Ableton has just announced that its "light" version of Live 7 is finally available. Built on the same fundamental concepts as Ableton Live, this version offers most of Ableton Live 7's new features. It includes :

- Studio-quality recording up to 32-bit/192 kHz*
- Sixty-four audio tracks and unlimited MIDI tracks per project
- Powerful and creative MIDI sequencing for software instruments
- More than twenty built-in audio effects, including a host of creative delays, filters, distortions, studio compressors and EQs*
- Two software instruments &mash; Simpler for creative sample-based synthesis, and Impulse for dynamic, sampled drums*
- VST and AU effects and instruments support; automatic plug-in delay compensation*
- Real-time time-stretching and warping of AIFF, WAV, Ogg Vorbis, FLAC and MP3 files for DJing and instant remixing
- Real-time tweaking of Live's controls with any MIDI controller — just MIDI-map it or choose from a list of popular supported controllers for instant mapping
- Single-screen user interface for simple, creativity-focused operation
- Multicore and multiprocessor support

*Live LE is limited to two simultaneous stereo audio inputs and outputs, twelve built-in audio effects, eight built-in instruments, two AU/VST effects and two AU/VST instruments per project.

Live 7 LE is available as a download from the Ableton webshop for €129/$149. The boxed version is available in stores and at the Ableton webshop for €169/$199.

The SAE Alumni Association is pleased to announce the start of the submission period for the 4th SAE Alumni Awards. As in previous years, the winner in each category can look forward to great prizes, namely a brand-new iMac and a cash prize of €3.000. This time, we are accepting submissions for the following five award categories: Music Production, Multimedia, Short Film, 3D FX/Animation, and (for the first time ever) "Creativity First". The competition is open to students and graduates of state-run and private educational institutions around the world. For more details, please consult our [www.sae-alumni-award.org]official homepage[/]. The submission deadline is August 31st, 2008.

The 2008 SAE Alumni Awards are presented under the patronage of a committee composed of representatives of the media industry and of SAE Institute. Submitted projects will be reviewed by a panel of industry professionals and representatives of the SAE Alumni Association. The winners will be officially announced during the Awards ceremony at the SAE Alumni Convention Party in Berlin on October 16th, 2008.

Announced at the latest MusikMesse, Toontrack Music has finally released EZplayer pro, the follow-up to their percussive MIDI engine EZplayer Free.

EZplayer pro is a VST, AU and RTAS plug in for Mac and PC with extended Map Wrapping capabilities between major drum sampler formats in the market. (FXpansion's BFD 1&2, Digidesign's Strike, NIs Battery, EZdrummer and Superior Drummer in addition to others).

The new multi track MIDI clip arranger offers time stretching, editing and multi layer arranging of MIDI files. EZplayer pro also has hardware learn features enabling live triggering of MIDI arrangements. The MIDI content in EZplayer pro is recorded by drummers David "Fingers" Haynes and Per Mikaelsson.

With the release of EZplayer pro Toontrack also starts working more closely with 3rd party MIDI content creators. First out is Groovemonkee that can be easily reached through the help menu in EZplayer pro.

EZplayer Pro is available now for a fee of $49 / €39. Note that EZplayer pro will also be included as the MIDI engine in the upcoming Toontrack sampler Superior Drummer 2.0.

Big Fish Audio has released Found Percussion, a new sample library described with this simple catchphrase : "In kitchens, garages and back yards everywhere, everyday objects lie waiting to be turned into percussion instruments."

There are 85 construction kits of unique and quirky percussion material, using 'found' instruments such as wine bottles, air conditioning ducts, coffee cans, electric fans, welding rods, slack bass strings, suitcases, everything, including the kitchen sink!

Contents :

- 6.16 GB (2.47 GB WAV Files)
- 85 Construction kits in 3 formats
- 2151 Loops in 3 formats
- Format: Apple Loops/REX/WAV/RMX/Acid

Found Percussion is available now for a fee of $99.95. Note that a demo of Found Percussion can be heard on the following address :

Algoriddim has just updated djay, its turntable-style digital audio player, to version 2.1.

This new version supports multi-finger gestures using the trackpad built into Mac notebooks. Sliding two fingers horizontally operates djay's crossfader, perfectly matching the motion used to control traditional mixers. Moving two fingers up and down scratches the record just like on a turntable, perfectly in sync with the hand motion. Even advanced features like scrubbing, pitch-bend, and speed adjustment can be performed using finger gestures in combination with keystrokes.

The two-finger gestures are supported on all Mac notebooks featuring two-finger scrolling, making the feature available to most users with iBook, PowerBook, MacBook or MacBook Pro computers. Users of the MacBook Air and the latest MacBook Pro can use additional three-finger gestures to backspin the record or perform djay's built-in song transitions.

djay v2.1 is available now for Mac OS X and is priced at $49.99 / €39.99. Note that a demo version is also available.