Just got back from the Universal Audio booth and got a run through the highly anticipated UAD-Xpander, an ExpressCard DSP system intended for the mobile music producer/engineer who wants to carry along all their UA plugs, with project transfers to desktop systems. It will ship in March, we’re told, and will come in three versions, from the Xpress at $999 (with $500 plug-in voucher) to the Xpert at $1399 to the Xtreme at $2199. The latter comes with all UAD plugs up to version 4.5, which is worth the price alone. Key features? 44.1-192 DSP audio accelerator for laptops, 2.5 Gbps ExpressCard 34 interface, and optional Xtenda kit with PCIe desktop adapter. In other news, the DCS remote pre will be shipping in February, and we’re told it will come in at $999. That should do well at that price point. And finally, the UAD-1E Extreme Pak, inc luding 32 plugs and the PCI Express DSP accelerator, is shipping this month. Oh! One more thing. They hired Brent Elder, formerly of E-mu and Apogee, as VP of engineering. We’ll leave it up to you to guess what that might mean for future products…

The Native theme carried on today when I visited SoundToys in the E Hall. Their line of plug-ins is no longer exclusive to TDM and is available in AU format. I talked to Mitch Thomas about the future, and of course he wouldn’t spill about future “toys” but intimated that there’s some great stuff on the horizon. I also recorded an incredible blues player in a booth that had them stoppin’ in the aisles. Players at NAMM are like potato chips, but every once in while you find a diamond. You’ve got to hear this guy! Be sure to check it out in tonite’s Podcast.

Digidesign announced today that its Advanced Instrument Research Group (which recently developed Xpand, Hybrid, and Strike) is developing an RTAS-format sampler called Structure. The plug-in will read a number of sample formats including ESX24, Kontakt2, and SampleCell. It will also include sample content from EastWest, which has partnered up with Digi for this project. According to Digi, a public beta is in the offing. Check back at the Digi site for details.

At the end of the day Thursday, IK Multimedia announced Amplitube 2 Jimi Hendrix Edition. It’s a specialized version of IK’s guitar-amp modeling plug-in, designed to emulate the sound of Jimi Hendrix’s gear. It features models of 9 stompboxes (including wahs), 4 amps, 7 speaker cabinets, and 4 analog rack effects units–all based on the originals used by Hendrix used. It’s due out in April and will cost $249. You’ll also be able to get it bundled with IK’s Stealth Plug (guitar to USB cable) for $299.

Nobody better be dissing on Duran Duran. Nick Rhodes rules! Certainly Arturia must know that, and certainly that was at least part of the reason for coming up with Jupiter-8V, Arturia’s new Roland Jupiter 8 clone software synthesizer. Like all of Arturia’s tribute synths, it remains true to the original while adding many modern features for convenience. For example, 32 voices of polyphany and 400 presets. From the demo I watched, the sound recreation is stellar, matching all the luscious synth brass goodness and airy pads of the original. The PC/Mac virtual instrument works as stand-alone, VST, Audio Units and RTAS. Pricing and availabililty were not yet announced. SeeArturia’s site for more.

Just brought Nathan Eames back from the Sony booth, where the big news from the Oxford plug-in world is the fact that the first three of the range of seven have now gone native. Seems to be an emerging theme at this show. Nathan, I understand that there’s a lot happening in Oxford Town?

It’s certainly been a busy time for us Tom. In the last month, we’ve released Universal Binary versions of all our Pro Tools plugs, launched the Oxford Limiter for the Powercore platform and most exciting I think for the
NAMM show is the launch of our Native range. People have been talking to us for a while now about – when are you guys gonna be compatible with Logic and Digital Performer etc? And the truth is, they have been, but
you needed a Powercore card for them to run. Now though with Apple’s Intel based machines running at lightning speeds – we think its a good time to bring them out for Logic etc. So the first three plugs that are AU
compatible are the Oxford EQ, Oxford Dynamics and Oxford Limiter. The remaining four (Inflator, TransMod, Reverb and Restoration Tools bundle) will come early in 2007.
We’re all really excited at Oxford about opening up to a whole new world of users, and hope that Logic users will appreciate having us on the platform. Just to give a very quick background on where we came from – we made a really expensive digital console, the Oxford OXF-R3 (cost around $1m !) in the nineties, and now that Sony Oxford has stopped manufacturing consoles, we took the same technology , algorithms etc and applied them to plugins. So unlike a lot of emulation software, you’re actually getting the exact same EQ and Dynamics sections from OXF-R3, right inside your computer.. its the same code. If you want to check out
our plugs, or see some video demos from last year’s NAMM show, come visit us at www.sonyplugins.com.