Sweetwater has dubbed October "Microphone Month," and to celebrate, the retailer is giving away one of its largest prize packages ever - two mic collections with a combined retail value of more than $25,000.

Two winners, who will be chosen after the conclusion of the promotion October 31, will each receive a "Dream Mic Locker," including studio icons such as a Neumann U 87 AI and AKG C 414 B-XLS, along with microphones from Audio-Technica, Audix, beyerdynamic, Blue, Bock Audio, Earthworks, Electro-Voice, Mojave Audio, Rode, Royer, Sennheiser, Shure, and others.

No purchase is necessary to enter the giveaway. Entrants can register online at :

Waves Audio introduces the Silver plug-in bundle, which gathers 16 of Waves' plug-ins in one "affordable" package.

Waves Silver includes :

- Renaissance Compressor
- Renaissance Equalizer
- Renaissance Axx
- IR-L Convolution Reverb
- L1 Ultramaximizer
- C1 Parametric Compander
- S1 Stereo Imager
- Q10 Paragraphic Equalizer
- MaxxBass
- MondoMod
- Enigma
- TrueVerb
- SuperTap
- Doubler
- DeEsser
- Paz Analyzer

Waves Silver is now available with a U.S. MSRP of $900.

TC Electronic announces a new addition to the PowerCore platform : PowerCore 6000. According to TC, by combining System 6000 algorithms with PowerCore platform users now get the ultimate studio tool for their DAWs.

PowerCore 6000 features eight FreeScale DSP engines, the same DSPs used in System 6000, and it has an SRAM memory design that supports high performance reverbs and delays. This enables users to run famous reverbs and delay-algorithms from System 6000 with popular DAWs like Logic Pro, as well as with any other VST- and Audio Units-compatible host.

PowerCore 6000 includes 7 pristine plug-in algorithms, which are ported 1:1 from System 6000 : VSS3 Stereo Source Reverb, Nonlin2, DVR 2 Digital Vintage Reverb MD3 Stereo Mastering, Brickwall Limiter, UnWrap stereo to 5.1 conversion and TapFactory.

Compatible with the latest Mac OS and Windows XP/Vista 32, PowerCore 6000 will be available at the end of October 2008 for a suggested retail price of €2999.

Sonnox has announced a special time-limited promotion on their Sonnox Elite collection - the company's ultimate bundle, containing all the Oxford plug-ins. For the months of October and November 2008 there will be a 20% discount on the Sonnox Elite Collection.

The elegant boxed set includes the full range of all seven Oxford plug-ins: EQ, Dynamics, Inflator, Transient Modulator, Reverb, Limiter and SuprEsser. Sonnox Elite presents mixing, mastering, post and broadcast engineers with a powerful compilation of sophisticated processing tools designed to meet all their requirements.

Sonnox Elite retails at £1,554 for the TDM version and £744 for Native; but with the 2 month promotion, will sell for £1,243 (TDM) and £595 (Native).

Waves Audio has added its Z-Noise noise reduction processor to its Restoration, Broadcast & Production and Diamond bundles. Z-Noise is a noise removal processor which reduces a wide variety of unwanted sonic artifacts from all kinds of content.

The new Restoration bundle lists for $1,800 Native, $3,000 for the TDM version. Diamond, Broadcast & Production and Restoration owners with Waves Update Plan coverage can add Z-Noise for $400 through their user accounts.