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.

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.

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.

Blubrry has announced the release of an upgrade to its podcast plugin, PowerPress 2.0. PowerPress lets users embed audio and video podcasts into their WordPress websites and create correctly formatted feeds for syndication.

Some of the new features and enhancements include:

• HTML5 video player and HTML5 audio player
• Embeds your audience can take with them, “just like YouTube”
• WebM video support
• Ogg audio/video support improvements
• MP4+WebM (for mp4/m4v video, a new alternative WebM URL field is available. This is ideal for supporting all browser-based HTML5 video players)
• Flow Player Classic can now play m4a audio and mp4/m4v video
• New Video Player settings page added
• Settings pages enhanced with new options such as location, frequency and T.V. options
• Episode Entry box enhanced with new ‘isHD’ option when video entered into Media URL box
• Episode Entry box now includes option to configure video player width/height on a per-episode basis
• Upload image option added to supplement the video poster image field. Images are uploaded to the built-in image gallery in WordPress.

Blubrry / RawVoice CEO Todd Cochrane says of the release, “We have an amazing number of new features and improvements in this new version for both audio and video creators….  PowerPress 2.0 provides an optimized viewing experience for the widest spectrum of hardware/software including  web browsers (e.g. Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari), mobile devices (e.g. iPhone, iPad, Android), and TV’s (e.g. Google TV, Roku, Boxee).”

Find out more about PowerPress 2.0 here.

Wave Arts has introduced Dialog – an app for Windows and Mac that combines the tools to clean up, adjust, and sweeten spoken voice recordings.

Features:

• 10-band EQ section with 11 different filter types and 64-bit processing
• Low and high pass brickwall filters with various rolloff slopes
• Hum and buzz removal
• Broadband noise reduction
• De-plode function for plosive or wind rumble attenuation
• De-ess function for sibilant attenuation
• Compressor
• Peak limiter
• Comprehensive metering
• Master preset manager and preset manager per section
• Latency compensation
• Fully automatable
• Up to 192K support
• Mono or stereo

Dialog includes brickwall filters, de-hum and de-buzz processing, broadband noise reduction, de-ploding, de-essing, 10-band equalization, compression, and limiting. Separate presets are available for each section.

Macintosh

• OS X 10.4, 10.5, 10.6 or later.
• A host program that supports the AU, MAS, VST, or RTAS plug-in architecture.
• All Mac plug-in formats compatible with Intel-based Macintosh computers (Universal Binary).
• Windows

Windows 2000, XP or Vista.

• A host program that supports the DirectX, VST, or RTAS plug-in architecture.

Dialog retails for $249.95. A demo version is available.

Apple today introduced GarageBand for the iPad - a version of the company’s entry-level digital audio workstation, optimized for multi-touch mobile music making.

GarageBand for the iPad could be a great new option for mobile audio podcasting – turning your tablet into a mobile recording studio for $5.

Features:

• Musical instruments designed for Multi-Touch.
• 70 synth presets
• Arpeggiator
• “Smart instrument” features
• 8-track recording
• Guitar amp simulator
• Stomp box effects
• Track sharing via email or iTunes
• Tracks can be opened in GarageBand on the Mac

The iPad version of GarageBand will be available starting March 11th.

GarageBand for the iPad will work with the existing iPad – but it will be interesting to see how performance fares.

What do you think of Apple’s iPad GarageBand announcement?

More coverage at TechCrunch, AppleInsider

Ambrosia Software has announced the release of WireTap Anywhere 2.0, a major update to the audio routing and mixing software – a popular tool for Mac-based podcasters.

WireTap Anywhere can take the audio output from any combination of Mac applications or hardware input devices, and route it into your favorite audio processing applications.

The new 2.0 version of WireTap Anywhere lets you:

• Create virtual input devices with an arbitrary number of channels of audio.
• Discretely map audio channels from software applications and hardware devices in any combination you choose.
• Adjust audio levels on a per-channel basis both pre- and post-mix.
• Preview your audio mix before you ever hit the record button.

