Edirol announced the R-1, a portable 24-bit Wave and mp3 recorder and player. The R-1 features two electret mics, external line and mic inputs, a 24-bit internal effects processor (noise reducer, 10-band EQ, reverb and more). it also features a metronome, a tuner, half-speed playback, and A-B repeat to loop one section of an audio file. The R-1 stores files to Compact Flash (up to 2Gb) and comes with a 64MB card which allows a maximum record time of 130 minutes (mp3, 64 kbps mode). it also features an USB port and a phones/optical output.

The R-1 will cost $550 and will be available in late November.

RealGuitar is available as a VSTi version for OS X. In RealGuitar, new features are : added special 'RnC' mode providing the direct access for Rhythm'n'Chords Pro 2.5 MFX plug-in to RealGuitar multi-sample architecture. RealGuitar is now Mac compatible (OSX VSTi only).

A demo version is also available from the MusicLab web site.

SoundField has announced the new Surround Zone plug-in for Digidesign's Pro Tools software. The Surround Zone brings all the control of SoundField's surround and stereo processing to the digital domain. It combines the hardware features of both the SP451 surround processor and the MKV System.

Surround Zone for Pro Tools costs $1,062.50.

IDrum by Bitshift Audio is a drum machine for Mac OS X. This update adds support in Japanese, German, French, Italian, and Spanish. It also fixes bugs.

Info and download from the MM softs section.

Obsession by E-Lab is a RNB & Hip-hop Loop Player. It now comes to version 1.1 and features 3000 Loops, 5000 drumsamples with possibility to import external Rex2 files and 8 tracks of simultaneous loop playback with millions of loop combinations.

Obession is now available on RTAS, VST and AudioUnit formats.