Propellerhead has announced the release of three new software bundles : Reason Premium Edition, Studio Combo, and Rhythm Combo.

The Reason Premium Edition ($599/€499) includes a full version of Reason, bundled together with the four complete Hypersampled ReFills (Reason Drum Kits, Reason Pianos, Abbey Road Keyboards and Reason Electric Bass sound libraries).

The Propellerhead Studio Combo ($299/€249) bundles the four Hypersampled Reason sound libraries — Reason Drum Kits, Reason Pianos, Abbey Road Keyboards and Reason Electric Bass ReFills — in one package.

The Propellerhead Rhythm Combo ($149/€149) bundles the Reason Drum Kits and Reason Electric Bass ReFills into one package.

All three packages will be available in Europe and Asia on August 5, 2008 and in North America on August 25, 2008.

Tascam has launched the GT-R1, a new portable recorder for guitar and bass players.

Based on the DR-1 recorder, the GT-R1 features a pair of built-in condenser microphones which allows to capture rehearsals and live shows. Musicians can also plug directly into the instrument input to record with amp simulation and effects. The GT-R1 includes a rhythm player for instant inspiration, and a 1GB SD Card and rechargeable battery are included to get started right away.

Features :

- Portable stereo recording with built-in condenser microphones
- MP3 or WAV file recording, up to 48kHz/24-bit
- 1/4" Instrument input for Guitar or Bass
- Amp simulation and multi-effects
- Over 80 rhythm tracks in a variety of styles
- Overdub function allows users to record over an existing track
- Powered microphone input
- Low cut filter and analog limiter on input
- Loop and change the speed of music playback without changing the pitch to learn and transcribe new music
- Guitar and Bass canceller allows musicians to play along
- Includes 1GB SD Card and rechargeable battery
- USB 2.0 Connection to computer for file transfer and charging
- Optional AK-DR1 includes a tabletop stand, microphone clip and windscreen

For more information, please visit the link below :

Waves Audio announces the latest in its series of educational events, The Waves Logic Studio Tour.

The Tour will feature legendary producer/engineer Eddie Kramer, along with Waves Product Specialists, demonstrating Waves' plug-ins in conjunction with Logic Studio and other Apple professional audio applications. These events, presented in association with Apple Pro Audio Resellers, are free and open to the public. The Waves Logic Studio Tour will take Kramer and the Waves crew to several cities across the U.S. throughout September.

Latest tour date updates and news are available online at the Waves website.

Sonoris Audio Engineering has just announced the release of Sonoris Dither, a professional, high quality audio plugin for mastering purposes.

With this plugin you can quantize audio to a lower bitdepth with dither and/or noiseshaping. The dithertype is selectable between TPDF and High Pass (HP) TPDF. TPDF is short for Triangular Probability Densitity Function, a form of dither that eliminates non-linear distortion during re-quantization and has no signal modulation artifacts.

The noiseshaping can be set to three flavors: Curve A, B and C or "Off". It is also possible to set noiseshaping without dither.

The output bitdepth can be set to 16 and 20 bit or "Off" for no quantization.

Sonoris Dither is available now for both Mac OS X and Windows in VST format and is priced at $75.

Perimeter Sound Arts has released Tone Set #5, a collection of 128 newly created Gearbox patches.

Sorted into 4 categories, 'Alternative', 'Blues', 'Clean', and 'Metal', with a focus on mixing and matching guitar & bass pres and cabs, and bringing out the truer tone of the amps, with fewer effects added and almost no compression used.

Tone Set #5 is available now and is priced at $20. Note that a free no-restrictions-on-use (and no email sign up of any kind required) free demo pack of 16 patches from Tone Set #5 is also available.