Announced at Frankfurt MusikMesse, Steinberg HALion Symphonic Orchestra is now shipping worldwide. HALion Symphonic Orchestra features a 27GB library, integrated easy-to-use player, RealAmbience adjustable recorded reverb and range of playability features combine to form a new orchestral composition and production tool. Played by a leading European orchestra, the expansive 27GB HSO library encompasses a vast array of articulations for strings, woodwind, brass and percussion including crescendo, decrescendo, accents, half and whole tone thrills, bowing (where applicable), portamento, pizzicato, expressivo and many more. 1250 programs offer solo, ensemble and tutti sounds for almost every instrument, with innovatively programmed facilities like key-switches and crossfades providing easy use of complex sample groups.

Supporting VST, DXi, AU as well as ReWire for easy integration into Pro Tools, HALion Symphonic Orchestra also offers a stand-alone mode. it ships for €499.00. HALion String Edition 1 or 2 users can upgrade to HALion Symphonic Orchestra for €199 or €99.

BIAS announced an extension of their spring promotion with several customer incentives for new retail editions of five BIAS software products purchased from June 1, 2006 though July 31, 2006 :

- if you buy Peak Pro XT 5, you get Free DDP Export Extension
- if you buy Peak Pro 5, you get Free SoundSoap 2
- if you buy Peak LE 5, you get Free Freq-4 and Sqweez Plug-ins
- if you buy SoundSoap Pro, you get Free Peak LE 5
- if you buy SoundSoap 2, you get Free Peak Express 5

The free products offered in this promotion will be made available to qualifying customers via download after proper completion and submission of the downloadable BIAS Summer Promotion coupon (available on the BIAS Web site) accompanied by a valid sales receipt.

It's not a joke but a quick reaction from AudioEase : for the second time of the week, Altiverb has been updated. This new 5.4.2 version fixes : possible crash in drawing waveform, help display bug, instability problems, wrong presets and a display bug in waveform display.

This update is strongly recommended for all Altiverb v5.4.1 users.

Just in time for the World Cup, Access Music announces the immediate availability of a public beta version of OS 1.1. for the Virus TI synthesizer. The new software suite, which has been developed over the last 4 months, not only updates the Virus Firmware, Plug-Ins and Drivers, but also contains several tutorials on how to work with the Virus TI in conjunction with Ableton Live, Apple Logic and Steinberg Cubase.

The new operating systems version can be downloaded free of charge on the Access Virus web site.

Wave Editor has been updated to version 1.2.2. This release adds a user options to add/save analysis data with files, Play from Selection Start & Play to Selection End actions in Keyboard Shortcuts, adds MS Encode to Channels bar, improved MS Decode, adds "follow selection" to the channels bar action menu, and fixes bugs. Wave Editor by Audiofile Engineering is an audio editor featuring direct editing of AIFF, WAVE, Sound Designer, ACID Apple Loop, and µLaw audio files, partial support for Recycle (REX, RX2 and RCY) files, supports any sample rate or bit depth, supports any number of channels and more.