June 8, 2012

Adobe Audition CS6 Announced

Adobe to unveil Production Premium CS6 at broadcasters confab



National Association of Broadcasters convention will host debut of Premiere Pro CS6 and related video software

The National Association of Broadcasters trade show in Las Vegas will host the first public preview of brand new versions of Adobe's Production Premium video editing and motion graphics suite of programs, destined for Creative Suite 6 and its new Creative Cloud subscription service.
These pre-release demos are sneak peeks at what will soon be in store for cinematographers, videographers, color technicians, motion graphics specialists, and a huge number of creative professionals connected to the movie-making industry in the upcoming Creative Suite releases.
Among the programs planned for showcase to convention attendees are Premiere Pro, After Effects, Audition, Story, Media Encoder, Encore, and newcomers SpeedGrade, a film finishing and color grading app, and Prelude, for ingest, logging, and transcoding. The impending release of Production Premium CS6 will provide a multitude of improvements to Adobe's video applications. Here are some of the highlights.
Demos will take place at Adobe's booth #SL2624 in the Las Vegas Convention Center from April 16 through 19. Demos will also take place in more than 60 partner booths throughout the exhibition.

Premiere Pro CS6

Premiere Pro, Adobe’s flagship video editing software package, is targeted to a wide range of users, such as editors and post-production pros, motion graphics designers, visual artists, and photographers shooting video.
Updates include both new features and improvements in interface, workflow, image stabilization, enhanced multicam editing, and a newly enhanced Mercury Playback Engine. The program provides native support for more pro level cameras and more powerful color workflows.
Interface enhancements The new version of Premiere Pro starts off with a new default two-up workspace, which positions the Source Monitor and the Program Monitor side by side to allow more room for the video display. The monitor panels have been redesigned to be less cluttered and more customizable. The Project panel, Media Browser, Info panel, and Effects panel are set at the lower left while the Timeline panel and Audio Meters panel are at the lower right.
The original default workspace is still available from the Workspaces menu, and you can save customized workspace layouts with each project file.
Taking a page from its sister app, the audio oriented Audition, Premiere Pro CS6 offers a redesigned and more functional audio mixer. Double-clicking a fader returns it to 0dB, and the mixer includes separate decibel-level scales for meters and faders. The mixer panel provides fast, accurate visual feedback about audio signal levels. Faders automatically scale when you resize the panel.
New Project Panel views let you view, sort, and arrange your media more easily by viewing resizable 16:9 thumbnails of your clips directly in the Project panel. Also included are a resizable thumbnail view in the Media Browser panel and a new time ruler bar in the Source Monitor, Program Monitor, and Timeline panels. New markers are now displayed in color. Thumbnails are live-scrubbable for preview inside the Project Panel.
Workflow improvements This version of Premiere Pro offers multiple improvements to trimming features. The new Trim Mode in the Program Monitor provides a two-up display showing the outgoing and incoming frames. Buttons for performing some trim functions and applying default transitions, as well as counters that can track the number of frames trimmed, are located beneath the two-up display.
Additional workflow improvements include keyboard shortcuts for trimming, more customizeable keyboard shortcut sets, and gestural control. The program now updates sequence settings to match clips, lets you apply effects and adjustment layers quickly and easily, and offers enhanced flexible audio effects.
Image stabilization Premiere Pro CS6 includes and improves upon a much-anticipated feature introduced in After Effects CS5.5—Warp Stabilizer. When you apply the Warp Stabilizer effect to a clip, the program takes care of the analysis and stabilization without further input. Warp Stabilizer processes individual areas of the frame separately to compensate for parallax.



The same power Warp Stabilization controls previously only available in After Effects CS5.5 are now available in Premiere Pro CS6.



Warp Stabilizer works in the background to analyze and stabilize a shot while allowing you to continue editing. Because Warp Stabilizer is optimized to take advantage of GPU acceleration, users with supported Nvidia GPUs or some MacBook Pros running OS X 10.7 with a supported AMD RadeonTM GPU and a minimum of 1GB of VRAM, will see even better performance.
The new Rolling Shutter Repair effect allows you to correct distortion artifacts that result from scanning a CMOS imaging sensor, typically presented in DSLR footage, vertically or horizontally.
during recording to correct problems like wobble, skew, and smear.
Expanded multicam editing The new version of Adobe Premiere Pro offers expanded multicam support, allowing you to work with as many cameras as you want. Previously, you could work with multicam footage from four cameras. Now, you’re limited only by the formats you’re working with and the power of your editing computer.



Premiere Pro CS6 has better Multi-Camera support, with many more simultaneous cameras selectable in the monitor.