WireTap Anywhere is available now for $129. Registered users of WireTap Anywhere 1.x can upgrade to version 2.0 for $69.

Developer Humble Daisy has announced a temporary price drop for ProfCast, the company’s flagship lecture recording and podcasting solution. For remainder of the month of July, ProfCast will be half priced.

“We wanted to try something a little different. Rather than have a ‘sale’, we thought we would just simplify things and drop the price across the board.” explained David Chmura, CEO of Humble Daisy, Inc. “We’ll try it for a month and see how it goes. If it’s a success, we’ll make the change permanent.”

ProfCast allows live presentation recording, synchronization of slides with audio, PowerPoint support, and media generation. All of these elements of a presentation, including slide timings, bullet point builds and voice narration are seamlessly recorded and integrated into the final recording. ProfCast allows users to record their presentation as they give it, and create enhanced media files for online distribution.

Feature highlights include:

• Records Live Presentations
• Supports Multiple File Formats
• ID3 Tags for iTunes U
• Screen Capture support
• Files playback on iPhone and iPods
• Files playback on Macintosh and Windows computers

Pricing and Availability:

ProfCast is regularly priced at $59.95 (USD) for a single-user license. A full-featured, 15-day demo is available and recommended update for all customers. Educational discounts are available. During the month of July, Humble Daisy is offering a special price of $29.95 per license. A full-featured trial version is available for evaluation. Qualified academic customers can purchase ProfCast for $14.95 during the month of July. The new pricing is available for online orders only. Purchase Orders will be filled using the regular pricing.

Podcasting Software: Reinvented Software released Feeder 2.1 today, an update to its Mac RSS newsfeed and podcast feed editor.

Version 2.1 adds support for WebDAV publishing, an updated iTunes Store preview and customizable colors for iTunes U page previews. This release also adds drag and drop Sparkle appcasts, improves MP3 tagging, working with Twitter accounts, gesture support and will now run as a 64-bit application on Snow Leopard.

Feeder Description:

For podcasters, Feeder includes full support for the iTunes RSS podcasting extensions, drag and drop episode creation, an iTunes Store preview and the ability to tag all popular podcast media files. Feeder can publish feeds and associated files via FTP, SFTP, MobileMe, WebDAV and Amazon S3.

Feeder now runs as a 64-bit application on Snow Leopard and supports multitouch gestures for navigating items, zooming previews and switching between edit and preview modes.

Version 2.1 also improves Twitter announcements with a streamlined authentication process and bit.ly URL shortening. Feeder’s iTunes Store preview has been completely updated to match the recent changes to iTunes and the theme colors can be customized for iTunes U page previews. Finally, this version also adds the ability to drag-and-drop application bundles to fill out version numbers and create zipped files for Sparkle appcasts, improves MP3 tagging and more.

Pricing and Availability:

Feeder 2.1 is a free upgrade for all registered Feeder 2.0 users, a full license costs $39 (USD) and an upgrade from version 1.x is $14.95.

Foodev has updated Caster – its podcasting app for the iPhone, iPod touch and iPad, to support multi-track recording and the iPad.

Caster is a $4.99 app designed to let you create and publish podcasts on your mobile device, including podcast recording, audio editing, uploading and RSS publishing.

Features:

• Record chunks of audio at a time or all at once
• Waveform editor
• Clip reordering and deleting
• Cut, Copy, Paste
• Audio Normalization
• All podcast clips are combined into a single file
• Writes podcast in m4a/ALAC format – if ALAC is unavailable on your device, it writes to a wave.
• Download your completed podcasts via FTP or publish directly from the palm of your hand!
• Existing podcast RSS files are synced with Caster
• Multi-track recording and editing
• All RSS Fields are editable from your device
• Review previously recorded podcasts
  copy and paste between podcast issues
• Automatically generates a new RSS when publishing
• Upload existing audio clips for use in your podcast
• FTP Server to download your podcast via WIFI
• FTP Client to automatically publish your podcast
• Built in documentation
• Publish via email, and link in twitter and facebook