Soundbooth CS3 - Adobe

Adobe has long been known as a graphics powerhouse, but in recent years the company has brought some audio tools home to roost. Soundbooth, an audio editor, is now included with Adobe’s Creative Suite 3 Production Premium and the CS3 Master Collection. Soundbooth’s inclusion got many production pros’ hopes up... read more at MacLife

Sequel - Steinberg

Every single review of Sequel is honour bound to mention its conceptual and cosmetic similarity to GarageBand. It's a fair cop. So with that out of the way, what else does Steinberg's consumer-friendly music-making app have to offer... read more at MacUserUK

Tracktion 3 Ultimate Bundle - Mackie

Tracktion is - and probably always will be - the kooky kid on the sequencer block. It's four years since Mackie took over its marketing and development, but the working methods and structure that developer Julian Storer established remain... read more at MacUserUK

Fission 1.5 - Rogue Amoeba

Rogue Amoeba is best known for Audio Hijack, which allows you to intercept and record Internet radio streams and other audio on your Mac. The trouble is that there's often unwanted material at the beginning and end of the recording... read more at MacUserUK

Variax Workbench 1.5 - Line 6

Line 6 has made a name for itself creating simulations of a wide range of guitar amplifiers and stompbox effects. When used with an amazing Variax guitar, the Variax Workbench software and dedicated USB interface lets you play Dr. Frankenax, mixing and matching the pickups from a Fender Stratocaster with the body of a Gibson Firebird... read more at MacLife

Massive 1.1 - Native Instruments

With a name like Massive, you'd expect this software synthesizer to have an extremely expansive sonic presence. And that's exactly what this beauty delivers. Even though it's deep enough for the most devoted sound programmers, it's easy enough to use... read more at MacLife

EMI TG Limiter Pack - iZotope

Now that Apple and Apple Inc have finally kissed and made up, Beatles-loving Mac musicians are free to indulge both their passions without any emotional conflict of interest. And what better way to celebrate this new era of peace, love and understanding than with software emulations of key sections of the Abbey Road mixing console on which late-period Beatles albums were recorded ... read more at MacUserUK

XRB - iZotope

XRB is a collection of 2,007 invaluable percussion samples for Mac musicians who specialize in dance music. The drum samples include excursions into Latin and vaguely hardcore beats, but the majority are catchy dance-floor riffs, each with a number of variations so you don't have to chop the basic loops. The variety and sound quality are excellent, though there are a few nutty moments (cats squealing and women groaning, for example)... read more at MacLife

iWow Plug-In for Mac - SRS

Discerning listeners tend to cringe at the audio quality of music from the iTunes Store, which uses lossy compression on its music files. They're faster to download, but at the cost of sound quality. Just when audio snobs thought the iTunes Store was off-limits to their sensitive ears, in swoops SRS's iWow Plug-in for Mac... read more at MacLife

Analog Factory - Arturia

It may be a high-tech world, but if you're a musician, sometimes the occasion calls for low-tech sounds. But acquiring older synths is a pain in the wallet, not to mention that they take up a lot of space, they're difficult to program, and they require a lot of maintenance. Thank the music gods for Analog Factory... read more at MacLife

Blue Tubes Bundle V3 - Nomad Factory

Nomad Factory's Blue Tubes Bundle V3, a Universal Binary release, comprises 13 audio plug-ins intended to deliver to your mixes that intangible virtual-valve voodoo in a suitably vintage-vibe fashion... read more at MacUserUK

Nomad Factory Liquid Bundle - Nomad Factory

Who better to know what works well in a mix and runs efficiently on a native system than someone who has spent time carefully using and refining the sound and the code behind the tools? Californian producer Bernie Torelli is one such man, and the creative force behind Nomad Factory... read more at MacUserUK

Zebrasynth Zebra 2 - Zebrasynth

In a world of vintage this and retro emulation that, it's refreshing to come across a virtual synth that proudly follows its own path. Since making its debut two years ago, Urs Heckmann's Zebra synth has attracted a loyal and effusive following... read more at MacUserUK

Guitar Pro 5 - Arobas Music

Guitar Pro is a favorite among guitarists for composing and sharing musical scores, and it has a resource-rich workshop for honing your guitar chops. But until recently, it was only available for that other operating system. Version 5 now runs on the Mac... read more at MacLife

FM8 - Native Instruments

FM (Frequency Modulation) synthesis is the foundation of the incredibly popular Yamaha DX7 synthesizer, which ruled the '80s music charts and is best remembered for the clear, bell-like sounds accompanying any number of corny dance hits. Native Instruments pushed this idea to the limit with FM8... read more at MacLife

Fission 1.1 - Rogue Amoeba

Rogue Amoeba’s Audio Hijack Pro is a terrific program for capturing audio that plays through your Mac but it’s an incomplete solution—once you’ve captured hours of streaming audio, there’s no way to split it into digestible segments and then identify which bit is which. Rogue Amoeba fills in that missing functionality with Fission 1.1... read more at Macworld