The Multi-Camera Monitor plays the footage from each camera in a grid that automatically adjusts to accomodate the number of cameras in your shoot and a preview of the recorded sequence. After you’ve created a multicam edit, you can refine it either by re-performing sections of your edit from within the Multi-Camera Monitor or by using traditional editing tools, applying effects, or correcting color.



Live video scrubbing in the scaleable thumbnails inside the new Clip Bin.

Mercury Playback Engine If you're familiar with Premiere Pro CS5 or CS5.5, you already know the Mercury Playback Engine, technology that uses the graphics processor rather than CPU to boost video editing performance. GPU acceleration via supported Nvidia graphics cards and new support for OpenCL-based AMD Radeon HD 6750M and AMD Radeon HD 6770M graphics cards—coupled with at least 1GB VRAM on certain MacBook Pros running OS X 10.7—offer improved mobile workflows to Mac users, according to Adobe.

You can send your entire Premiere Pro CS6 sequence to SpeedGrade for professional color grading in the raw, native formats without having to render first.

With these cards, you will see results instantly when vector keying with the Ultra keyer, applying blend modes, correcting color with PremierePro's new Three-Way Color Corrector, and with many other effects. The new version also features expanded third-party I/O support for vendors like Aja, Black Magic Design, Matrox, and others.
Native footage support With this release, Premiere Pro gets native support for ARRIRAW footage shot with ARRI Alexa cameras as well as support for HD (1920-by-1080) and 2K (2880-by-1680) ARRIRAW files at a variety of frame rates. Building on its support for RED digital cinema workflows, Adobe Premiere Pro CS6 includes native support for RED R3D and RMD files—including 5K resolution footage—shot with RED SCARLET-X and RED EPIC cameras. There's also native support for Canon XF MPEG-2 50mbps format footage shot with Canon Cinema EOS C300 cameras.
Suite interaction The new version of Premiere Pro CS6 offers a more intuitive three-way color corrector, integrated color grading workflows with the new Adobe SpeedGrade, efficient ingest and logging with Adobe Prelude, improved, workflows with Apple's Final Cut Pro and Avid software, and the ability to author and publish DVDs, Blu-ray discs, and Web DVDs faster with 64-bit Adobe Encore CS6.

After Effects CS6

After Effects CS6 is a new version of Adobe’s motion graphics software targeted to visual effects artists, video editors, post production professionals, and interactive designers. New features include global performance cache, 3D Camera Tracker, a revamped Ray Trace 3D rendering engine, variable mask feathering, Pro Import After Effects, and more.
Global performance cache This feature is an under-the-hood improvement that lets After Effects take full advantage of computer hardware. Its technologies include global RAM cache, persistent disk cache, and a new graphics pipeline.
The program's improved frame caching system allows you to reuse elements and experiment with ideas without having to wait for a previously created frame to re-render.
With persistent disk cache, After Effects CS6 lets you reopen an earlier project with your previously rendered cache still intact, and ready for immediate preview, playback, and rendering. You can also render and cache a composition’s work area to disk in the background while you continue to work.
With the new graphics pipeline, After Effects CS6 makes better use of OpenGL and your computer's video card when drawing images to the screen. You get faster interactivity, a more responsive work environment, and a smoother, more immediate experience, Adobe says.
3D Camera Tracker The new 3D Camera Tracker effect automatically analyzes the motion in 2D footage and computes the position, orientation, and field of view of the actual camera that shot the scene and creates a new 3D camera in After Effects to match it. It also overlays 3D track points onto the 2D footage, making it easy and intuitive for you to attach new 3D After Effects layers onto the original footage.



3D Camera Tracker analyses and creates track points in depth within footage.

Ray Trace 3D engine After Effects CS6 introduces a new Ray-Traced 3D rendering engine, allowing you to quickly design fully ray-traced, geometric text and shape layers in 3D. Enhanced 3D capabilities include beveled and extruded text and shape layers, the ability to bend footage and composition layers, adding dimension for more interesting lighting effects; and environment map support for photorealistic reflections of virtual imagery. Additional material options include reflection, transparency, and index of refraction to mimic light traveling through glass and other translucent materials.



3D Text and shape extrusions can also be applied to converted Illustrator layers.

Variable Mask Feathering With the new Variable Mask Feathering, you can work precisely and create the exact shape you want with the proper degree of softness at the edges, yielding more realistic composites. After Effects has long had the ability to add a feathered soft edge to masked shapes, but in previous versions the width of the feather was the same around the entire mask. After Effects CS6 contains a new Mask Feather tool that lets you define almost an infinite number of points along a closed mask, and define the width of the feather at each of these points.



Variable edge feathering along mask paths.

