Announced during Winter NAMM, Steinberg Virtual Guitarist 2.0 is now shipping worldwide. Offering a full 6.8 GB of authentic, editable riffs, parts and licks in 88 musical styles, offering a staggering total of nearly 1100 different parts across 88 styles including pop, rock, metal, reggae and country to name but a few. Virtual Guitarist 2 offers a complete computer-based instrument that creates realistic electric and acoustic rhythm guitar parts from scratch. The new Part Editor allows full editing control over every single Virtual Guitarist 2 phrase. Each chord is broken up into slices, which the user can manipulate as desired.

Guitarist 2 is shipping for 239 euros. Existing Virtual Guitarist or Virtual guitarist Electric Edition customers can update to the new Virtual Guitarist 2 version for 79 euros.

Once more ! Alphakanal announcd the release of version 0.3.9ub Audio Units for Automat. This new Universal Binary adds compatibility with new Intel-based iMac and Mac Book Pro. Automat is a substrative virtual synthesizer which features : subtractive synthesis, 3 antialiased oscilators, filters and amplifier, 2 ADSR's for filter and amplifier, 6 modulators with tempo sync and more...

This 'sunday freeware' is available in the MacMusic software section.

Digidesign has updated Pro Tools LE software and Pro-Tolls M-Powered software to version 7.0cs4, in order to fix the following bugs :

- When Recording on a Track with a Long Track Name, Recording Would Stop After 5 Minutes (Item #71869) ;
- Pro Tools Can Freeze When Attempting To Make a Crossfade (Item #72143).

These two new versions are available in the MacMusic software section.

Few weeks after the Pro 12 ASB (Authentic Sound Box) and the Minimax, Creamware announces the upcoming release the B4000 ASB, a Hammond B3 module featuring nine real drawbars. The B4000 also features a built-in Leslie rotary speaker emulation. This new member of the Authentic Sound Box range can be controlled with à stand-alone editor via USB. It will also feature MIDI In/Out/Thru, 2 analog inputs and 2 analog outputs.

The B4000 will cost 950€ and will be available in March.

SMPro a australian/german based company had a lot of new things at the Namm. The PM8 is a passive mixer in 2U format to serve as a front end to digital recording. It has 8 combo TRS/XLR ins and 2 stereo outs on XLR. Mute and Pan on each input channel, a 25 pin DSUB input (Protools/Tascam format), a ground pin connector, and 2 stepped levels on the Masters out. Also from SMPro there's a PR8E, 8 mic preamps in 1U rack format (see specs on the website) ; the DI1, a compact DI (see specs on the website) ; the AI8, an ADAT to analogue converter (1 ADAT input, 8 line ouputs interface, Delta-sigma 24 bit/96 kHz D/A converter in half rack 1U format) and last the CT1, a cable tester (2 Speakon, 2 TRS/TS, 2 XLR, 2 RCA Phono, 2 BNC, 2 MIDI (5-pin DIN), 2 Banana ; it tests also from one type to another).

Price and availability TBA.