We have launched round two of our public beta. This round will include all seven of our real-time native plug-ins in 64-bit Audio Units. Round one gave us some great feedback and we’re really looking forward to finalizing Audio Units and getting it out the door officially. SoundToys Native Effects owners can get the Public Beta installer from their SoundToys accounts now.

With the recent announcement of the pending release of Pro Tools 11 a lot of questions about AAX are popping up, so here’s the scoop from our side. We’re deep in development for AAX native and hope to get it into a public beta soon. Our goal is to have a solid official release before Pro Tools 11 hits the streets.

Waking Windows III is a two day music festival in Winooski, VT on May 10th and 11th. This is an “All Ages” event featuring multiple bands, shows, and venues to showcase music in Vermont. This year SoundToys will be sponsoring to show support for local music, and to Waking Windows efforts to bring more music to the community. Tickets for the two day festival are only $20 and available here.

The Public Beta for 64-bit support has begun. The first round is limited to EchoBoy and Decapitator for Audio Units (Mac) and currently only available for SoundToys Native Effects bundle owners. More plug-ins, more products, and more platforms will be added as they become available, and users will be notified via email when they are eligible to participate. Public Beta installers will be available through SoundToys accounts, so users can check their accounts periodically to see if access is available for their products.

Announcing the all new Little MicroShift, with a limited time offer and contest (Offer and contest end March 29th, 2013). Little MicroShift is a recreation of classic micro pitch-shifting techniques from two of the hardware units that made this sound famous. It’s available free for a limited time and can be shared, free, with friends for a chance to win more prizes. For full details on Little MicroShift, the contest, and the prizes click here.

We’ve been putting in many long days over the past year to get 64-bit support working for all of our plug-ins, and for our customers! It’s been a huge amount of work, and we’re not done yet, but we have made great progress. Here’s where we are:

Windows VST
All native plug-ins are working as 64-bit Windows VSTs. These are currently in internal testing as we work to fix a couple of annoying little bugs.

Audio Units
EchoBoy, Decapitator, Crystallizer, PanMan, Tremolator, Radiator, Devil-Loc, and PhaseMistress are now working as 64-bit Audio Units, and are in various stages of internal and external beta testing. FilterFreak and Speed are in the process of being finished up, and should be in internal beta in a couple of weeks.

Mac VST
VST/64 for the Mac still needs some work. Most of the hard work has already been done as part of the 64-bit AU porting process. We expect this to take about a month of development time.

Mac AAX
We have also been hard at work on porting our plug-ins to Avid’s new AAX native format for Pro Tools 10 and on. We have a little more work to do on this, but expect to get the full native line working on AAX native fairly soon.

Windows AAX
We still have a fair amount of work to do here. This will come after Mac AAX.

Public Beta
Everyone here at SoundToys is working hard to get these updates out to our users as fast as reasonably possible. To do that, we will begin a phased public beta program starting next week. We are starting small, with a limited selection of plug-ins and customers, and will expand the program as our testing and development moves along.

The first public-beta phase will start with EchoBoy and Decapitator for AudioUnits, for SoundToys Native Effects bundle owners only. Windows VST public beta will be released as soon as we fix those pesky bugs. The beta installers will be accessible from users SoundToys account, and users will notified via e-mail when they are eligible for public beta.

We thank you for your patience and support.

SoundToys Native Effects wins “Best Software Plug-in Effects” in the Sound On Sound 2013 awards, as voted by their readers.

SoundToys is proud to be the exclusive sponsor for the annual Tape Op party during SXSW. March 14th at the Lucky Lounge from 2-6pm. This is an invitation only event for Tape Op subscribers, held each year in Austin TX, during the gigantic music festival. SoundToys will have gifts for party goers, door prizes, and something special for all party goers to take home and share their excitement.

The hot box is here. The all new Radiator tube input channel with EQ plug-in is now available.

Radiator is based on the classic Altec 1567A tube mixer from the 1960s, and brings that classic Altec sound to desktop recording rigs by capturing the distinctive warmth and punch of the original hardware. Featuring the modeled bass and treble tone controls from the original unit, a mix control for easy parallel processing, and the saturation and harmonic effects of the original hardware’s input and output amplifiers. All of these different circuit elements interact, allowing a wide range of tones to be created with just a few simple knobs.

Radiator also includes Little Radiator, a simpler single-stage tube pre-amp  model based on the Altec 1566A hardware, the little brother of the Altec 1567A. Little Radiator was originally offered for free as a promotion earlier this year. Users who currently have the free version of Little Radiator can upgrade to the full Radiator plug-in package for $49 for a limited time (regularly $89). Offer ends Jan 3rd 2013.

Click here for all the details about Radiator, and to get a free 30-day trial version.

The original Altec 1567A hardware was a rack-mounted five-input tube mixer with removable transformers, a simple two-knob EQ, an unmistakable green faceplate, and a whopping 97 dB of gain. The sound, by today’s standards, is colored and gritty, with a heaping helping of noise thrown in for good measure. In its day, it was used on several early Motown hits, and found its way into the PA racks of countless churches and school auditoriums across the USA.

More recently, the Altec mixers were picked up by recording studios as an inexpensive way to bring analog color and character to computer based digital recording. It was only a matter of time before hits were being made – first producers like Matt Wallace of early Maroon 5 fame and now bands like the Black Keys, who had a custom console made from Altec 1567A’s, have driven up the demand, and price, for these funky little color boxes.

Computer recordists everywhere can now get the Altec tube sound – on every input channel, without the hassles of interfacing to esoteric analog gear, and at a much lower cost. Radiator is available now, for $129, at the SoundToys web store, www.soundtoys.com, or through any SoundToys dealer.

“These green tube mixers are one of our favorite pieces around the studio, and I loved having it in my rack.” says Ken Bogdanowicz of SoundToys,  “But I like it even better when it’s on every channel of my Pro Tools rig. Plus, now I get to fill those three rack spaces with another fun analog toy.”