An advanced Rolling Shutter Repair effect contains two different selectable algorithms to help fix problematic footage. After Effects CS6 also makes it easier to enhance the production value of your projects, with more than 80 new and updated built-in effects.



Rolling Shutter repair for DSLR footage.

Pro Import After Effects Previously available as a separate product from Automatic Duck, Pro Import After Effects is now included with After Effects CS6.
In addition to the integration with Adobe Premiere Pro CS6 software inside the Adobe Creative Suite 6 Production Premium and Master Collection, this utility plugs After Effects into any professional production workflow. It lets you import and work with Avid Media Composer and Symphony files, as well as XML files from Apple Final Cut Pro 7 or earlier versions. It translates many effects and parameters from supported Avid and Apple files into After Effects, including position, scale, rotation, keyframes, composite modes, titles, speed changes, and more.



3D comp and footage layers can now be bent.

Improved mocha workflow After Effects CS6 now includes a Track In mocha AE menu command that lets you launch mocha AE directly from within the program. That lets you immediately begin working with the per-vertex feathering and other masking tools available in mocha AE, as well as in mocha shape.

Prelude CS6

Adobe Prelude CS6 provides a unified interface for ingest and logging workflows, allowing you to work faster, stay organized, and streamline your production process. This software lets you copy and transcode to your storage infrastructure and begin logging immediately, adding searchable markers and other metadata. It also creates rough cuts with post-production notes that flow into Adobe Premiere Pro CS6, to communicate the vision for the project through final editing.
Full or partial ingest Prelude CS6 lets you ingest all your footage at once, or select and ingest just a portion of it. You also have the option to transcode the files to your preferred format.
Performing a full ingest means transferring your entire video file to your hard drive and preparing it for logging and handoff. Open the Ingest workspace, navigate to your files, select the files to ingest, and then click the Ingest button. A partial ingest is also easy. Open the Ingest panel, navigate to your files, and click on the video’s thumbnail. While watching the video, drag the playhead and press the I key to set the In point. Drag the playhead to the desired Out point and press the O key. Click the Transcode option, and then click the Ingest button. Your partially ingested video clip—the file you will send for editing—is now listed in the Project panel.



dobe Prelude CS6 allows you to ingest footage to your hard drive and and transcode on the fly.

Transcoding during ingest Prelude CS6 gives you the option of transcoding footage to your preferred editing format, thus optimizing storage. You select the Transcode option in the Transfer Options panel and are given the option to select the format and presets for the file.
The program also offers keyboard driven logging, searchable time-based markers and metadata, rough cuts that open in Premiere Pro, write confirmation, speech transcription, and customizable markers and metadata import.
Prelude replaces OnLocation, which shipped in early versions of the Production Premium, though not all OnLocation features are available in Prelude CS6, such as live monitoring with Waveform or Vectorscope feedback.

Audition CS6

Adobe Audition CS6 provides a unified audio editing and mixing environment for video and broadcast workflows. Targeted to audio engineers and broadcast editors as well as video professionals, Audition CS6 features roundtrip editing in conjunction with Adobe Premiere Pro and smooth project exchange with third-party nonlinear editors and digital audio workstations.
This version offers new features for editing and sound design, such as real-time clip stretching, automatic speech alignment and pitch correction, expanded production capacity with control surface support, recordable track automation, multiple clipboards, HD video playback, native 5.1 surround editing, and audio sweetening and restoration tools.
Building on past releases, Adobe Audition CS6 offers broader support for audio and video formats and increased output options including Redbook CD burning and compliance with the latest ITU loudness standards. New features for industry-standard metadata include AES-46 Cart Chunk, integration with radio automation systems, and other broadcast workflows.
Audio editing enhancements include clip grouping with Group Suspend, preview of edits with Skip Selection playback mode, new precise entry of envelope keyframe values, and fast clip spotting with start- or end-time entry.
Faster and more precise audio editing features include clip grouping, trim to time election, edit preview with skip selection, envelope keyframe editing, direct clip editing in the Properties panel, multiple clipboards, real-time clip stretching, auto speech alignment, control surface and app support, and pitch controls.
Audition CS6 improves on asset management to let you find the files you need more quickly. Panels such as Media Browser, Files, Markers, and Session let you view your files on local and networked drives, find files by typing in just a part of the name, view all markers in your section in one window, and create session templates that speed up recording files.
Audition CS3 also offers expanded audio and video formats, New effects, VST3 support, and flexible effects routing, enhanced support for radio automation, improved batch processing, and a new metronome.

