Today's Top Stories:

  TC Electronic's Most Powerful PowerCore Yet!
TC Electronic has announced the most powerful PowerCore ever available, PowerCore X8. This is the latest addition to the PowerCore family and features eight DSP engines, which deliver twice the processing power of PowerCore FireWire. It also allows even more plug-ins to be used simultaneously with native digital audio workstations. PowerCore X8 ships with no less than 14 included plug-ins as well as PowerCore 3.0 system software, which adds exciting new user interfaces to the PowerCore platform. What makes PowerCore X8 so unique is its combination of floating-point Power PC processing with eight Motorola DSPs. This ensures tight integration into the native world while at the same time maintaining all of the advantages that DSPs offer for pristine signal processing. On top of that, PowerCore X8 comes with a $500 plug-in voucher that can be redeemed for optional PowerCore plug-ins.

  This Digidesign Amp Actually Goes to Eleven
As made famous on certain Marshall amps and in Rob Reiner's Spinal Tap rockumentary, now everyone can have an amp that goes beyond 10 thanks to the new Digidesign virtual guitar amp software dubbed (fittingly) Eleven. Available as a TDM, RTAS, and AudioSuite plug-in, you can get a copy of Eleven on Digidesign's website in a free 30-day pre-release version. The tones included are the result of extensive research conducted with professional guitar and bass players who demand only the finest sound quality. That led to ultra-realistic amp, speaker, and microphone models that could satisfy even the most picky musicians and engineers. Digidesign has already dropped a few names including Fender, Vox, Marshall, Soldano, and Mesa/Boogie. Eleven even emulates speaker cone breakup, amplifier sag, and cabinet resonance among other things. Check this one out!

  Audio Ease Goes Lo-tech with Speakerphone
In post-production, sound designers and engineers don't always require the best sound quality. Shocking, isn't it? Audio Ease understands that there are lots of times (particularly in film post) when users might need to reproduce the sound of such low-fidelity devices as walkie-talkies, transistor radios, upstairs TV sets (that are being played too loud), bullhorns ("Come out of there Rocko, the place is surrounded..."), and the ubiquitous cell phone. Audio Ease released Speakerphone to deliver exactly those types of sounds, not to mention a darn fine dial tone, static, and even an operator that's had a long day. Powered by Altiverb, Speakerphone combines a wealth of effects that include a convolution engine that's equipped with hundreds of samples of real speakers, radio tuning dials, record player noise, bit crushing, cell phone compression, and even a full-blown convolution reverb. Speakerphone is available for Mac OS X in VST, RTAS, AudioSuite, Audio Unit, and MAS formats, as well as for Windows in RTAS and VST formats.

  New in Stock at Sweetwater

• Toft Audio ATB-24 - If you dig that superb Trident Series 80 console sound, the Toft Audio ATB-24 is for you! It has the same accuracy, clarity, and that incredible vintage Trident EQ is so rightly famous for, but at a fraction of the cost of a Trident. This is no coincidence, as Malcolm Toft, the designer of the original Series 80, is now building the Toft Audio line, so you get the same rich analog sound, but at a price you can actually afford. The ATB-24 is (as you can guess) the company's 24-channel console with eight mix busses with outputs and direct outs on every channel, a super-accurate 12-stage LED meter and Series 80 EQ on every single channel. Before you invest in any 24-channel console, you owe it to yourself to check out the ATB-24!

  Guitar of the Day
Just arrived: One Paul Reed Smith Singlecut Trem in Black Cherry. Yes, it's quite stunning, but even more so when you realize this beauty actually has a rare 1-piece quilted maple top. Where does Paul find these pieces of wood? When we first laid eyes on this particular PRS, we thought this absolutely has to be an Artist Series instrument with a price tag that would put it out of reach of most musicians. Particularly when you factor in that solid rosewood neck and fingerboard! Okay, it's not an impulse buy, but if you've been searching for the ideal PRS with the finest materials and craftsmanship, this has to be it! Once PRS won the lawsuit over the single-cutaway design, they began building this instrument in greater numbers and right now, there are very few guitars around that have so many sought-after features. Okay, we start with the one-piece, carved quilted maple "10-top" (the best PRS offers without going to special-order artist-quality tops) and this sits atop a piece of premium mahogany. A pair of "zebra" coverless PRS #6 pickups deliver the classic humbucker sound, with a thick, buttery-smooth tone when it's run into a suitable amp cranked up to produce natural tube overdrive. But when you lift up the tone control, you're splitting the coils on the humbuckers to achieve a sound more in keeping with a set of single-coil pickups. This is also a very special special guitar in that it includes both a silky-smooth PRS tremolo tailpiece and a wide-fat neck carve (typically, PRS guitars with tremolos come with wide-thin necks). And as you can see from the photos, this neck is solid rosewood with a rosewood fingerboard and the paua bird inlays that are normally used only on Artist-series guitars. A guitar with all these rare features only shows up once in a blue moon. It comes complete with a plush-lined hardshell case and ships to your door free via FedEx. Wow!