I've had a chance now to give Live 3 a test-drive. So far, the new release looks very solid, and even in beta runs fine. An interesting detail: the new plugins ship as VST plugins, as opposed to proprietary Live plugins, so you can use them with other software. The previous plugins remain proprietary. Despite the fit-and-finish on this new release, however, you will want to wait for the final software to ship. Unlike the Live 2 beta, the beta software warns that files saves with the beta may be incompatible with the final release version. I'll have more on Live 3 later this week; in the meantime feel free to email me your impressions.

In a statement by Ableton's Gerhard on the Live user forum, Live's developer says Live 3 won't bring significant audio performance improvements, and furthermore, Velocity Engine optimization (which would benefit Mac G4 and G5 users) would require a complete rewrite of the underlying audio engine that won't occur in this upgrade.

Have you ever wondered if it is possible to seemlessly morph from one sound to another? It's now really possible : Prosoniq announce "morph VST" a very interesting and fast new VST (and stand-alone) plug-in from Prosoniq. For Mac only (OS 9 & OS X compatible too!). Morph VST is availaible for 179 $.

Here it comes the new audio interface 96i for Pro Tools HD and Pro Tools Accel (see the last M.M news for this).

Featuring sixteen inputs with gain control (six switchable levels for the first four and two for the others), two analog outputs with 96kHz conversion, one SPDIF 24 bits input/output, Digidesign announce that the converters of the 96i will be as good as the one of the 96 I/O. Up to six 96i can be use to allow simultaneously up to 96 analog inputs.

Rumors are coming and going, the only thing that can be seen right now (no one is allowed on the huge Apple Booth) are dark veils waiting to be uncovered tomorrow morning during the keynote.

Facts: seems to be some hardware (a huge panel up to the ceiling is covered (haha…) and a row of little booths to touch the gizmos IRL). But tomorrow, not before (rumors are according on this at last).

New powermac G4 anyone? (we want a G5!) As MacNN.com marked it and is showing it, no powerbooks can be seen on the booth now, so… could be… ;)