Friday, Jan. 30, 1998

Musician's Musician Appearance Alert! Singer-songwriter Victoria Williams, whose new album "Musings of a Creek Dipper" was released to stellar reviews earlier this month, will perform on Late Night With Conan O'Brien on Wednesday, February 4th. Victoria Williams, you may recall was first brought to national attention back in 1993 when the "Sweet Relief" tribute album was released to raise money to help pay for Victoria's mounting medical bills. The album featured covers of her songs performed by concerned and admiring artists such as Pearl Jam, Soul Asylum and the Waterboys. The Sweet Relief foundation currently continues its work of helping uninsured musicians pay for health care.

Musician's Musician Appearance Alert! The ever-eclectic and enigmatic Pearl Jam will be hosting their second "Monkeywrench Radio" live special on Saturday, Jan. 31 at 11 PM EST. The four hour show which will be broadcast from Eddie Vedder's garage will feature live performances by Pearl Jam and other bands, as well as some truly "alternative" news, editorial and opinion from band members about the state of music, the world and society in general. Also, many heretofore unknown bands are bound to be exposed nationally for the first time during this program.

CAKEWALK announces major upgrade
Cakewalk has announced Cakewalk Pro Audio 7, Cakewalk Professional 7 and Cakewalk Home Studio 7, the newest version of the most popular software for recording, editing and mixing digital audio and MIDI. The software packages, which range in price from $99 to $299 will be the first home recording software to introduce real-time 32-bit floating point audio processing effects. (translation: SUPER sound quality that you will let you experiment like never before) Other enhancements include a new on-screen mixing console for recording and mixing MIDI and digital audio from a single window, plus an updated user interface with customizable tool bars. Among other improvements, notation editing and printing abilities have been enhanced. The software should be in stores by the second quarter of 1998. So far, it looks like it will only be available for Windows 3.1/95.

Thursday, Jan. 29, 1998

ART delivers DST-830 "Rules Breaker" Combo Amp/Effects Unit

The DST-830 "Rules Breaker" is a 130 watt open-back stereo combo amp. Features two 12" ART Custom Designed Eminence Speakers, speaker simulated DI output for direct recording, separate programmable tube preamp and effects section with 75 internal memory locations. The amp can also be controlled by any general MIDI controller such as the ART X-12 or X-15 controller pedals. The DST-830 is currently selling for around $700-$800.

Wednesday, Jan. 28, 1998

Roland Introduces VSC-55 Virtual Sound Canvas Software Synthesizer
Roland has posted a trial version of their VSC-55 Virtual Sound Canvas on their website (PC only at this time). Virtual Sound Canvas is a software synthesizer that creates sounds using your computer's CPU for sound processing. It supports both General MIDI sounds and Roland's proprietary GS sounds. These same Roland GS sounds are also being used in the upcoming version of Apple's Quicktime Musical Instruments, replacing the older, inferior general MIDI sounds.

Tuesday, Jan. 27, 1998
Musician's Musician Appearance Alert! Lou Reed is tentatively scheduled to appear on PBS's "American Masters" on April 29, 10 PM EST (but be sure to check local listings). The Lou Reed program is called "Rock and Roll Heart".

Thursday, Jan. 22, 1998   Steinberg's Cubase VST seems to be collecting kudos, receiving awards from Electronic Musician, MacFormat, and an honorable mention from MacWorld. Cubase VST is Steinberg's combination digital audio recording and MIDI sequencer software, now at version 3.5.2 for both Mac and Windows. Electronic Musician named Cubase VST "Digital Audio Sequencer of the Year". The British mac magazine MacFormat's readers named Cubase VST the "Best Digital Media" package, ousting longtime winner Adobe Premiere. MacWorld also gave it an honorable mention as a runner up in the Audio Software category for MacWorld's annual Eddy Awards.

Jan. 9, 1998  We've begun our first new band posting...a band from southeastern Pennsylvania's Haycock Mountain area, Dark Forest.