Steinberg Media Technologies has announced the upcoming release of an update to its HALion 3 virtual sampler VST instrument that adds support for 64-bit editions of Windows Vista. The update to version 3.5 will be available in Q2 2009 as a free download from their website for registered HALion 3 customers.


"Because it adds compatibility to 64-bit Vista, HALion 3.5 can address vast amounts of memory, allowing many more additional instruments to be loaded simultaneously," comments Helge Vogt, Steinberg's Product Marketing Manager for Cubase and HALion. "This frees up even more creative potential because it puts even more instruments and articulations at the artist's fingertips. And when used with Cubase 5 as the host application, and the 64-bit-ready MR816 CSX/X FireWire audio hardware, HALion 3.5 is a key part of our complete 64-bit production solution," Vogt adds.

Ableton has just announced the release of Live 8 and Ableton Suite 8.

New in Ableton Live 8:

- New groove engine: new groove library, extract grooves from audio or MIDI, real-time groove quantize. Includes grooves from the legendary Akai MPC and E-mu SP-1200 machines
- New warping engine: warp audio events by adjusting the events on the timeline, updated Beats Warp Mode, new Complex Warp Mode, slice audio files to MIDI tracks based on transients
- Looper: classic sound-on-sound looping without the limitations of a hardware device. Record, overdub, undo and more without touching the computer. "First loop sync," simple loop management

Arturia announces that Minimoog V 2.0 will be shipping from April 20. This new version of the Minimoog synthesizer emulation includes :

- Advanced automation mode
- A revolutionary preset navigation system called the SoundMap
- New formant-analysis-based FX called the Vocal Filter
- Various improvements to the sound structure
- A fresh bunch of presets
- Bug fixes.

The upgrade is free for all registered users.

Zplane has announced the release of Elastique Pitch, a real time pitch shifting plug-in powered by zplane's élastique Pro v2.1 pitch shifting engine.

With a plug-in interface designed to allow quick and easy interaction with all parameters, Elastique Pitch is designed to be the optimal plug-in for pitch shifting in film and audio conversion applications, for sound design and for adjusting pitch in recording and rehearsal sessions.

Key features :

- Multi-channel : support for synchronous pitching of up to 8 audio channels.
- Real time : no offline pre-analysis required.
- Program independence : high pitch shifting quality for all types of audio (speech, monophonic, classical music, mixes, etc.).
- Phase coherence : absolute phase stability between all channels.
- MIDI pitch control.
- Formant shifting : moving of formants independent from pitch.
- Factory presets : typical film pull-up/pull-down settings.

Elastique Pitch is available now for both Mac OS X and Windows in RTAS format, it has an MSRP of $499/€449.

Our Team has made a selection of the most significant videos we've found about this MusikMesse 2009.

Give it a try at : MusikMesse 2009 Videos on 440tv !

Keep an eye on it because new videos are coming !