Bias Announces Peak 2.5 VST

Berkley Integrated Audio Software, Inc. (BIAS) announces the latest version of its flagship digital audio editing software, BIAS Peak 2.5 VST. This Macintosh program, has been significantly improved.

VST Plug-in Support

Consistent with the program's tradition of taking advantage of the native processing power of the Macintosh, BIAS Peak 2.5 VST now offers complete support for the wide range of plug-ins available in the VST format. "With Peak 2.5 VST, BIAS has once again adopted an exciting new standard, Steinberg's real-time effects plug-in architecture" said Steve Berkley, CEO and President of BIAS. "By supporting VST plug-ins, our Peak users can now perform complex digital signal processing on their Power Macs without any additional hardware at a fraction of the cost of traditional effects boxes or expensive DSP audio hardware." BIAS Peak 2.5 VST will ship with more than 25 free VST plug-ins, including reverb, compression, distortion, and other effects.

"The Power Mac G4, featuring its revolutionary PowerPC G4 with Velocity Engine, delivers outstanding performance for tasks such as digital audio editing" said Clent Richardson, Apple vice president of Worldwide Developer Relations. "BIAS Peak 2.5 VST gives Macintosh users a very powerful audio tool."

New Interface, Waves IDR Dithering, "No Diskette Required" Authorization System, and Other Enhancements

BIAS Peak 2.5 VST has a brand new interface, sporting a more sleek, professional look. The new version offers a number of additional enhancements, including the addition of a built-in dithering function, the highly-acclaimed IDR dithering technology from Waves; support for SMDI transfers using Ultra-wide SCSI devices; a more powerful Guess Tempo function; a new Loop-It command, which automatically loops audio selections; a new Repair Click function, which quickly and easily repairs a single digital click; new metering algorithms with greater display precision; and a brand-new authorization system, which no longer relies upon floppy key diskettes and challenge/response codes. Peak 2.5 VST offers fully integrated support for CDDB, which automatically names CD tracks via the online CDDB database during importing of audio CD tracks. Peak 2.5 VST also includes a links menu, which fully integrates the program with technical support, online documentation, and other resources on the BIAS Web site.

Pricing and Availability

BIAS Peak 2.5 VST is available in two editions. BIAS Peak, the standard professional version (MSRP $499), includes support for Premiere, Audiosuite and VST plug-ins. BIAS Peak TDM, in addition to supporting VST, Premiere, and Audiosuite plug-ins, includes support for TDM plug-ins (MSRP $699). The entry-level edition, BIAS Peak le 2.5 (MSRP $99) is also available, but will only include the new interface and CDDB enhancements. Existing owners of BIAS Peak le can upgrade to Peak le 2.5 for $49. BIAS Peak owners can upgrade to Peak 2.5 VST for $129. Peak TDM owners can upgrade to Peak 2.5 TDM for $169. Users who purchased Peak after May 1, 2000 can upgrade free of charge. Upgrades can be purchased and additional information can be found at www.bias-inc.com.

Additionally, BIAS offers three Powerbook editions, each bundled with the Digigram Vxpocket PCMCIA digital I/O card, to bring professional digital audio recording and editing to the laptop: Peak le Powerbook ($799); BIAS Peak Powerbook ($999); and BIAS Studio Powerbook ($1179), which includes BIAS Peak, BIAS Deck, and BIAS SFX Machine.