Music hardware and software company Native Instruments has had a busy week releasing updates and demos for several of its products.
Traktor 3.2, Native’s high-end DJ software, has been released and includes Universal Binary support for Intel Macs. The update also includes synchronized track mirroring between decks, seamless Hot Cueing and stripe navigation, optimized tempo detection, new WAV tag writing, an enhanced External Mixer mode, extended MIDI controller integration and a large number of optimizations and fixes, according to the company.
The new version also brings enhanced integration with Beatport, a digital club music store.
Traktor 3.2 provides support for FinalScratch 2 hardware, which allows you to use the system on Intel-based Macintosh systems under Mac OS X. However, the company warns that due to “legal considerations” Native Instruments will remove FinalScratch support from all copies of the TRAKTOR software distributed after January1, 2007. On that date, a further update for TRAKTOR 3 will be made available that does not support the FinalScratch hardware anymore. Existing installations of TRAKTOR will not be affected unless the update is installed.
Traktor 3.2 is available as a free download from the company’s Web site. For installation on a Intel-based Macintosh computer, a Universal Binary license code can be purchased for $29.
A demo version of Absynth 4, the company’s semi-modular software synthesizer, has been made available on the Web. Absynth 4 offers a new customizable signal flow; additional oscillator, waveform and envelope features; and a completely revised modulation concept.
The final update is the release of Kore 1.1, Native’s “Universal Sound Platform.” The new version brings new functionality including support for the new SingleSound format, optimized integration with recently released NI software instruments, pre-listen functionality, new KoreSounds, and the ability for the KORE software to operate without the hardware controller attached.
Rounding out the news, Native Instruments audio interface, Audio Kontrol 1, has been given the annual iF product design award 2007 in the category “Consumer Electronics/Telecommunications.”