New in stock at Sweetwater Sound: Korg has struck again, this time with their new NX5R module. The little half rack jewel sports 64 voices (expandable to 96 with XG daughter board), literally thousands of sounds, and is fully programmable. Retail price $725.
I just found out that someone spilled the beans somewhere so I don’t have to hold on to this secret any longer. Digidesign showed us a while ago what is going to be their big entry into the low cost host based DAW market (they were planning to unveil it at AES, but…). Digi001, which should ship in the next couple of months, is based on a new technology known as RTAS (pronounced ARE-TAS, and stands for Real Time Audio Suite), which will make Audio Suite plug-ins work in real time. This is the first entry level Pro Tools system that really works like Pro Tools. The interface has two mic preamps, 8 balanced analog inputs, one digital (S/PDIF) input, and an eight channel ADAT optical input for a grand total of 18 simultaneously (yes, simultaneously) available inputs, all of which are 24-bit. Output configuration is similarly flexible. The system will come with Pro Tools 5.0 LE software and be ready for multitrack & MIDI recording, processing, and mixing right out of the box using what is arguably the most elegant and refined digital audio recording software on the planet. Retail price is scheduled to be $995, but we don’t know how solid that figure is.
Make no mistake though; this is NOT a Pro Tools system. It uses host based processing whereas a Pro Tools system uses special DSP engines and TDM for much more intense processing needs and real time functionality. Of course, one of the greatest things about Digi001 is there is an upgrade path all the way to the most fully blown out Pro Tools system. This is all we have space for now. You heard it here first…well, almost. There is much more info to come.
“G4. It’s a hit!” Can anyone tell me where that obscure reference comes from? The real G4 news is from Apple. They’ve just introduced the much-anticipated G4 processor, which is the first “supercomputer” on a chip. What makes a supercomputer “super” is its ability to execute at least one billion floating-point operations per second. It’s a staggering measure of speed known as a “gigaflop” and you can now put one on or under your desk.
