wrapper and claim it works.

Waldorf

Audio Ease is giving away perhaps the coolest IR’s so far, namely of the tracking room and echo chamber at Frank Zappa’s studio the Utility Muffin Research Kitchen.
Read more →

If you’re on Mac OS X, whenever it’s time to update your system make sure you use the combo update on Apples website instead of the software updater in OS X. The combo update file will mount in Finder like a regular disk image.

There have been occasions in the past where people have had problems with Pro Tools after updating OS X and solved them by simply using the combo update.

In this post I’ve listed all the standalone applications I could think of that in some way aids Pro Tools or Pro Tools users. Some of them do very simple and specific things, tools that are just handy to keep around, others are large multi-purpose applications intended for the big production studios.
Read more →

If you’re bored this christmas and the packages you get are not up to the standard the shiny toys of yesteryear was, you might want to play around with the unreleased SoundToys Decapitator a bit instead (previous post). The public beta is now available at the SoundToys website. The final release is scheduled for January.

More about Decapitator

Head directly to the beta

The possibility to show or hide tracks in the MIDI editor on my control surface. Would have speeded up things quite a bit for me the last few days!

Three more holiday deals hit my inbox today, from PSP, Sonalksis and a deal on MetaSynth.

PSP has updated their sQuad bundle and added the PSP ClassicQex which is an extended version of the PSP ClassicQ. Until 7th of January 2010 you can buy PSP sQuad bundle at the special price of $99, which is 60% off.

PSP

Sonalksis is offering the Mastering Tools plug-ins for cheap.
MaxLimit for $99.99 / €74.99, StereoTools for $109.99 / €79.99 and the both combined in Mastering Tools for $149.99 / €109.99.

Sonalksis

The last deal today is actually through our buddies over at AudioNewsRoom. They’ve teamed up with U&I Software to offer MetaSynth 5 for $399 instead of the normal price at $599. Offer ends December 26th.

Check it out at AudioNewsRoom

If you’re running a quad iMac (i5) the following technical alert from Avid/Digidesign might be of interest to you:

These machines have not been qualified by Avid yet, but we wanted to let you know of this issue as it came up. Disabling Bluetooth should resolve SWODs, hangs, crashes and other odd behavior when using Pro Tools.

The second technical alert is regarding Eleven Rack and PT LE 8.0.3. If you’re running Eleven Rack on Windows you’re advised not to upgrade.

We are investigating a late breaking issue found with the initial release of Pro Tools LE 8.0.3 for Windows. On Windows systems (XP, Vista, Win 7) with Eleven Rack and Pro Tools LE 8.0.3, a Runtime error can occur after creating a new session. In some cases, Pro Tools quits without saving the session. Given the possibility of losing session data, we recommend that Eleven Rack users on Windows DO NOT update to Pro Tools 8.0.3 until we are able to resolve this issue and make a fix available.