Following two years of research and development, Event Electronics is proud to announce that the Opal studio monitor has commenced shipping worldwide.

The Opal's EX8 driver provides a raw response of 30Hz to 10kHz and a power handling of up to 1000 watts. A high powered neodymium motor provides 36mm of linear excursion to the bespoke high-strength glass fiber polyamide cone. Event's X-Coil technology dramatically increases the driver speed and control, lowering distortion to levels previously unavailable in its class, and providing defined and accurate mid range reproduction as well as powerful, high speed bass.

The ULD1 tweeter combines ultra light and rigid beryllium-copper with an extremely powerful neodymium motor to produce unbelievable high frequency clarity. It is mounted in the Opal's innovative high frequency waveguide, which has been designed not only to provide excellent stereo imaging and a wide soundstage, but also to enable users to remove and rotate it for accurate reproduction in horizontal mounting applications.

The Opal's cabinet is moulded from aluminium to provide strength and minimise resonance. Each surface is a combination of complex radii to eliminate any diffraction inside the cabinet. The front mounted ports incorporate a variable impedance design that completely remove any port noise, and does not rely on room acoustics unlike rear porting solutions.

ReKon audio has just announced that Moog Music has chosen them to develop a VST editor for the Little Phatty analog synthesizer. The new addition to the Moog product line will bring complete control inside a VST host to the Moog Little Phatty user-base. The new editor will be able to both save and recall preset sound patches and banks in both the VST (.fxb/.fxp) and native System Exclusive (.syx) formats.

VST Little Phatty Editor features :

- View and edit every available parameter in one view
- Automate and shape patches along with the music... in the DAW
- Intuitive user interface that emulates the real gear's appearance
- Save and recall patches in .FXB/.FXP and .SYX formats
- Available as a VST 2.4 plug-in for Mac OSX and Windows PC

Moog Music plans to release the VST Little Phatty Editor in Early Spring 2009.

Softube has just released the FET Compressor plug-in.

When creating FET Compressor, Softube set out to make the most accurate emulation of the most famous solid state compressor, and very much effort has been spent modeling the real hardware to make sure that the emulation sounds exactly the same.

Nothing must stand in the way of the sound. Every single part of the simulation contributes to making this piece unique. The extremely fast attack, all the subtle (and sometimes not so subtle) distortion that comes from the different parts of the compressor and the extremely careful way the signal is handled and conditioned throughout the signal chain.

On top of that they have added some useful features that still have that analog sound - but features that would've been hard or even impossible to implement with analog electronics, such as the continuous ratio, parallel compression, detector filtering and lookahead. That way you will be able to get the best of two worlds.

Available for both native VST, AU, RTAS as well as the DSP-based TDM and VENUE formats, FET Compressor is priced at $279 for the native version and $429 for the TDM/VENUE version (excl. VAT). Note that a fully functional 10 day demo is also available.

ADAM Audio, the famous german loudspeaker manufacturers, have announced the opening of a subsidiary of their operation in the United Kingdom. ADAM Audio Ltd. UK will be based in north London, and will handle the distribution and marketing of Adam products in the UK.

Newly appointed director Kevin Bent, who worked with ADAM's previous distributor Unity Audio, commented, "to cope with the growing demand, this subsidiary is a reaction to the success in the English market and a clear sign to our customers that we would like to improve the service they are already accustomed to".

Digidesign, a part of Avid Technology, today announced the immediate availability of Pro Tools 8 software, the company's highly-anticipated, next-generation music creation and audio production software

Pro Tools 8 is the latest version of the industry-leading digital audio workstation. A dramatically enhanced feature set is highlighted by a completely updated user interface, more than 70 bundled plug-ins and virtual instruments, fully-integrated MIDI and score editors and an expanded array of editing features for both music and post production applications.

For composers and musicians, Pro Tools 8 provides powerful functionality for streamlining the creative process, and delivers the most versatile sonic palette ever available out-of-the-box for Pro Tools. New music creation feature ...