January 15 - 4:10pm EST   EastWest/Quantum Leap has launched Silk, a virtual software instrument that features a collection of historic string and woodwind instruments from China, Persia and India. The instruments are mutli-sampled, with interval sampling and alternate sampling, phrases and articulations available. Instruments from China include the erhu, zhonghu, pipa and others, with Persian instruments including a 30 piece string collection, an electric cello and a kemenche, among others. Indian instruments in the package are the dilruba, sarod, tanpura and bansuri. [full story]

January 14 - 6:20pm EST   SONiVOX has announced Playa, a hip-hop virtual instrument plug-in. Designed for sequencing, beat construction, and hands-on remixing, Playa combines MPC-style beat creation with a virtual instrument environment. The plug-in contains over 450 instruments, 16 user programmable and assignable pads, and more than 50 pad presets. Users can also interface their MIDI pad controllers and controller keyboards directly with the software. [full story]

June 29 - 6:30pm EDT   IK Multimedia and Muse Research have joined forces to create what they claim is one of the most powerful music sound modules ever made. The Total WorkStation Rack uses Muse Research’s Receptor hardware plug-in player with IK’s SampleTank 2.5, Sonik Synth 2, Miroslav Philharmonik, SampleMoog and Sampleton virtual instruments. The product also ships with more than 10,000 sample-based sounds from every instrument category. [full story]

April 22 - 2:35pm EDT   IK Multimedia has announced the release of SampleTron, the second virtual instrument to be released from the Sonik Instruments range. SampleTron is a virtual instrument workstation featuring the a complete collection of authentic 'Tron' and other vintage keyboards instrument samples. The library includes 17 rare instrument sounds, together with a "Powered by SampleTank" engine, offering sample-based virtual instrument plug-in for every popular DAW and also as a standalone application for Macs The Tron anthology includes 2 GB of sounds, 640 presets and 260 multi-samples from 17 Mellotrons, Chamberlins , and their derivatives like the Optigan , Rhythmaster and more. [full story]

January 24 - 10:20am EST   Audio and video specialist MOTU has debuted Digital Performer 6, the next version of its audio sequencing software. The interface of the program has been completely redesigned, and includes a variety of other enhancements as well, such as XML exchange with Final Cut Pro, and generally improved support for film scoring. Users can now work with interleaved broadcast WAVE files, pre-render virtual instruments, and "bounce and burn" to audio CDs. Finally, there is better support for AU plug-ins, and operating as a front end for Pro Tools HD systems. DP6 should ship later this quarter for $795. [full story]