Cycling'74 announces a "Pluggo Junior" set, which contains 12 free plugins from the Pluggo suite : Average Injector, Chamberverb, Feedback Network, Filter Taps, Generic Effect, HF Ring Mod, Jet, Limi, Nebula, Resonation, Resosweep, Spectral Filter.

Pluggo Jr. will be available as a free download for Mac soon.

In celebration of the release of Mac OS X Tiger, Metric Halo has announced that for a limited time new licenses of ChannelStrip Native will be available at a savings of over 40%, for $199USD. This is a limited time offer that expires June 30, 2005.

Any new purchases of ChannelStrip Native are eligible for this discount.

Arturia has released an update to version 1.5 for its CS-80V virtual synth. This release features two new oscillators (one reproduces the CS-80 saw-tooth waveform, the other one is based on a new triangle algorithm with improved Pulse Width Modulation). A new "Settings" window has been added, offering the possibility to tune each voice independently. This new version also adds some improvements : the Ring Modulator has been rebuilt, the algorithm of the chorus was totally revised and much improved, and the original presets were redesigned.

This update also fixes several minor bugs.

FabFilter has released an update to version 1.0.1 for Volcano . This release fixes the following bug : Volcano load its filter sound characteristics 'Smooth', 'Raw', 'Hollow' and 'Hard' incorrectly. FabFilter also announces that another Volcano update will be available on June 6, and will add new LFO synchronization modes and other improvements.

These updated versions are free for registered users.

Ableton announces Live 5, which will present a wealth of new features and enhancements that cater to the musician's entire musical process – creation, production and performance. Live 5 includes advanced and creative DAW features to satisfy any audio professional. Live 5 will feature :

- Clip Freeze serves two purposes: freeing up CPU power and easing the transfer of projects between computers. Unique to Live 5, "frozen" clips retain their real-time launch capabilities, allowing for improvisation, performance or song arrangement. A project with frozen tracks can also be transferred from your main computer and run easily on one with less-than-optimal CPU specs.

- Plug-In Delay Compensation automatically delays tracks to compensate for latencies caused by effects and plug-ins, including those on the return tracks. In addition, both audio and MIDI tracks have a manual delay setting to compensate for human, acoustic, hardware and other real-world delays.

- Launchable Arrangement Locators offer arrangement/song-position markers with MIDI mapping and quantized recall. Using the mouse, computer keys or MIDI messages, you can drop locators on the fly during playback or recording. Each locator can be named and assigned to a computer key or MIDI message. Jumping to a locator is subject to real-time quantization, just like launching Session View clips and scenes. Previous/Next buttons allow you to jump from locator to locator.