Every week in the run up to the Frankfurter Musikmesse Native Instruments is featuring one of its new Kore system's central aspects. This week NI focusses attention to the way in which the sounds themselves are handled within Kore. The new KoreSound format enables you to find sounds and presets based on their musical attributes and also allows you to create new sounds based on multiple instruments and effects.

Full details about KoreSound are available in the "Kore Chapter Two" from the Natice Instruments web site...

Cakewalk has announced that Rapture, its new wavetable synthesizer designed to produce pop, dance and electronic sounds, is now shipping worldwide. Rapture combines an advanced modulation system with an non-aliasing wavetable resampling engine. It features 40 Envelope Generators, LFOs, and Step Generators per patch, and comes with more than 500 programs including Basses, Leads, Pads, Arpeggios, Textures, Electronic Percussion and Sequences.

Rapture ships (AU, RTAS, VST) for $259,00.

Quikquak has udated RaySpace to version 2.2.1 VST . This version now features : Patches from RaySpace 2.0 and 2.1 now working and upgraded, A new EQ display that can also be directly adjusted on the graph, for much easier editing, Vertex editing of walls, for quick adjustments, Mirror mode for creating symmetric rooms quickly, Undo now works on whole edits at a time.

Apple has just unveiled its new iPod Hi-Fi system. This new device is no revolution, because it keeps the same idea already developed by all iPod accessories manufacturers for some years. So the iPod Hi-Fi, as it is called, is a sound system with an iPod dock station, featuring three speakeers, with a center 130mm dual voice coil woofer, and a S/PDIF optical audio input. Expect an update for all iPods to support the iPod Hifi.

This iPod Hi-Fi system (whose performances are not mentioned) is shipping at $349,00.

From Cupertino, Steve Jobs, Apple CEO has announced, as expected, a new Mac Mini range, with new Intel-based Mac Mini. They both feature FireWire 400 port, 4 USB 2.0 ports, Analogue audio i/o, DVI out, Dolby Digital 5.1 out. New range includes :

- Mac Mini Solo 1.5GHz Intel Core Solo processor featuring : 2MB L2 Cache 667MHz Frontside Bus, 512MB memory (667MHz DDR2 SDRAM), 60GB Serial ATA hard drive, Combo drive (DVD-ROM/CD-RW), Built-in AirPort Extreme and Bluetooth 2.0, FrontRow and Apple Remote, shippiing at $599.00.

- Mac Mini Duo 1.66GHz Intel Core Duo processor featuring : 2MB L2 Cache 667MHz Frontside Bus, 512MB memory (667MHz DDR2 SDRAM), 80GB Serial ATA hard drive, double-layer SuperDrive (DVD+R DL/DVD±RW/CD-RW), built-in AirPort Extreme and Bluetooth 2.0, FrontRow and Apple Remote, shipping at $799.00.

All info about these new models is available on the Apple Store.