SpeedGrade CS6

SpeedGrade CS6, a full color grading and finishing tool, is targeted to editors, motion graphics and vidual effects artists, and professional colorists, is a new addition to the Adobe lineup. The technology for the program, formerly from a company called Iridas, was acquired last September.
The program now offers a sleek new interface and and is engineered for modern file-based workflows. It is a native 64-bit application with GPU-accelerated performance and support for raw, HDR, and stereoscopic content. It's compatible with footage from digital cinema cameras such as ARRI ALEXA and RED and with popular post-production interchange formats such as QuickTime, DPX, and OpenEXR. The program ensures that all your shots are accurately matched and every project is styled using layer-based tools for color correction and look design. Resize and reframe your final masters for virtually any display format.



SpeedGrade is a powerful color grading tool with advanced controls and features previously only found on high-end editing systems.

Lumetri Deep Color Engine The non-destructive Lumetri Deep Color Engine is a 32-bit floating-point image-processing technology at the heart of SpeedGrade CS6. It offers maximum scope for working with High Dynamic Range content, allowing you to pull details from blacks and highlights that might otherwise be lost. It also allows you to work directly with raw files, the digital negative from your camera sensor. You can combine and refine looks, effects, and new grading layers without having to commit to any color decisions until final rendering.
Color corrections, masks, and filters are applied as layers, making it easy to use simple elements to build up and make adjustments to complex grades. You can add, remove, combine, and rearrange grades and effects, and adjust the influence of each layer with its own opacity slider. You apply primary color corrections to the whole image and secondary color corrections to specific color ranges. SpeedGrade CS6 allows you to define a very narrow color range for a secondary to, say, emphasize a specific element in the image, like skin tones. You can also use broader secondary color ranges when you want to showcase rich greens in a forest or red shades of a sunset.
Masks are part of the layer structure and can be positioned as easily as any other layer, so that color corrections are applied to the areas inside, or outside, your mask.
SpeedGrade CS6 includes a selection of professionally designed Looks, film-style filters, and effects, in addition to the application’s color adjustment tools.


There are many great Look presets that you can apply and modify to best suit your needs, including classic film stocks.

For stereoscopic projects, SpeedGrade CS6 loads stereo 3D frame sequences, offers multiple viewing options, features automatic geometric and colorimetric correction, and display support.
Automatic scene detection and Pan and Scan features automatically identify edits from archived projects and allow you to reframe content for virtually any deliverable format.

System requirements

Adobe Production Premium CS6 runs of both Mac and Windows operating systems. Mac requirements include a multicore Intel processor with 64-bit support, Mac OS X 10.6.8 or 10.7, at least 4GB of RAM (8GB recommended), 4GB of available hard-disk space for installation; additional free space during installation (software cannot install on volumes that use a case-sensitive file system or on removable flash storage devices), additional disk space for disk cache (10GB recommended), a 1280x900-pixel display, and an OpenGL 2.0–capable system.
For Windows, requirements include an Intel Core 2 Duo or AMD Phenom II processor with 64-bit support, Microsoft Windows 7 with Service Pack 1 (64 bit), at least 4GB of RAM (8GB recommended), 3GB of available hard-disk space; additional free space during installation (software cannot install on removable flash storage devices), additional disk space for disk cache (10GB recommended), a 1280x900-pixel display, and an OpenGL 2.0–capable system.
Adobe has not revealed the actual date when CS6 and Creative Cloud will launch, but has indicated it will be within the first half of 2012. The prices of the new versions also have not been announced.
In related news, on Sunday, April 15 at 10:30 a.m. in room N249, Adobe will participate in the Post|Production World keynote, “How Creativity and Technology Merge to Influence Storytelling and Film.” Participants will include Steve Wozniak, Fusion-io Chief Scientist; Vincent Brisebois, visual computing industry manager at Fusion-io; Rob Legato, Academy Award winning visual effects supervisor, and Steve Forde, Adobe After Effects product manager. They will discuss how creativity and advances in digital technology can work together to develop engaging stories.
[Jackie Dove is a Macworld senior editor. All screenshots were produced by Jeff Foster, a Macworld contributor.]

Source: http://www.macworld.com/article/1166299/adobe_to_unveil_production_premium_cs6_at_broadcasters_confab.html

And highlights form gearslutz.com

Audition CS6: what's new and changed

Preview Video

Audition CS6 Highlights:
  • Real-time and rendered clip stretching in multi-track - including new “varispeed” mode
  • Clip Grouping – Including suspend, trimming, & stretching of groups
  • VST3 support (Mac and Win) and more effects
  • New pitch correction/manipulation tools
  • Automatic speech alignment tool
  • Red Book Audio CD burning
  • Hardware controllers support - Including native Avid EUCON and Mackie MCU support
  • Write/Touch/Latch automation modes
  • Media browser with file preview
  • Session Templates and Enhancements
  • Expanded file format support (Native, libsndfile, DLMS)

