Great news from Apple! Steve Jobs revealed the new awaited MacBooks & MacBook Pros at yesterday's live KeyNote. How cool...

That would have been of great interest to our community if a "minor" detail haven't caught our attention... Apple simply decided to remove the firewire interface from the MacBooks leaving this option to the MacBook Pros family only (with a single firewire 800 connector). WOW, isn't that incredible coming from the company that first introduced the firewire IEEE 1394 protocol in personal computers?

In short, that means that any nomad musician will from now on have to spend at least $1999 to connect a firewire interface and/or hard drive to an Apple laptop... Isn't that cool? Ooops, my mistake... There is an option from the Apple website. The 13-inch White MacBook is still alive with it's cheap GMA X3100 graphic card. I don't now what's "new" there but it is presented as so... Well at least it has a firewire 400 connector and costs "only" $999. For that price, I'm sure the "black" model with the 2.4 GHz intel Core Duo processor would have generated a little more interest to our community... Yes the "black" MacBook does look better in the studio or on stage!

Solid State Logic has just updated the Duende software. Duende 2.5.9 is the first release to include the optional plug-in Vocalstrip. This release covers the full Duende product line; Duende Classic, Duende Mini and Duende PCIe.

For more information, please visit their website.

Expert Sleepers has released a public beta of Augustus Loop v2.0 which is a major update to the tape echo/looping plug-in.

Features :

- Augustus Loop's GUI is now fully skinnable and scriptable.
- MIDI behaviour is now scriptable.
- VST version now receives MIDI.
- Added Record Offset feature.
- Added waveform display.
- The 'Max Delay Time' parameter now has a smaller minimum value (1.0 seconds) and is not rounded to the nearest 10 seconds.
- Added Tape Read Mode parameter.
- The Freeze Loop function is much improved.
- A small crossfade is now applied when activating Clear Loop, and when Clear Loop ends.
- The Input Level parameter is now protected against sudden changes, which previously could result in audio artefacts. In particular this makes the Punch In/Out f ...

Image Line has just released Hardcore, a collection of 10 classic effects designed with Guitarists in mind. It includes : Distortion, Chorus, Flanger, Phaser, Reverb, Delay, Noise Gate, Equalizer, Compression and Modulator.

Five stomp-box simulations can be arranged in any order on the Hardcore pedal board. The output then passes through an 8-band graphic EQ and Cabinet Simulator, tying it all together into one massive sound.

Hardcore is available now for both Mac (VST/AU) and PC (VST) at a price of $79. Note that until the end of October every order of Image Line Software products comes with a free copy of Hardcore.

Audio Engineering Associates (AEA) have announced the RPQ, a new dual-channel mic preamp that's specially designed for use with ribbon microphones.

Each channel has two controls for gain: a notched step knob that sets the gain range, and a trim pot that allows the user to make fine adjustements to the level. There are also low-frequency filter and high-frequency boost controls for shaping the tone, so the user can tame the results of the proximity effect at the low end and regain some brightness at the top end. Both tone controls can be bypassed. The RPQ can also supply 48V for "active" ribbons mics which require a phantom power supply to operate.