NATIVE INSTRUMENTS presents the first major update of their award winning, semi modular software synthesizer.

ABSYNTH 2.0 is now a synthesizer and a sampler!!! The list of the new features is so gorgeous that you really have to go on their site to believe what you will read.

The MODELmaker software is available free to all Neuron purchaser (see previous news) in OS 9 version, PC and OSX to follow this spring. A new soundset of 150 items is available too.

Tascam in collaboration with Frontier Design Group developed the US-122, a USB MIDI/audio interface featuring:

- 16 midi channels I/O
- 2 XLR phantom powered mic inputs with analog inserts or
- 2 line inputs on balanced TRS 1/4" jacks, guitar level switchable
- dedicated headphone outpout.
- Zero latency monitoring, level control, can be switched to mono
- 2 line outputs unbalanced with level control
- 24 bit 44,1 and 48KHz
- USB powered
- OS 8.6 to 9 and OS X
- ASIO, Sound Manager, Core Audio, OMS, FreeMIDI
- free cubasis VST
- $269

Taking place from 22 to 25th of march in Amsterdam (Netherlands), the main workshops will cover Surround, Coding PCM /DSD, MPEG-4 development and so on ... The lectures will be centered on numeric audio, room acoustics, audio levels monitoring and the setting of a 5.1 monitoring speaker system.

Metropolis DVD creates Bonus DVDs against unauthorized copying. Asked by a few majors which want to stop the unauthorized copying and what they called the "napsterization" of their catalogues, Metropolis DVD decided to add Quality Bonus in order to push people buying the original ones. The increasing sales of the tittles which use this brilliant marketing idea seem to prove the efficiency of this system.