Audition CS6 (nearly) Complete List of New Features:

Multitrack
  • Session templates
  • Automatic speech alignment
  • Clip grouping
  • * Suspend mode
  • * Focus clip actions
  • * Trim/fade grouped clips
  • * Time aligned stretching of groups
  • Clip spotting – Manual entry of clip start or end time
  • Clip stretching - Real-time and rendered mode using iZotope Radius
  • Vari-speed clip stretching
  • Skip selection play mode
  • Metronome
  • Save all open files with session preference
  • Select all clips from playhead to end of track
  • Sum to mono per track
  • Bounce selected track
  • Reveal clip in files panel
  • Trim to selection
  • Send clip to back
  • Preference to play/hide overlapped clips
  • Mixer enhancements
  • Snap volume and pan envelopes at 0dB
  • Drag and drop file marker range to multitrack (as clip)

Waveform (Editor)
  • Multiple clipboards
  • Skip selection play mode
  • Open append
  • Subclip marker support (Premiere and Prelude)
  • Improvements to spectral spot Healing
  • Pitch display

Effects
  • VST3
  • Side Chain support
  • Improved plug-in scanning engine
  • New channel map per effect – Control over effect input and output channel routing
  • Save and apply Effect Racks as a favorite
  • New/Added effects:
  • * Automatic Pitch Correction
  • * Manual Pitch Correction with new spectral pitch view mode
  • * Generate Tones
  • * Doppler Shifter
  • * Notch Filter
  • * Graphic Phase Shifter
  • * Gain / Fade Envelopes

General
  • Media Browser
  • Preview in Media Browser and files panel
  • Search/filter in Media Browser and files panel
  • Display markers for all files in markers panel
  • Access and open order fields in files panel (sorting)
  • Keyboard shortcuts (shortcut editor enhancements, copy to clipboard)
  • Adobe Graphics Manager Implementation to improve UI drawing
  • DLMS Integration to support additional video and audio file format import/open
  • OpenGL display for video including improved video display for improved performance
  • New spectral display preferences
  • Support for additional framerates (23.976, 59.94 ndf/df)
  • Machine-specific device preferences (optional common audio hardware settings for all users)
  • Import most preferences from CS5.5
  • Pinch-to-zoom, rotate to scrub Mac touchpad support (Mac only)
  • Improved properties panel UI layout

Broadcast Specific
  • ITU Loudness – Normalize files (batch) to ITU-BS.1770-2 (R128), view loudness level diagnostics
  • Native MPEG1-Layer 2 audio (MP2) import and export
  • Enhanced CART timer and metadata support

Control Surface/Automation
  • Mackie MCU, native Avid EUCON, other controller support
  • Recordable track automation (Full Write, Touch, Latch support with undo)

Format support
  • MPEG4, HD Video, and additional audio import (via DLMS)
  • Native MPEG1-Layer2 (MP2) audio import and export
  • Native APE, FLAC, OGG export and import
  • libsndfile export – export most formats supported by libsndfile
  • CD Import metadata support (via FreeDB)
  • Enhanced RAW format support

Output
  • Red Book CD Burning (via CD layout)
  • Quick burn single-file, CD-TEXT)
  • Advanced mixdown – Mixdown tracks, busses and/or master as seperate files
  • Save All Audio As batch process
  • Save Copies of Associated Files – Collect/archive all files in a session
  • Save open file references in session (“remember” all open files with the session)
  • Advanced session export – Including ability to convert sample rate of session and associated files
  • Preferred asset importer saved with session files

    Source: http://www.gearslutz.com/board/new-product-alert/718908-adobe-audition-cs6.html
Adobe Audition Home Page: http://www.adobe.com/products/audition.html

May 31, 2012

Tux Guitar Can Improve Your Playing




About a year ago, I started taking guitar lessons. It was actually just on a whim, because my daughter was taking piano lessons, and I wanted something to do while I was waiting for her. Since it was a husband and wife business, while the wife taught my daughter piano, the husband taught me how to play guitar.




Play Guitar Better No Matter How You Read Music With TuxGuitar


I took lessons for about 5 or 6 months I think, and then schedules changed and I had to quit, but I never lost my affection for playing the guitar. The instructor said that I was a natural – but I’m sure he tells that to all of his students. I did pick up all of the most common chords pretty fast, and I learned a bunch of really cool songs that I could play, so long as the chords were printed on the song sheets.
I’m not the only one either. We’ve got lots of guitar fans at MUO, like Tim and his list of documentaries for guitar fans, or Laurence’s free tools to learn guitar playing from a few years back. The web has lots of resources for guitar players.

