Roland announces software versions of its 808 and 909 drum machines

The Roland TR-808 and TR-909 are iconic drum machines that powered a ton of the music from the ’80s and ’90s. While both hardware units were recently revived as the TR-08 and TR-09, they haven’t been officially emulated in software yet. That changes now as Roland announces VST and AU plugins for both of the iconic rhythm modules (along with a new SRX Orchestra virtual instrument set) as part of the company’s Roland Cloud service.

The TR-808 and TR-909 virtual instruments are full reproductions of the original hardware, according to Roland. The SRX Orchestra is the first one of the SRX series Expansion Library (from the 2000s) available as a software instrument. Roland Cloud will be a suite of high-resolution software synths and sampled instruments that musicians will be able to pull from while creating their own musical works. It sounds similar to what Adobe has done with its own photo and graphics-based Adobe Cloud. All three new additions are headed as updates to the Roland Cloud service starting in February of this year.

Via: Fact Mag

Source: Roland

MacRumors Giveaway: Win an Anki OVERDRIVE Fast & Furious Edition Racing Game

For this week’s giveaway, we’ve teamed up with Anki to offer MacRumors readers a chance to win the Anki OVERDRIVE: Fast & Furious Edition iPhone-compatible racing game.

Anki OVERDRIVE is an intelligent battle racing system where players construct different battle tracks for AI-controlled cars to race on. Each car that races on the OVERDRIVE track is equipped with unique capabilities, strengths, and weaknesses and the idea is to pit your strategic skills against your friends or the computer to win.

With Anki OVERDRIVE, you don’t control the car yourself — you build the track and use your car’s features to win out against the opponent, initiating races via the iPhone and using your car’s unique abilities and weapons at the right times.

The latest version of Anki OVERDRIVE, the Fast & Furious Edition, is based on the “Fast & Furious” movie franchise. It comes equipped with unique cars from the “Fast & Furious” movies and a new game mode, Hyperspeed, that lets you cars race faster than ever.

Priced at $170, Anki OVERDRIVE Fast & Furious comes with a full track for you to build and super detailed replicas of movie vehicles, including Dom’s Ice Charger and Hobbs’ MXT. Each vehicle has unique skills, such as a Grappling Hook on Dom’s Ice Charger, which can slow down opponents while giving your car a boost, and Spike Strips for the MXT.

As for weapons, each car is equipped with short range, long range, and area of effect weapons, and there are a range of support items available like shields, tractor beams, scramblers, and boosts. Car abilities, items, and weapons can all be used during races with the Anki Overdrive app on the iPhone.

You can engage in six game modes, all with different gameplay mechanics: Race, Battle, Battle-Race, King of the Hill, Time Trial, and Takeover, and when not racing against friends, you’ll be able to race characters from the movie like Letty, Tej, Hobbs, and Dom.

We have three Anki OVERDRIVE Fast & Furious sets to give away to MacRumors readers. To enter to win, use the Rafflecopter widget below and enter an email address. Email addresses will be used solely for contact purposes to reach the winners and send the prizes. You can earn additional entries by subscribing to our weekly newsletter, subscribing to our YouTube channel, following us on Twitter, or visiting the MacRumors Facebook page.

Due to the complexities of international laws regarding giveaways, only U.S. residents who are 18 years or older and Canadian residents (excluding Quebec) who have reached the age of majority in their province or territory are eligible to enter. To offer feedback or get more information on the giveaway restrictions, please refer to our Site Feedback section, as that is where discussion of the rules will be redirected.

a Rafflecopter giveawayThe contest will run from today (January 26) at 11:30 a.m. Pacific Time through 11:30 a.m. Pacific Time on February 2. The winners will be chosen randomly on February 2 and will be contacted by email. The winners will have 48 hours to respond and provide a shipping address before new winners are chosen.

Tags: Anki, Anki Overdrive, giveaway
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Apple Releases First Beta of macOS High Sierra 10.13.4 to Public Beta Testers

Apple today released the first beta of an upcoming macOS High Sierra 10.134 update to public beta testers, two days after seeding the update to developers and a few days after releasing macOS High Sierra 10.13.3.

Beta testers who have signed up for Apple’s beta testing program will be able to download the new macOS High Sierra beta through the Software Update mechanism in the Mac App Store.

Those who want to be a part of Apple’s beta testing program can sign up to participate through the beta testing website, which gives users access to iOS, macOS, and tvOS betas.

macOS High Sierra 10.13.4 introduces support for some features that are also available in iOS 11.3, like Messages on iCloud, which uploads all of your iMessages to the cloud. It will also support Business Chat, a feature coming when iOS 11.3 and macOS 10.13.4 are released to the public.

The new macOS update also includes the smoke cloud wallpaper that was previously only available on the iMac Pro, and it introduces a warning when opening up a 32-bit app as part of an effort to phase them out.

In the future, Apple plans to phase out 32-bit Mac apps, just like it did with 32-bit iOS apps. Apple says macOS High Sierra is the last version of macOS that will support 32-bit apps without compromises.

Related Roundup: macOS High Sierra
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