Native Instruments has announced detailed information on the upcoming version 1.6 of Maschine, the groove production studio for PC and Mac.

Some specs:
- Plugin hosting for VST/AU instruments and effects.
- Increased number of effect slots (3 per Sound, 4 per Group, 4 on Master).
- New "Pad Link" function with 8 pad groups and Master/Slave option.
- Individual swing setting per sound.
* Clip naming.
- Sample renaming.
- Improved scene duplication.
- External audio input/output increased to 16 stereo channels.
- Improved Drag&Drop mapping for samples.
- Improved Drag&Drop from OS for Maschine files and audio files.
- Drag&Drop rearrangement of scenes and patterns.
- Snap-to-grid when moving events via mouse.
- VST plugin operation under Mac OS X 64bit.
- Rex import under Mac OS X 64bit.

Ueberschall presents the new era of Electropop, the second volume of the premium Vodovoz series. Since 2009 ten of the top fifteen artists stem from the Electropop genre and have had major commercial success worldwide. This production is inspired by their music and packed with high-level Electropop construction kits. All kits are divided into intro, a-part, b-part, c-part, outro.

Electropop is a form of Synthpop characterized by an emphasized electronic sound, catchy hooks and dance beats. In Electropop, songwriting takes priority making it stand apart from more simplistic electronic dance music patterns and formula.

This year's Christmas Sale goes on, and this Friday 10th December it's distortion time (evil laugh) !!! None will need to choose between the four-band strength of the Ohmicide or the agile power of the Predatohm, people will be able to get them together. Each one of these 2 distortions is be extremely useful – depending on which kind of audio material we're going to distort and how evil is the result we're looking for. Read the poems, try the demos, use the codes. Poems ??? YES, because in addition of the sale, there is a Cohmpetition for the talented and the brave! The best will be awarded with a big bundle of course...

The discount codes for this Friday 10th are:

OHMICIDE-INSTINCT for -40% on the Ohmicide:Melohman
PREDATOHM-INCISIONS for -40% on the Predatohm
OHMICIDE-PREDATOHM-EVIL for -40% on both

ReFX has announced the release of 4 new expansions for Nexus, an instrument plug-in for Windows and Mac: Omicron 3, Future Arps 2, Classic Trance, and the free TV Movie Game

- Omicron 3 – DejaVu completes a hat trick with his third 128-pack of dead solid perfect sounds for trance and beyond. Majestic, cinematic leads, arp sequences, gated pads, and keys that will have your productions bursting with energy.
- Future Arps 2 – A full payload of devastating basslines, arps, sequences, even entire song structures at the touch of a key… Future Arps 2 is heavy artillery for your next club banger.
- Classic Trance – We've captured that unmistakable circa-2000 trance sound with Classic Trance: 128 presets including lush saw leads, detuned arps, and blissed-out pads. Breathtaking.
- TV Movie Game – Take a trip to the opening-theme bliss of old school television, movie, and video game music. It's all here: keys, arps, and basses, just begging to be used on that retro-pop masterpiece you've had bouncing around in your head. Attention: This is a free expansion created just for fun. The melodies may not be used in songs without permission of the copyright holders.

Steinberg has released a new, extensive maintenance update for its mastering solution, WaveLab 7.
The new update will further improve the stability and usability of WaveLab 7 in areas such as plug-ins, file handling, transport, Audio Montage, burning engine, Batch Processing, key commands, time-stretching and the graphical user interface.

This massive maintenance update is available (free of charge) on the Steinberg Web site.