TuxGuitar Has Everything Guitar Players Need

So, let me just say that taking guitar lessons and learning chords was nice, because I learned the “correct” way to read the music and play along. The problem is that so many guitar players learned on their own, and make use of this “tablature” method of printing sheet music for guitar. I’ve honestly never understood how it works, because I just didn’t learn guitar that way – but apparently many, many guitar players out there make use of guitar tabs.
There’s nothing wrong with that, it just makes it very hard for me to make use of music that these people have created and published online. It also makes it hard for them to play regular music written without guitar tabs.  Luckily, TuxGuitar has a little bit for everyone.

sheet music guitar

All it takes is a single look at that list of menu icons and you can see just how functional this software is. As a quick rundown of the main window, the very top is where you will select whatever function you want, like selecting note type, inserting a chord, setting tempo, etc. Next down is where the musical score is displayed. This area will contain all of the notes and the guitar chords right above it.
Underneath the notes, is an area that will contain the tablature. The cool part is that you have the option of replacing the tablature display with a graphical display of actual guitar frets with dots over the string and fret.

guitar tabs

When you click on the chord editor icon, the chord editor tool pops up. This tool lets you select every single thing about the chord that you want to insert into your song.

guitar tabs

Whether you’re writing your own song or trying to recreate the notes from an existing song, this is a very cool little tool that can help you do it. When you select a chord you want to use, you’ll see all of the variation sin tablature format at the bottom of the tool. Click on those and you’ll hear a sample “strum” with that chord. This lets you choose the best chord for you purposes by selecting the perfect one by ear.

guitar tabs

This is what it looks like when you add a chord to your song sheet. Depending on which note type you have selected in your menu, that note will be placed on the appropriate lines, and of course the tablature representation of that chord will be displayed just below. Best of all (for me anyway), the name of the chord itself appears just above that point in the song sheet.

guitar chords

And of course, you can include the guitar fret graphic on the bottom and see exactly where you need to place your fingers to play the song. That is a feature that I haven’t seen in any other guitar-playing software that I’ve ever seen. It’s very cool.
Here’s what one of my finished songs looks like. I started off with a chord and then a fairly slow and boring tune at just a single tempo. Not very exciting. Kind of goofy actually. You can see the 4-count in red numbers at the top.

guitar chords

If you’re writing your own song, then of course you’ll probably want to include lyrics. TuxGuitar lets you do that too! Just click on the Lyrics icon and type in whatever poem you’ve written that you want to apply to the song notes. The software does a pretty good job of laying out the lyrics with the beat and tempo in mind.

guitar chords

When you’re done with  your musical creation, and want to share your new song with all of your friends that are also guitar fans, all you have to do is click on the file menu, click Export, and then choose from the list of output formats. Those include Ascii, Midi and even PDF.

sheet music guitar

As though all of the above wasn’t enough to make guitar players excited, the software also includes a neat little tool that helps you tune your guitar. How it works is it displays a line with the chords laid out. When you pluck your guitar string (make sure your microphone is turned on and set high), you’ll see the blue line glide over to that area of the chord graph. If it isn’t on the chord that you expected, then your guitar is out of tune.


Keep plucking and adjusting the string until the blue indicator lines up perfectly with the correct chord. It couldn’t be any simpler, and it saves you from having to buy an electronic guitar tuner.
Are you a guitar fan? Does TuxGuitar do everything that you’ve always wanted in a guitar software? Share your own thoughts in the comments section below.
Image Credit:Playing Guitar Via Shutterstock

Source:  http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/play-guitar-better-no-matter-how-you-read-music-with-tuxguitar/

August 20, 2011

IK Amplitube 3 VST is now a free download


AmpliTube 3 for free and Custom Shop open for business

Get Orange, Fender, Ampeg, Soldano and other gear in your IK software
Ben Rogerson, Fri 15 Apr 2011, 10:23 am BST
AmpliTube Custom Shop
The AmpliTube Custom Shop is rammed with classic gear.
IK Multimedia has announced a major revamp of its AmpliTube software, with version 3.5 adding the new Custom Shop feature. What's more, there's now a free version of AmpliTube that allows you to access the Custom Shop.
The Custom Shop enables you to pick and choose new amps, stompboxes, cabs, mics and rack effects that are modelled on products from the likes of Fender, Ampeg, Orange, Soldano, Groove Tubes, Gallien-Krueger, THD and T-REX. Over 200 models are currently available, with more to come.
Purchases at the Custom Shop are made using a credits system, with prices starting at $3.
The free version of AmpliTube offers nine stompboxes, four amps, five cabs, three mics, two rack effects and a digital tuner. The price of the full version, which contains 160 models, remains at €270.
Read on for the official press release from IK Multimedia.

