PC and Music News

Ableton Live Lite 7 M-Audio Enhanced edition has arrived, with some impressive new features. And for registered Live Lite users, it's free.

Ableton Live Lite 7 now sports up to eight tracks, more effect instances, an enhanced audio engine, 64-bit mix summing, multiple time signatures, new and improved devices, side-chaining, refined MIDI timing and more.

And if you've ever thought about upgrading to the full version, now's a great time to do it. Ableton is giving Live Lite users an additional 50 EUR/USD off the price of upgrading to Ableton Live 7 and Ableton Suite.

MOTU has introduced the 896mk3, a cross-platform FireWire audio interface with on-board effects and mixing.

Features include eight XLR/TRS "combo" style analog inputs with high-quality preamps, true hi-Z guitar inputs, a total of 28 inputs and 32 outputs, 192 kHz analog operation, signal overload protection, a 32-bit floating point DSP for digital mixing and effects processing, two banks of configurable optical I/O and much more.

Effects include :

- Classic Reverb with five different room types, three frequency shelves with adjustable crossover points, shelf filtering and reverb lengths up to 60-seconds
- compression/limiting with two forms of compression : a standard compressor with conventional threshold/ratio/attack/release/gain controls and the Leveler , an emulation of the legendary LA-2A optical compressor
- EQ with 7-band parametric EQ modeled after British analog console EQ's, featuring 4 filter styles (gain/Q profiles), LP and HP filters with slopes that range from 6 to 36 dB

The 896mk3 will ship this summer for a price of $1,295.

PeSonus has finally announced the avaibility of its FireStudio Lightpipe, a 32 input, 32 output, 24-bit/96k lightpipe to FireWire computer recording system for professional-quality digital audio recording.

Compatible with both Windows and Macintosh computer systems, the FireStudio Lightpipe allows you to convert up to 32 channels of ADAT or SMUX optical lightpipe input/output via FireWire providing a multi-channel computer interface for digital mixers, AD/DA converters or ADAT recorders.

Features :

- 24-bit/96K FireWire (IEEE 1394) interface
- Word Clock I/O
- MIDI I/O
- JetPLL Jitter Elimination Technology
- Balanced TRS Stereo main outputs with volume control
- Headphone amplifier with volume control
- Dual SMUX for 16 channels at 96k over ADAT
- Fast-acting LED input metering
- 34 x 4 mixer matrix
- Mac OSX, Windows XP and Vista32 compatible
- Works with Cubase, Logic, Nuendo, Sonar, Digital Performer and many others.

The FireStudio Lightpipe is available now at a list price of $699/€669.

Ohm Force has released updates for its entire plug-in range and announced the launch of a Video Tutorial Contest.

Updates details :

- Several minor bugs fixed (Mac/Windows).
- MIDI out disabled by default, fixed (Mac/Windows).
- Huge performance boost on all Mac versions (Mac/Windows).
- Some installation problems fixed (Mac).
- Unreadable presets problem, fixed (all RTAS versions for Mac).
- Bug in browser, fixed (Symptohm:Melohman - Mac/Windows).
- Mouse wheel scroll in browser added (Symptohm:Melohman - Windows).
- Bug on funky skin, fixed (Symptohm:Melohman - Mac).
- Problem recovering default presets locations when loading/saving (Ohmicide:Melohman - Mac/Windows).
- Some parameter names have changed to reflect its GUI labels (Ohmicide:Melohman - Mac/Windows).
- ...

This month Sweetwater's Giveaway is dedicated to Pro Tools : they are giving away a powerful Pro Tools setup to one lucky winner!

The package starts with the 003 Rack Factory which comes with industry-standard Pro Tools LE software, heaps of free plug-ins, and the massive Pro Tools Ignition Pack. The package also includes the following plug-ins : Transfuser, Eleven LE, Strike, Structure, Hybrid, Velvet, and Xpand.

To participate, you just have to answer a bunch of questions at the following address :

Intua announces BeatMaker which introduces a new generation of mobile instruments and music creation software. Inspired by hardware beatboxes, loop samplers and software sequencers, it combines them to turn your iPod Touch / iPhone into a unique, inspirational software instrument.

For more information, please follow the link below :