TASCAM has released a new free app for iOS, TASCAM PCM Recorder, that is a free stereo recorder for iOS devices.

It works on iPhone, iPod touch and iPad.

PCM Recorder supports up to 12 hours of recording, using the built-in microphone or connected USB devices like the TASCAM iM2 stereo microphone.

Other features include EQ, limiting, Soundcloud support and more.

PCM Recorder is a free download via the App Store.

Apple today released GarageBand 1.1, an update that adds Universal support – bringing GarageBand to the iPhone and iPod touch.

GarageBand has become one of the most popular platforms for audio podcasting and support for the full line of iOS devices will be welcome for many podcasters.

The $5 app now makes your iPhone or iPod touch into a powerful 8-track podcasting workstation. With a decent mic, there’s no reason you couldn’t make complete podcasts with it. But most users will probably use GarageBand on the iPhone as a portable audio recorder, sync to GarageBand on the desktop and then edit there.

Missing in action is iCloud support, which would be a killer feature for podcasters. Let’s hope that iCloud syncing shows up in version 1.2!

Here’s what’s new in GarageBand 1.1 for iOS:

• Universal app designed for iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch
• Create custom chords for Smart Instruments
• Support for 3/4 and 6/8 time signatures
• Reset song key without transposing original recordings
• Transpose songs in semitones or full octaves
• Additional quantization options for recordings including, straight, triplet and swing
• New audio export quality settings for AAC and AIFF (Uncompressed)
• Arpeggiator available in Smart Keyboard
• Adjustable velocity settings for Touch Instruments
• Numerous enhancements, including automatic fade out and improved audio import options

Click here to view the embedded video.

Luis Alamilla offers his take on the $60 iRig microphone, a handheld condenser unidirectional microphone designed to be used with the iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad.

The iRig isn’t designed to give you the same quality as a mic + audio adapter combo, but is a simple solution that should meet the needs of a lot of podcasters for an inexpensive basic microphone.

If you’ve used the iRig, leave a comment and share your thoughts on it!

Developer Wooji Juice has introduced Hokusai – a free multitrack audio editor for iPhone or iPad:

Record or import a track, and make it sound the way you want it to: not just trimming the ends, but full cut, copy, paste and delete, and a suite of filters and special effects available.

Edit many tracks side-by-side, mix them together, and export to wave or mp4 format — then transfer them to your computer via USB or Dropbox, or send them to another app on your device.

Hokusai is streamlined to give you a clean, clear view of your tracks. Use the familiar pinch and swipe gestures to zoom right in and fiddle with fine detail, or step back to see the big picture. And just like selecting text in other apps, you can select pieces of audio. Live “scrubbing” means you can hear the sound under your fingertip as you make your adjustments. And you needn’t fear a bad edit with our full undo/redo support: as many levels as space allows.

Hokusai comes free with a set of useful tools such as fade in/out, normalise volume levels, reverse time, and basic synthesis. If you need more power, though, you can upgrade from inside the app to add new tools and effects, including:

• AudioCopy/AudioPaste
• grain synthesis
• noise gating
• time-stretching
• pitch-bending
• echo
• reverb
• modulation (AM & FM)
• resonance
• distortion
  grunge
• vocal levelling
• monster voice
• high/low/band-pass/notch-cut filter

It’s available now in the App Store.

Cinemek has introduced Storyboard Composer HD, a storyboarding app for the iPad, iPhone or iPod touch.

Here’s what they have to say about it:

Create compelling real time pre-visualizations and storyboards of your ideas on your iPad, iPhone or iPod touch with Storyboard Composer HD. Storyboard Composer HD is the world’s first mobile storyboarding app which allows you to storyboard where you need to when you need to. Simply take a photo, drop in characters, add camera or scene direction, then play the project back in real time.

This version of Storyboard Composer allows you to share your .CSC file with other users who own Storyboard Composer as well as Organize your scenes more efficiently.