AmpliTube 3.5 and Custom Shop press release

IK is proud to announce the release of a FREE Version of AmpliTube 3 with the new built-in Custom Shop Feature. The Custom Shop is an entirely new tone shopping experience that is like visiting a real guitar store, but one that is open 24/7 right in the comfort of your own studio. The AmpliTube Custom Shop has the widest offering of legendary, officially certified brands and a price model affordable to anyone for building your truly custom tone.

Download a free, fully functional version of AmpliTube 3
Start by downloading a FREE, fully functional version of AmpliTube 3 with all features and a collection of 24 free gear models:
  • 9 stomp boxes
  • 4 amplifiers
  • 5 cabinets
  • 3 microphones
  • 2 rack effects
  • digital tuner
Try the brand new Custom Shop feature 
Then use the included online Custom Shop to try and buy more models à la carte.
  • Choose from over 200 à la carte gear models of stomp boxes, amps, cabs, mics and rack effects
  • Official manufacturer approved models of legendary guitar and bass gear brands including Fender™, Ampeg®, Orange®, Soldano™, Groove Tubes®, Gallien-Krueger®, THD® and T-Rex® with more to come
  • Every model has its own free trial available
Pricing and Availability
  • Current AmpliTube 3 users
    Current AmpliTube 3 users should go to their user area and download the new 3.5 version to gain full access to the new Custom Shop as well as many new features: 64-bit plug-in compatibility, an improved preset browser with full graphical display of the rig, 4,000 new "patch" slots that store controller information with the presets, improved integration with IK's range of controllers (like the StealthPedal and StompIO) with full programmability directly from AmpliTube, improved MIDI control, "sequences" for organizing live playing presets and much more.
  • Current Powered by AmpliTube users
    Users of AmpliTube Fender™, Ampeg® SVX, AmpliTube Metal, AmpliTube Jimi Hendrix™ and AmpliTube 2 Live can use all of their existing gear models in the new AmpliTube 3 FREE version which includes the Custom Shop. All the user's gear is available inside the new AmpliTube 3 host which allows users to take advantage of the full features of AmpliTube 3 that were not available in their original packages – similar to what was previously done with AmpliTube X-GEAR – as well as access the new Custom Shop to expand their model collections. All other registered IK users can also find AmpliTube 3 FREE in their user area for immediate download.
  • New to AmpliTube
    New IK users can download the FREE version by registering here:
    www.amplitube.com/customshop/download

    Or purchase the full version of AmpliTube 3 with 160 models and the built-in Custom Shop feature for $349.99 / €269.99.
  • Gear models starting as low as $3!
    Models are priced in Gear Credits: prices range from 5 to 20 credits per model. Credit purchase system starts at $1 per credit and drops down to $0.60 per credit when credits are purchased in bulk. Plus, JamPoints can be applied to model purchases (up to 50% discount) and also earned with every purchase.
More information, product trailer, and video demos are now online. Check them out and download AmpliTube Free and it's new built-in Custom Shop feature today!

Source: http://www.musicradar.com/news/guitars/amplitube-3-for-free-and-custom-shop-open-for-business-424291



IK Multimedia AmpliTube 3 €318

The king of amp sim software returns better than ever
Computer Music, Fri 16 Apr 2010, 12:19 pm BST
IK Multimedia AmpliTube 3
AmpliTube 3 adds models from the Metal and Hendrix editions of the software.
The AmpliTube series of amp modelling software launched back in 2002 and became an immediate success due to its solid tone backed up by a wide array of amps, cabs and effects, decent routing and slick graphics. We've since seen v2 and various 'spin-offs', such as the Ampeg SVX bass amp, Jimi Hendrix, Metal and Fender packages, and the X-Gear 'shell'.
AmpliTube 3 builds on this success, combining an overhaul of existing features with the introduction of many new ones. On the technical side, modelling techniques first seen in last year's AmpliTube Fender are present, these being IK's third-generation Dynamic Saturation Modelling and Volumetric Response Modelling (used for rotary speaker effects).
All existing AmpliTube 2 models are present in v3, but they've been reworked to improve efficiency and dynamic response. There are new models in v3 (amps, cabs, pedals and effects), including some from Metal and Jimi Hendrix, so you're now looking at over 160 modelled elements in total.

