PC and Music News

Telefunken USA have relaunched the U48 large-diaphragm tube microphone, over 50 years after it was first introduced by the original company. The U48 is almost identical to the legendary U47, the only difference being in the choice of polar patterns on offer: the U47 operates in cardioid and omni modes, while the U48 has cardioid and figure-of-eight patterns.

Like their U47, Telefunken USA's U48 ships in a smart briefcase, which safely houses the bulky power supply, a shockmount and the cable.

Waves Audio introduces the Silver plug-in bundle, which gathers 16 of Waves' plug-ins in one "affordable" package.

Waves Silver includes :

- Renaissance Compressor
- Renaissance Equalizer
- Renaissance Axx
- IR-L Convolution Reverb
- L1 Ultramaximizer
- C1 Parametric Compander
- S1 Stereo Imager
- Q10 Paragraphic Equalizer
- MaxxBass
- MondoMod
- Enigma
- TrueVerb
- SuperTap
- Doubler
- DeEsser
- Paz Analyzer

Waves Silver is now available with a U.S. MSRP of $900.

Sweetwater has dubbed October "Microphone Month," and to celebrate, the retailer is giving away one of its largest prize packages ever - two mic collections with a combined retail value of more than $25,000.

Two winners, who will be chosen after the conclusion of the promotion October 31, will each receive a "Dream Mic Locker," including studio icons such as a Neumann U 87 AI and AKG C 414 B-XLS, along with microphones from Audio-Technica, Audix, beyerdynamic, Blue, Bock Audio, Earthworks, Electro-Voice, Mojave Audio, Rode, Royer, Sennheiser, Shure, and others.

No purchase is necessary to enter the giveaway. Entrants can register online at :

Sonnox has announced a special time-limited promotion on their Sonnox Elite collection - the company's ultimate bundle, containing all the Oxford plug-ins. For the months of October and November 2008 there will be a 20% discount on the Sonnox Elite Collection.

The elegant boxed set includes the full range of all seven Oxford plug-ins: EQ, Dynamics, Inflator, Transient Modulator, Reverb, Limiter and SuprEsser. Sonnox Elite presents mixing, mastering, post and broadcast engineers with a powerful compilation of sophisticated processing tools designed to meet all their requirements.

Sonnox Elite retails at £1,554 for the TDM version and £744 for Native; but with the 2 month promotion, will sell for £1,243 (TDM) and £595 (Native).

TC Electronic announces a new addition to the PowerCore platform : PowerCore 6000. According to TC, by combining System 6000 algorithms with PowerCore platform users now get the ultimate studio tool for their DAWs.

PowerCore 6000 features eight FreeScale DSP engines, the same DSPs used in System 6000, and it has an SRAM memory design that supports high performance reverbs and delays. This enables users to run famous reverbs and delay-algorithms from System 6000 with popular DAWs like Logic Pro, as well as with any other VST- and Audio Units-compatible host.

PowerCore 6000 includes 7 pristine plug-in algorithms, which are ported 1:1 from System 6000 : VSS3 Stereo Source Reverb, Nonlin2, DVR 2 Digital Vintage Reverb MD3 Stereo Mastering, Brickwall Limiter, UnWrap stereo to 5.1 conversion and TapFactory.

Compatible with the latest Mac OS and Windows XP/Vista 32, PowerCore 6000 will be available at the end of October 2008 for a suggested retail price of €2999.

URS has announced the release of URS Saturation v2.0.

Features :

- Six Vintage Pre Amplifier Algorithms.
- Two Analog Tape Saturation Algorithms.
- Transformer Core Saturation Algorithm.
- Even and Odd Ordered Harmonics.
- Soft Clipping.
- 158 Factory Presets.

The two Mono Tape Head algorithms add Analog Tape saturation. This non-linear saturation produces a smoothing effect on high frequency transients. The Transformer Core Saturation algorithm adds non linear transformer core saturation as found on vintage consoles, tape machines and outboard gear. The two new vintage pre amplifier algorithms are : Tape Deck (Class A Tube Mic Pre) and 1951 (Class A Tube Mic Pre).

URS Saturation v2.0 is now available for Windows (VST) and Mac OS X (VST, AU and RTAS) at an introductory price of $199.99. The update is free for all registered Saturation v1.0 users.