SONiVOX today announced the availability of a new virtual instrument powered by the audio engine of Steinberg's HALion Player, Broadway Big Band by Fable Sounds.

Main features :

- 100 Gigabyte multi-sample featuring contemporary brass (trumpets, trombones), woodwinds (alto, tenor, bari, soprano saxes, clarinet), and rhythm section instruments (upright bass, banjo, ukulele, drumkit, xylophone, Latin percussion)
- Huge selection of articulations, velocity layers and multiple takes
- Multiple microphone recordings
- Recorded note transitions - every note transition up to Major 9th in both directions
- Broadway Performer MIDI-Processing Performance Tool - allowing you to quickly play and select articulations
- Musical performance - instruments and performances with character and ver ...

ReKon audio has released VST Nord Editor, a realtime MIDI synth editor that allows you full control of every sound shaping parameter found on the Clavia Nord Lead rack and keyboard synthesizers, from within your favorite VST host. All parameters are fully automatable and you maintain all your patches on the computer itself without the hassle of manual dumps. VST Nord Editor also features the ability to save and load your patches to and from the editor in the native, standard sysex format. This editor works on the Clavia Nord Lead/Nord Rack model(s) only. The VST Nord II Editor will be coming soon to support the Clavia Nord Lead II model(s).

VST Nord Editor is available now for $49.95 as a VST instrument for Mac OS X . Note that a demo version will be released soon.

Version 1.0 of Sonic Visualiser, an application for viewing and analysing the contents of music audio files, is now available. Sonic Visualiser contains advanced waveform and spectrogram viewers, as well as editors for many sorts of audio annotations. Besides visualisation, it can make and play selections based on the locations of automatically detected features, seamlessly loop playback of single or multiple noncontiguous regions, synthesise annotations for playback, and slow down playback while retaining display synchronisation.

Sonic Visualiser is Free Software distributed under the GNU General Public License. The 1.0 release is available now in source code form or as binaries for Linux, OS/X, and Windows. For more information, please visit the link below.

Ploytec has released a unique tool for measuring latency in audio systems called Latenc-o-meter. Once it is powered up, it generates a 100 kHz signal sent from its analog output to the target audio hardware's input and back into the Latenc-o-meter, then Its display indicates value in remarkably precise increments ranging from 0.01 to 999.99 milliseconds.

The Ploytec Latenc-o-meter is now available for € 333. For more information, please visit their web site.

KEL Audio has released the HM-2, a large diaphragm "small supercardioid" true condenser instrument microphone for home recording artists and performing musicians. The mic features a transformerless, symmetrical, balanced amp circuit in a pencil-style body but adds a 1-inch diameter, 3-micron thick, center-terminated diaphragm suspended in an internal shock mount. Unlike a pure cardioid microphone, the HM-2 has its null at 140-degrees -- rather than 180 -- yet its rear lobe is smaller than usual for a supercardioid. This increases the mic's usefulness in many recording situations.

The HM-2 is available now at an introductory price of $99 (Reg. $129) including custom-designed shock mount.