In detail

The cabinet and miking section has received a substantial upgrade in terms of both choice and flexibility and both pedal and rack sections now thankfully include drag/drop and copy/paste functionality. Routing-wise, AT3 can now operate in full stereo mode, making it useful for general effects processing of non-guitar signals.
Meanwhile, in standalone mode there's an expanded four-track recorder with track-independent timestretch, which serves as an excellent tool for learning parts. The greatest functional improvements in AT3 have been drafted from X-Gear.
You can assign custom automation and MIDI CCs (up to 16 of each) using the context-sensitive menus or MIDI/Auto pages, plus there's built-in support for IK's StompIO and StealthPedal (of course, the forthcoming StealthBoard will also be fully supported).
AT3 can access the modules of all other AmpliTube products that you own, too. They appear in categorised menus, effectively doing away with the need for X-Gear. It also prepares for the imminent arrival of model 'singles' (ie, amps, effects, etc, sold on an individual basis).

Modules

One of AmpliTube's big selling points has always been its variety of modules. New amps based on Orange, Mesa/Boogie and even bass designs, such as Trace Elliot and Gallien-Krueger, spread the net wider still, so you now have 31 amps in all.
Amplitube 3
The pedals have also multiplied (now 51 in total), and to give you some idea of the breadth of selection, there are four types of wah wah, seven fuzz pedals and 11 distortions. New for the rack are the Step Filter, Step Slicer and Tap Delay.
There are now 46 cabinets to choose from - that's 30 more than AmpliTube 2 - and these are categorised by style (guitar, bass, rotary) and size (6, 10, 12 and 15 inch). Finally, there are 15 mics, including three ribbon models.

In fact, AmpliTube 3 has a much-improved cabinet and miking section. In addition to the many cab types, you now get two flexible close mics and a stereo room mic option. There are 15 close mics, which can be positioned anywhere in the left to right or near to far planes (though you can't change their angle). You move them by grabbing them or using the positioning graphic to the right. Pan, solo, mute and phase invert can also be selected individually and there's a mic blend slider, too.
Amplitube 3
The stereo room mic is simpler and includes mute, solo and phase flip, plus width control, pan and level. Once again, you can adjust it using the controls or the graphic. You'll also find a selection of five room types: amp closet, small studio, mid studio, large studio and hall.
Rounding things off is the cabinet size control. This enables you to artificially inflate or contract the size of the cabinet (75% to 125%).
Overall, the new cabinet implementation is wonderful, and the only shame is that you can't import your own impulse responses into it.
Moving on, there's a whole new set of presets to contend with, and a new preset browser page with various categories. Oddly, this didn't seem to incorporate patches from our other IK amps, which is a shame. Note that while AT3 replaces the models from AT2, you can still open your AT2 presets, although they may sound slightly different using the 'remastered' models.

Sound

Like its predecessor, AT3's strength lies in mimicking rock guitar amps, and if you like 'dual rectified', US-style rock sounds, you won't be disappointed as the Mesa/Boogie, Randall and Peavey amps really deliver.
Similarly, UK classics (AC30 and Marshall) have a strong presence, and the addition of more bass amps is also welcome. Fender amps are well represented, but there's enough differentiation from AmpliTube Fender for each to remain an attractive buy.
For huge stereo rock guitars, the flexibility of the routing comes into its own (you can use two complete setups at once, and there are eight routing options), and we also had great success using the new amp miking system to combine spread mics with a touch of room sound.
"Like its predecessor, AT3's strength lies in mimicking rock guitar amps."
Pretty much every flavour of fuzz and distortion can be found in the pedals, while sweet swooshes and warm wobbles can be had with the Electro-Harmonix style Small Phaser and Electric Flanger, as well as the Uni-V, which is, of course, a Uni-Vibe imitation. Advocates of the crazy Digitech Whammy pedal will also be thrilled to set foot on the wild Wharmonator.
With such a bewildering selection of modules, you'll be glad of the presets, and although some rely too heavily on the rack effects, such all-encompassing sounds can be pretty seductive and inspiring when jamming by yourself, making a good starting point.
Sonically, IK have upped their game with AT3, as it's very much on a par with the outstanding AmpliTube Fender, yet offers a wider range of tones. The only downside is that complex patches can put the pressure on your CPU.
However, you can reduce the quality of individual sections in the Prefs menu (as in previous versions), or use the new Eco, Mid and Hi front panel options to ease CPU load - these act much like Prefs combination presets.

Summary

In recent times, an influx of upstart quality amp plug-ins has begun to chip away at the established names, but we reckon none of them offer quite the flexibility and choice of AmpliTube 3. Disputes will no doubt forever rage over which amp sim package sounds 'best', but you've got to hand it to IK for continuing to turn it up to 11.

Check out our AmpliTube 3 audio demo to hear:

1. The amps: we run through all of the amp models
2. Clean rigs:
 a taster from the clean rigs folder
3. Effects:
 some of the more interesting effects rigs

Verdict

A great update that sees AmpliTube 3 hanging in there as one of the premier amp sims for tone, flexibility and choice.
MusicRadar rating:
4.5 of 5 stars