Native Instrument announces that Guitar Rig 2 is now available in US stores. Guitar Rig 2 greatly expands the sonic arsenal with additional painstakingly emulated classic amps and cabinets, a full setup of bass gear, an extended selection of distortion pedals and effects units, a wealth of intriguing modulation features, a new live looping module, and more. Guitar Rig 2 also comes with the all-new Rig Kontrol 2, a rugged and highly versatile foot pedal unit that offers a multitude of practical control and connectivity features, including an integrated USB 2.0 audio interface.

Guitar Rig 2 is available for $579 .Various updates and upgrades are also being offered. Availability in Europe, Australia, Japan and other non-US countries will begin on December 20th.

Ableton announces two Operator special offers in December : You can purchase Operator synthesizer instrument that can be used with Live, for the special price of $119. Operator delivers a wide range of sonic possibilities through a hybrid approach to synthesis and can be used in any Live full or lite version 4 or higher. If you upgrade to Live 5 between December 1st and 31st, you can add Operator to your order for a very special price. This offer is good for all upgrades to Live 5, including upgrades from Live versions 1 through 4 and from all lite versions. You can pay the standard upgrade prices and get Operator for $99.

M-Audio and Digidesign announce that the new Pro-Tools M-Powered version 7 will be available in stores worldwide mid-december. This full version costs $299,95. An free upgrade to version 7 is still available as download for current users. Pro Tools M-Powered 7 now features : New Instrument Tracks combine MIDI and audio capabilities in a single channel strip, Real-time MIDI processing enables control of MIDI quantization, Enhanced groove quantization features, Sample-based MIDI tracks allow MIDI events to stay locked to time code regardless of session tempo changes, Zoom Toggle enhancements, Mirrored MIDI editing mode and Additional MIDI improvements.

Rob Papen and LinPlug announced an upcoming major update to version 3 for Albino. This RP synthesizer by Rob Papen comes with a whole bunch of modules: Three types of oscillator are available: Digital, Analog, and Noise. two separate stereo filter modules with two filter types: Silk and Cream (that's how they sound!). Four versatile LFOs and eight envelopes, individual routable in the unique LinPlug Modulation Matrix. Finally a sophisticated effects section consisting of two independent stereo effects units, each containing six effects processors.

We don't have more information about this upcoming update, planned in 2006.

Audacity is now available in version 1.2.4, which features : file menu now includes a list of recent files, the "Generate Silence" effect now prompts for a length, Audacity is now built with Vorbis 1.1, which features better encoding quality and file compression, dragging sound files into the Audacity window now works on Mac OS X and Linux, as well as Windows. (Before, it worked only on Windows.), better support for certain audio devices on Mac OS X 10.4 "Tiger", "Preferences" command is now in Edit menu, "Plot Spectrum" command is now in Analyze menu, and more.

A beta version 1.3.0 of Audacity for Mac OS X and Mac OS 9 is also available.