Cubase 4 - Steinberg

No more the joy of SX. Cubase, Steinberg's flagship sequencer, is now known by number alone - 4. It's been two years since the venerable program's last major revision, SX3, so what's changed?... read more at MacUserUK

Sampler - M-Audio

Functionally, Sampler offers unlimited sample zones with key and velocity ranges, and crossfades, multimode and morphing filters, a polyphonic saturation stage for dirtying up any overly polite samples, a dedicated modulation oscillator, three LFOs, five multimode envelopes, Midi inputs and comprehensive control over the sample's behaviour... read more at MacUserUK

Live 6 - M-Audio

Another year, another version of Live, as Ableton's sequencer revolution continues. This time around, the company has made a good fist of ticking off as many major objections to the program as possible, as well as introducing entirely new features to enhance the overall experience... read more at MacUserUK

Rax 2.0 - plasq

Rax 2.0, a music utility from plasq, the creators of Comic Life, brings the same kind of easy access to virtual musical instruments and effects plug-ins that Apple’s Front Row provides for music, videos, and photos. With a virtual mixer, a facility for creating custom songs and sets, and a full-screen OnStage mode with support for live visualizers, this radically redesigned new version makes playing live music with your Mac easier than ever before... read more at Macworld

Djay - Algoriddim

Warning: if you value your productivity, don't attempt to install Djay on your work computer. What's more, if you value that of your colleagues, don't let them play with it, either. This app is addictive and could eat up hours of your time... read more at MacUserUK

iTunes 7 - Apple

The addition of movies to the iTunes Store in the US and the addition of games such as Pac Man and Tetris to the iTunes Music Stores worldwide may be the headline-grabbing features in iTunes 7, but Apple has also made several additions to the application itself... read more at MacUserUK

AmpliTube 2 and Ampeg SVX - ik Multimedia

Having amassed a trophy cabinet's worth of awards for the original AmpliTube guitar amp simulation, what could IK Multimedia do to improve it? Apparently, judging from AmpliTube 2, quite a lot. Completely redesigned interface for greater ease of use and a gorgeous GUI? Check. New modular approach, splitting the editing functions into five separate sections so that tuner, stomp, amp, cabinet and rack settings can all be selected independently? Check. Two simultaneous guitar rigs, both with unique setups, for series or parallel connection? Fantastic... read more at MacUserUK

Classik Studio Reverb - ik Multimedia

Despite impulse responses and convolution being the hot ticket for reverb plug-ins in recent years, IK Multimedia has decreed that a straightforward collection of high-quality digital reverbs, covering all the sonic bases, with all the editing control you could ever need, and do so with only a modest appetite for your Mac's processing power, is the way forward. It may have a point... read more at MacUserUK

Albino 3 - Linplug

Since it was first introduced two years ago, Albino (a collaboration between software developers LinPlug and sound designer Rob Papen) has been quietly - and deservedly - attracting a cult following. Now with the introduction of Albino 3, that following looks likely to swell... read more at MacUserUK

DrumCore 2 - DrumCore

Whereas some plug-ins favour graphically rich, photo-realistic interfaces, such as EZdrummer - Submersible's DrumCore eschews such visual frippery for a utilitarian and alarmingly orange interface. However DrumCore's performance definitely is worth getting excited about... read more at MacUserUK

Analog Signature Series - Nomad Factory

Any product that claims to emulate such legendary outboard as the Fairchild 670 compressor, the Pultec EQ or the sound of a classic analogue mixing desk is setting its sights admirably high. Several companies have tried before to deliver such venerable hardware in software form, but most have fallen disappointingly short. The current gold standard is arguably Universal Audio's fantastic emulations on its UAD-1 PCI(-e) platform... read more at MacUserUK

EZdrummer - EZdrummer

If the songs you write call for more realistic acoustic drums than mechanised thumping beats, you currently have more software choice than ever before: Stylus RMX, BFD, DrumCore, RMIV, Groove Agent, Reason's Drum Kits and Drumkit From Hell (dfh) Superior can all lay down a mean backbeat. Now Swedish developer Toontrack (also responsible for dfh) is launching EZdrummer into the fray... read more at MacUserUK

Digital Performer 5 - MOTU

Over the years, MOTU's flagship audio-Midi sequencing package, Digital Performer, has steadily expanded its functionality, with the 1074-page manual a testament to just how much it has to offer. Yet rather than pile on new features, the release of version 5 appears concerned with addressing user requests and playing catch-up with the competition... read more at MacUserUK

Sonicfire Pro 4 - SmartSound

For video professionals, having an effective musical score is almost as vital as good camera work. Yet few videographers have the musical chops to whip together even a simple jingle from scratch using applications like Apple’s GarageBand, Soundtrack Pro, or Logic Pro. SmartSound’s Sonicfire Pro 4, a sound-scoring program, provides an easy alternative; a way for users to quickly assemble soundtracks by choosing and manipulating royalty-free music to fit their needs... read more at Macworld

