ReWire Available for All
January 28, 1999Stockholm/Hamburg/Los Angeles - Propellerhead Software and Steinberg Soft-
& Hardware today announced that the highly acclaimed ReWire protocol is
made available for use by other manufacturers of digital audio products. This
provides extremely exciting opportunities for audio software manufacturers to
integrate applications on Mac and PC.
A typical application using ReWire would be a software synthesizer or a multimedia
authoring application with audio output. Examples of a receiving application
would be a software audio mixer, processor or recorder. ReWire has been available
in Propellerhead Software's ReBirth RB-338 and Steinberg Soft- & Hardware's
Cubase VST since June 1998, and is hence used successfully in thousands of systems
all over the world.
Generally ReWire is a technology for transferring audio data between software
applications, in real time, the software equivalent of a multi-channel audio
cable. The idea was born when Propellerhead Software and Steinberg Soft- &
Hardware realized that a surprisingly important link was missing in the current
concept of the software based music studio. In order to connect a synthesizer
or other hardware musical instrument to a mixer or recorder of another brand,
you use a simple audio cable. How would you do the same in a software environment?
The simple answer is: You couldn't. Now you can!
ReWire provides up to 64 channels of real-time audio (at extremely high resolution
and practically any bandwidth) to be transferred between applications. It also
ensures sample accurate synchronization between clients and server, and provides
common transport functionality (play, stop, locate etc.) for the entire system.
The system is currently MacOS and Windows 98/NT compatible.
Anyone interested in creating a commercial ReWire application is welcome to
apply, free of license fee barriers. Propellerhead Software will administer
the authorization, copyrights, logos and trademarks.
Ernst Nathorst-Böös, Managing Director of Propellerhead Software
said, "We think there's a tremendous need for a standard in this area,
and we are extremely excited over the possibilities that ReWire provides. Together
with Steinberg we have once again proven that the concept of the software music
studio and the 'native audio system' has matured to a point from where there's
no turning back. We sincerely believe that musicians all over the world will
appreciate our effort to make their audio and music applications work as closely
together as possible".
Manfred Rürup, Manging Director of Steinberg says: "Last year Steinberg
opened the VST and ASIO technology to the industry to simplify the use of soft-
and hardware on both major platforms for the customer. The ReWire Protocol,
a joint development by the Propellerheads and Steinberg had to go that same
route and now is the right time to do that. It's a mature technology and it
definitely will push the idea of the virtual studio to the next level."
Propellerhead Software is a Swedish company quickly establishing itself as
a leader in music and audio software. The company is committed to putting previously
expensive audio hardware technology within the reach of every musician.
Availability and SDKs will be announced and published at: www.propellerheads.se For more information, visit Steinberg at http://www.steinberg.net/ | 
