Art Vista Productions has released the Art Vista Virtual Grand Piano. This virtual piano plug-in is based on Native Instruments' Kontakt Player recreating the 1960 Hamburg Steinway "B" Concert Grand Piano. It features 200 presets, including emulations of recording styles from the most famous piano recordings in all genres from the 1950's through 2005.

Virtual Grand Piano is available in VST, AU, RTAS and Stand Alone formats and costs $120 (introductory price of US$99 until 16th August).

Native Instruments announces at Summer NAMM its new Akoustik Piano, a sample-based software instrument. It includes three famous Grand pianos that have been at the heart of countless classical concerts and recordings for many decades - the powerful and dynamic Boesendorfer 290 Imperial, the crystal-clear and versatile Steinway D, and the gentle Bechstein D 280 with its subtle harmonic overtones.

Akoustik Piano will be available in September 2005 for for $349 /299 euros.

As MacMusic announced on july 15th, the new Oxford Limiter plugin is now shipping. The Oxford Limiter is a very high quality programme limiter, which employs logarithmic side chain processing, with innovative adaptive timing functionality, using look ahead techniques. Whether seeking general transparent level control, programme loudness maximisation or heavily applied artistic effects, the Oxford Limiter provides outstanding flexibility and world class performance.

Sony Oxford limiter is available as TDM and RTAS versions.

Edirol has introduced the world's first professional Hi - Speed USB (USB 2.0) multi-channel audio support for Apple Mac OS X Tiger using it's UA-1000 and UA-101 USB 2.0 Audio Interfaces. This eagerly awaited Mac OS X support is made possible due to advances made in Tiger.

A preview beta version of the Tiger driver is currently available for download at the Edirol site, and a preview beta version of the Tiger driver for the UA-101 is also available for download.

Alesis unveils 2 new "reference" studio monitiors. The M1 Active 520 features a 75-watt amplifier coupled with a 5-inch low frequency woofer, and the M1 Active 620 features a 100-watt amplifier and 6.5-inch low frequency woofer. he M1 Active 520 and 620 are both magnetically shielded.

M1 Active 520 costs $499 per pair and M1 Active 620 costs $599 per pair.