The PMD620 is Marantz Professional's newest and smallest handheld portable recorder. It offers direct-to-MP3 recording in three quality levels, as well as fully uncompressed, CD-quality 44.1/48 kHz .wav format in 16 or 24-bit resolution. Sound quality is enhanced by the inclusion of two condenser microphones as well as line and external mic inputs, and an external mic output. The new PMD620 also utilizes the SD flash memory card for data storage (up to 2-TB or 2048 gigabytes), a first for the PMD Series of recorders.

M-Audio has announced the availability of Pro Tools M-Powered 7.4 software for Mac OS X and Windows. This version offers numerous new music features and workflow enhancements including a powerful, multifaceted new music composition and production tool called Elastic Time which allows users to easily change the tempo and timing of loops, music, dialog and other sound files in real time without cutting up audio tracks.

Pro Tools M-Powered 7.4 software is now available for Windows XP-, Windows Vista- and Mac OS X (Tiger)-based Pro Tools M-Powered systems. Expanded Windows Vista and OS X (Leopard) support will be announced later. The standard upgrade cost is $75; the cost of upgrading from Pro Tools M-Powered 7.3 is $49.

Note that Customers who have purchased a new Pro Tools M-Powered system or upgrade on or after October 1, 2007 will be eligible for a free software upgrade.

Arturia has announced that version 2.0 of its Analog Factory software is now available worldwide.

New Features :

- Includes 3500 sounds instead of 2000
- Now includes presets from Jupiter-8V
- Improved effects management
- Vst 2.4 \ Cubase 4 ready

Main Bug Fixes :

- Preset switching has been improved to avoid any problems whilst browsing presets and playing simultaneously
- Improved loading time
- Hanging notes have been eradicated when used within a sequencer
- The preset database has been updated to avoid presets with same name and/or sound
- Fixed a bug in the minimoog engine: on mac intel, some preset parameters could go out of range and cause a bad sound
- The GUI (Graphical User Interface) has been improved
- Preferences are now saved automatically after each change to avoid any loss of midi configuration or snapshots

Analog Factory v2.0 is available now at a retail price of $249 / €199. Note that this update is free for all registered owners.

Sugar Bytes has just released WOW, a filter-box with 10 Filtertypes, including Vowel Mode, Overdrive and a modulation system. WOW offers a good collection of filter types : High, Band and Lowpass (each 12 or 24dB), Comb Filter, Band Reject, Band and LF Crusher.
The Vowel mode seems to come from their Unique synthesizer (which is worth a try) : 2 Vowels (U, UE, O, OE, A, A:, AE, E, I.) can be mixed via Cutoff, with all available filter types.
The modulators, Envelope Follower, LFO and Step Sequencer, can be mixed in the parameters right-click menus and can modulate each other.

WOW is available as VST and AU Plugin, for Mac and PC and cost 99 dollars (79 euros).
Note that there is a demo version.

Sims Audio has announced the INFRA-SONIC Blow5d digital monitors. The BLOW5D studio monitors feature on-board D/A converters that are constructed with Burr Brown op amps. They support up to a 24-bit/192kHz sample format and have a dynamic range of 123dB and can accept a wide variety of inputs including: SPDIF, RCA, AES/EBU, XLR, TRS, or TS. They also feature room compensation controls and a bass response switch. The room compensation controls (accessible via a switch on the back of the unit) allow the user to alter the frequency response of the monitors to better suit any room. The bass reduction switch allows bass frequencies to be reduced to better accommodate the use of a subwoofer or a bass heavy mixing environment.

The BLOW5D monitors have an MSRP of $550 USD and will be available 1st quarter of 2008.