B4 II - Native Instruments

The sound of the venerable Hammond B3 organ is familiar to anyone who’s listened to popular music in the last 40 years. From R&B and gospel to the strains of Jimmy Smith and Emerson, Lake, and Palmer, the sonic weight of the B3 still packs a punch—as does the physical weight of this monstrous beast... read more at MacAddict

Prophet V - Arbiter Group

Having cleaned out the vintage synth closets of the 1960s and 1970s, French developer Arturia has turned its attention to two hardware classics from the early 1980s. Prophet V is based on the first and last incarnations of Sequential Circuits' legendary Prophet synthesiser, the 5 and VS models... read more at MacUserUK

Wave Editor - Audiofile Engineering

An audio editor should provide an intuitive interface for manipulating and processing waveforms. Audiofile Engineering’s Wave Editor takes an innovative approach to working with audio files, but its context-dependent interface takes some getting used to... read more at MacAddict

Model - Poly fractus

Model is the latest plug-in from one-man Parisian developer PolyFractus. A modulation delay, it has stereo-to-stereo processing, a delay time range of 1-1000ms, five different types of modulators, and an envelope follower, among other controls. Best of all, though, it's free... read more at MacUserUK

ONE - AMG

Following last year's Kick-Ass Brass! plug-in, developer AMG has now released ONE, a combined groove module and sample library. The company is pitching ONE as a cross-platform, sequencer-friendly, groove-activating instrument with low CPU demand. It claims it has a 'simply powerful' approach to getting the job done - that is, it sounds great and is easy to use, but is also intelligent and flexible enough not to inhibit your creativity... read more at MacUserUK

Melodyne 3 Studio Edition - Celemony

Half the fun of Melodyne, Celemony's celebrated audio manipulation software, is simply messing about with recordings just to see if any new ideas present themselves. The ability to take a well-recorded instrument or vocal performance and rearrange every single note to create a completely new harmony or melody entirely non-destructively while retaining the original recording's sonic signature is incredibly liberating and inspiring... read more at MacUserUK

TimewARP 2600 - M-Audio

Stevie Wonder had one. Herbie Hancock had one. So did Jean Michel Jarre, Pete Townshend, Mike Oldfield and a host of other 1970s synth pioneers. Given that only 3000 models were ever produced between its 1970 birth and its 1981 death, it's small wonder that the ARP 2600 has been an expensive cult classic on the vintage synth market ever since... read more at MacUserUK

iLife '06 (GarageBand 3) - Apple

When GarageBand first appeared, it revolutionised music creation, as it took a hugely complex process and made it extraordinarily easy. GarageBand 3, the biggest update in the new iLife '06 suite, has improved its abilities on home turf and also broadened its horizons... read more at MacUserUK

Reaktor 5 - Native Instruments

Reaktor is a guiding light for the do-it-yourself sonic set. The latest version extends the app in crucial ways, with awesome new sounds, a load of fresh building modules, and mounds of examples—expect this monster to keep you busy for the next 10,000 years or so... read more at MacAddict

Guitar Rig 2 - Native Instruments

One of the biggest drawbacks of going digital is the wide variety of modeling techniques companies use to reproduce amps and effects pedals. Unfortunately, nobody has really nailed it yet, so that when you choose an effect or amp, you never know exactly what you are going to get... read more at Macworld

Peak Pro XT 5 - Bias-inc

Despite increased competition in the realm of audio editing and mastering - notably from DSP Quattro, Roxio's Jam, Apple's Waveburner Pro and even Soundtrack Pro - Peak arguably remains the most well-rounded, full-featured offering on the Mac platform. Now with Peak Pro 5, its developer, Bias Inc, has demonstrated a clear determination to stay one step ahead... read more at MacUserUK

Kontakt 2.02 - Native Instruments

Kontakt 2 is available as both a standalone app and an Audio Units plug-in, and it works smoothly in either capacity. It imports just about any audio format, from Akai and EMU to WAV and Kurzweil, for a total of almost 30 formats. Although this opens doors to a vast library of commercial and freeware sounds, you might not care—Kontakt comes with its own massive 15GB sample library... read more at MacAddict

Xingtone Ringtone Maker - Xingtone

Xingtone Ringtone Maker lets you edit and convert non-DRM protected audio files into ringtones for your cell phone. It works, but you must have a compatible phone and service provider if you want to use Sinatra’s “Where Are You?” as a ring... read more at MacAddict

ARP2600 V - Arturia

Remember the bubbling synthesizer underlying The Who’s “Who Are You”? How about the growling bass line that drove über-white-guy Edgar Winter’s venerable “Frankenstein”? If so, then you remember the ARP 2600, the legendary analog synthesizer that fuels these rock anthems. An original 2600 is hard to find, but Arturia has created a wonderfully dense, accurate software simulation called the ARP2600 V... read more at MacAddict