| DigiWorld 2000 Mixing Version 5 business with plug-in pleasure
by Markkus Rovito & Brent Hurtig
July 21, 2000See our exclusive video: Highlights from Digiworld
(Real)
Digidesign isn't at this summer's NAMM show; at least, they're not anteing up for booth space. Rather, presumably to the chagrin of the NAMM officials, they simultaneously held a one-day offsite confab of their own, DigiWorld, at Emerald Studios in Nashville's famed Music Row.
Emerald was bejeweled with Digidesign products and their associated specialists, plus an interesting mix of plug-ins and other Pro Tools-compatible goodies from various third-party developers. For any serious Pro Tools junkie, it was a serious, concentrated fix. Where else, for instance, could you find at least a dozen of Digidesign's drool-worthy ProControl mixing surfaces in one studio?
Pro Tools 5 MIDI Features & DirectConnect
Digidesign demonstrated Pro Tools 5.0.1, a "maintenance release" (nice-speak for "bug fix") of their version 5 software. (See our review.) While PT 5's MIDI sequencing features are decent, they still don't replace the likes of a high-end sequencer such as Steinberg's Cubase, Emagic's Logic Audio, or MOTU's Digital Performer. What is impressive, from a MIDI perspective, is Digidesign's new DirectConnect technology, which allows software-based synthesizers (such as Unity DS-1 from BitHeadz, Reaktor by Native Instruments, and Koblo's Studio9000 virtual instruments) to join the Pro Tools party.
DigiWorld Third-Party Highlights
If there's anything more exciting than Pro Tools' new MIDI and DirectConnect features, it has to be the vast and continually evolving array of plug-ins available for Digidesign's AudioSuite, TDM, and RTAS formats. A host of plug-in developers were representing their well-respected wares, such as the Waves Gold Bundle, Access Virus plug-in, Line 6 Amp Farm, and AnTares AutoTune. But some newbies also managed to stand out among the familiar faces.
McDSP debuted its spanking new multi-band compressor plug-in, MC2000. You can go nuts fattening sounds with its two-, three-, or four-band configurations and 48-bit processing. MC2000 also recreates the sound of several dozen of the most popular compressors ever made by Drawmer, dbx, and others. List price is $595 available from retailers or direct from www.mcdsp.com.
MC2000 has a clean cut graphic interface with some very helpful waveform imaging.
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Pitch 'n Time, a time-stretching and pitch-shifting plug-in by Serato that debuted at Winter NAMM 2000, advanced to version 2.0, though it's still in beta and not yet shipping. New features for the update include variable time stretch and variable pitch-shift modes.
Speed's control panel has received a graphic overhaul.
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Another time-stretching and pitch-shifting plug-in, WaveMechanics' Speed, showcased a new graphic interface and a new feature allowing variable tempo ramping while maintaining original pitch.
Finally, Sounddogs.com showed off their massive online database of great sound effects, all searchable by keywords or categories, all auditionable (in streaming low-fi), and available in both .WAV and AIFF formats. Even better, many SFX cost just a few bucks (the price varies upon the length and the sample rate you choose to download) -- which sure beats shelling out two grand for a sound effects library, when all you need is the perfect, say, dog bark. |
