TC electronics will ship in May the Powercore Firewire, a version of their Powercore PCI card but in Firewire (I'm smart, yes, I know ;)

Powercore firewire is twice the power of the PCI version and retains the principle of processing audio in Powercore and not in the computer host. The DSPs used here are faster and have more available RAM than on PCI so the result is a more powerfull rack and more plug-ins available than previously. Laptop users will definetly be interested.

- AudioUnits and VST support
- 4 Motorola 56K DSP 150MHz
- 512K words SRAM by DSP
- 1 Motorola PowerPC 266 MHZ
- 8MB DRAM for the PPC
- 3 Firewire pass thru connectors
- Price TBA

Small (!) detail, support of VST AND AudioUnits ;)

Propellerheads annouce the beginning of the public beta test of Reason 2.5. The new features are:

- RV7000 Advanced Reverb: A stereo reverb with a multitude of algorithms. Everything from large halls to cool sounding spring reverbs.
- BV-512 Digital Vocoder: A 4 to 512-band vocoder with the power to equalize.
- Scream 4 Sound Destruction Unit: A behemoth distortion unit capable of every kind of destruction, from subtle tape compression to digital bit-loss mayhem.
- UN-16 Unison: A classic chorus-like effect designed to fatten and widen any sound. Fans of classic eighties synths will like this one, only now you can add unison to any sound in the rack!
- Spider Audio Merger & Splitter: A small and indespensible utility for audio path scientists. ...

BIAS release a stand alone version of Soundsoap, its plug-in of noise reduction already available in VST format. So now users of non-VST compatible softwares can use Soundsoap like the others.

This stand alone version is available as a free update for registered users of the plug-in version, and others can purchase it for $99. Soundsoap is OS X only.

Elektron as announced is delivering the last SIDstations Final 100 Edition numbered 100 to 1 as their chip stock is about to end. The MOS6581 SID is the chip used in Commored 64 as a complete synth onboard and has gained vintage status.

900 euros in Europe and $760 in the rest of the world

Steinberg releases a bundle of the following OS 9 and X products:
- Cubase SL
- Waldorf Attack
- Waldorf D-Pole
- Waldorf PPG Wave 2.V

The bundle is said to be aimed at the Dance producer market and will retail for 499€