Features in Storyboard Composer HD:

• Multi view option when iPad is turned vertical.
• Scenes can now be organized in scene view.
• Users can exchange .CSC files between devices and to other users.
• sers can now add their own logo to be displayed on PDF’s.
• QuickView thumbnail preview.

Storyboard Composer HD is currently $4.99 in the App Store.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Developer Kyle Graham has released a new plugin for WordPress, called VoicePress.

The plugin adds a microphone button to the WordPress editor, letting you dictate your blog posts. You can see a demo of VoicePress in action above.

VoicePress is in the early stages. It is in beta and only works in Chrome browsers. The beta is available as a free download.

It’s not hard to imagine this developing into a useful tool for WordPress-based podcasters, creating a transcript for your podcast as you talk. It would be interesting, too, to see voice recognition incorporated into mobile versions of WordPress.

If you’ve tried VoicePress, leave a comment and let me know what you think of it.

Sound Byte

Developer Black Cat Systems has introduced Sound Byte – a $4.99 app for playing back sound bites on demand.

According to the developers, Sound Byte was designed for:

• Radio, podcast and TV productions – have ads, announcements, songs and sound effects
• at your fingertips.
• Theater Productions – play any sound effect on cue.
• Sports Events – jazz up the commentary for your home team with sound effects each time they score.

Sound Byte supports five racks of carts, or up to 375 recordings total.

Sound Byte plays sound files that you have installed in the Documents folder, which you can access via the iTunes app. It does not come with any sound files.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Here’s a video review of Fire 2, the latest version of the iOS field recording app.

Audiofile Engineering has updated its field recording iOS app, FIRe, to version 2.

FIRe is designed to turn an iPhone or iPod touch into a professional-level portable audio recorder.

Here’s what’s new in FIRe 2:

• Advanced editing suite with SmartEdits, Bezier fades, change gain, normalize, looping playback, regions and more
• Improved Transport screen with faster and smoother drawing and larger waveform view
• EQ and Dynamics effects by Audiofile Engineering
• iTunes file transfer
• Enhanced input processing powered by iZotope™
• Record in background
• DropBox integration
• Regions

Other features include:

• Record in mono and stereo, 16-bit, 48 kHz
• Live waveform view including rectified view
• Live overview for easy navigation
• Scroll waveform with touch
• Navigate waveform via double-tap with configurable behavior
• Moveable Playback Head
• Tap Playback Head handle to add markers
• Editable Markers and Regions
• Preference to add markers at time intervals
• Overdub mode with playthrough
• Beautiful and accurate VU Input Meters
• VU meters change to output in playback
• Configurable time units display
• Tag Recordings, Markers and Regions with location data
• Pause gracefully when interrupted by phone call
• Countdown with gorgeous graphics
• Record for/until/over threshold… settings
• Preference to automatically move to end and/or add marker when recording starts
• Preference to limit recordings to 2GB
• Screen rotates 180 degrees for better control of the iPhone’s internal mic
• Broadcast WAVE metadata
• Searchable recordings list
• Sorting options for the Recordings List
• Ability to lock recordings
• File export via iTunes File Sharing, FTP and browser access
• SoundCloud (http://soundcloud.com) and DropBox (http://dropbox.com) integration
• Choice of export file formats: WAVE, AIFF, CAF, AAC, Apple Lossless, AAC, Podcast, Ogg Vorbis, FLAC

Hardware Requirements:

• iPhone 3GS & iPhone 4
• 3rd & 4th generation iPod touch

FIRe 2 is available now in the App Store for $5.99.

Apple has released an update to Garageband for Mac, version 6.02, that improves overall stability and addresses a number of minor issues.

Though Apple isn’t hyping this update, it’ could be an important one for Mac-based iPad users.

The release brings support for opening projects imported from GarageBand for iPad – so you can start a recording on an iPad and bring it over to a Mac for further work in GarageBand or even Logic.

The workflow is currently one-way from iPad to Mac.

This update is recommended for all GarageBand ’11 users.