Thermionic Culture has unveiled the Earlybird 4, a 4 channel all valve preamp using a Class A bias valves in a push-pull circuit. Company founder and chief designer Vic Keary believes that "this is one of the finest pre-amplifiers available today".

Specially designed Sowter transformers the Earlybird 4 boasts well under .01% distortion, as Vic explains that "it's like connecting a pair of wires with gain to your mic, it's so clean!" It has a very high output level of +32dB and if desired, 2nd order harmonics can be introduced by increasing mic gain and reducing output gain. The unit has switched gain controls with a maximum of 62dB of mic gain and a variable output along with pads, phase, 300 & 1200 ohm impedance and stepped filter. A pair of meters can be switched between 1 & 2 and 3 & 4.

Pricing and availability TBA.

Steinberg is pleased to announce an upcoming free update to its Cubase 5 and Cubase Studio 5 Music Production Systems. The free update to version 5.5 adds new features and capabilities as well as a range of enhancements to existing instruments, functionality and workflow.

"We're proud to offer such a large range of improvements in a free update, it's a way for us to thank our customers for choosing Cubase," comments Helge Vogt, Steinberg's Product Marketing Manager for Cubase and the HALion product range. "The enhancements cover many areas of the application, from multi-core support and a new video engine to added automation features and updates for the onboard instruments, to name but a few. The 5.5 update underlines our vision for Cubase, that it is not just a piece of software, it's ...

For all the track and songwriters with tight deadlines and a mobile work situation out there, Toontrack, in collaboration with DSP developers par excellance Overloud, has developed EZmix.

EZmix is a simple (EZ), yet powerful, mixing tool that gives you access to a huge array of mix presets for the whole gamut of mixing needs. Whether you need to mix drums, vocals, guitars, bass or keyboards this is your tool.

Simply connect EZmix to a channel strip in your sequencer like you would any plug-in, pick a preset for the instrument or sound on that strip. Done. For demo purposes or in full on production EZmix will cut your studio time, speed up and enhance your creative process from the initial hook to the final track.

Priced at €49, EZmix is a Mac and PC compatible, AU, RTAS and VST plug-in delivered with a wide variety of mix presets, with a heavy accent on your drum mixing needs, designed by Toontrack Music Head Of Sound Design Mattias Eklund.

SPL has released a beta version of DrumXchanger, a plug-in that can replace drum sounds in multitrack sessions irrespective of their level.

The beta version is now available for download for Windows and Mac OS X. A 750 MB sample library is included. An iLok is required.

XILS-lab is proud to announce the release of its new product : the polyKB. The polyKB is a recreation of a very rare, very powerful polyphonic synthesizer released in the 80's by a french company. It is a polyphonic substractive synthesizer based on two waveform morphing, aliasing free oscillators and a self oscilating 4 poles low pass filter.

One of its features, never heard on other analog synthesizers, was the continuously modulated waveform, sort of a modulated waveform morphing. Recreating this feature in the digital domain, without aliasing was a very big challenge.

Features :

• two aliasing-free morphing oscillators: from triangle to pulse, through saw.
• one 4 poles low pass self oscillating filter
• two envelope generators (ADSR)
• two MIDI sy ...