PC and Music News

Korg unveils the brand new nanoSeries devices which are designed to meet the needs of artists who like to make music on the go but don't want to make any sacrifices in the control department. The range features three compact products: nanoKEY, nanoPAD and nanoKONTROL.

nanoKEY : 25 velocity-sensitive keys, transmitting either as MIDI notes or (via a separate mode) Control Change (CC) messages. Octave shift (natch). Pitch, modulation.

nanoPAD : 12 trigger pads and an X/Y touch pad with roll and flam mode.

nanoKONTROL : 9 faders, 9 knobs, 18 switches, transport controls, MIDI notes, 168 CC messages. There are even attack and decay times for the switches, allowing them to work as faders, filter controls, effects settings, etc...

No more info for now... except for Japanese :

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 :