Modartt presents the brand new Rock Piano add-on (YC5) for Pianoteq 3. It is developed to meet demands for a specific pop/rock piano, modelled from a well-known Japanese grand piano, frequently seen on stages and very much appreciated by touring artists for its musical qualities and reliability. Its bright and vivid tone makes it addictive and cuts through elegantly in pop/rock oriented mixes. The instrument comes with three variants :

• YC5 Stage has a percussive and bright tone suitable for pop/rock mixes, and fits also very nicely to dreamy solo ballades.
• YC5 Chamber has a coloured and singing tone, well adapted for solos that demand a full and rich timbre.
• YC5 Studio is designed for achieving a particular strong and close presence, often appreciated in studio production.

The Rock Piano add-on is embedded as demo instrument in the latest Pianoteq update 3.0.5 and can be purchased by all customers for €29.

Summer promo offer : Buy a Pianoteq licence before September 30 and you will receive the new Rock Piano add-on for free !

The Daking FET3 is new dual channel limiter from Geoff Daking, built in the US with the same audio path and detector circuits as the single channel Daking FET II limiter. The FET3 compressor circuitry and gain stages are all discrete and fully Class "A" with sound quality that will be at the very top of the scale. The single channel FET II was known for its speed, high performance and its unique ability to sound great on an extraordinary variety of sources. The FET3 will equal this benchmark plus add several unique features to improve user control. The differences are as follows :

• New variable High Pass Filters from 0 to 200Hz are added to the detector stage of each limiter channel to improve and customize limiter behavior. The HPF's tell the limiter NOT to trigger limiting based ...

Akai announces their RPM8 reference production studio monitors specifically intended for use with the company's MPC music production workstations and production controllers.

RPM8 studio monitors are two-way, active, bi-amplified, nearfield loudspeakers intended for producers, recording engineers, remix artists, DJs and other musicians. The two-way monitors each feature an eight-inch woven-kevlar low-frequency driver with 80W RMS of continuous amplification for robust, full bass all the way down to 39 Hz. The monitors' high-frequency system consists of a one-inch silk-dome tweeter with 40W RMS of continuous amplification, mounted on a custom, functionally optimized waveguide for excellent control of directivity and reduction of unwanted early reflections.

RPM8 studio monitors contain ...

Akai Professional announces the LPD8 laptop pad controller and LPK25 laptop performance keyboard controller. The LPD8 and LPK25 will make their debut at Akai Professional's booth, number 400, at the Summer NAMM Show held at the Nashville Convention Center, July 17 — 19.

The LPD8 and LPK25 are USB-MIDI controllers for musicians, producers, DJs and other music creators. Each model is less than 13 inches across and weighs less than a pound to easily fit into a laptop case, backpack or messenger bag for extreme portability.

The LPD8 is based on Akai Professional's MPC line of iconic music product stations. While the smallest model, the MPC500 is quite portable, many producers prefer to work with software on their computer and the LPD8 gives their laptop the controls they prefer over a mouse and keyboard. The LPD8 has eight blue light-up pads that are velocity sensitive for programming rhythmic or melodic parts. The pads can also send program-change information to software. The LPD8 also has eight assignable Q-Link knobs to which users can assign virtually any parameters in their software for hands-on control.

The LPK25 is a scaled-down relative to the MPK series of keyboard performance controllers. The diminutive keyboard is made up of 25 miniature, velocity-sensitive keyboard keys with synth action. The LPK25 contains an arpeggiator, which steps through chords automatically, assisting musicians with creating quick melodic ideas. Sustain, octave up and down and tap tempo controls round out the LPK25's easy-to-learn layout.

Each controller works plug and play with Mac and PC and requires no software driver installation or wall power for operation. Both the LPD8 and LPK25 have four memory banks for programming and recalling settings appropriate to different software programs they use.

The LPD8 and LPK25 will be available from musical instrument and professional audio retailers Q3 2009.

Alesis announces the USB-MIDI Cable which is an handy cable that links MIDI instruments with computers via USB.

The USB-MIDI Cable is the latest addition to Alesis' AudioLink Series of problem-solving cables for musicians. The MIDI-to-USB cable has traditional male and female MIDI (DIN) connectors on one end and a USB connector on the other. Musicians can use the USB-MIDI Cable to control virtually any MIDI-compliant software using any hardware device with a MIDI output jack, such as a keyboard, drum pad or MPC.

The USB-MIDI Cable is class compliant for plug-and-play USB connectivity on Mac and PC, requiring no software-driver installation or external powering. Musicians can use the USB-MIDI Cable with virtually all music production, sequencing and recording software.

The USB-MIDI Cable will be available from musical instrument and professional audio retailers Q3 2009.