Today's Top Stories:

  Second Set of Free Expansion Packs for Rapture and Dimension Pro
Cakewalk is one of the world's leading developers of powerful, easy-to-use products for music creation and recording. Now the company has released the second round in the series of Expansion Packs for Rapture and Dimension Pro synthesizers for Mac and PC. This latest release actually follows pretty hot on the heels of the first Expansion Packs, which were released in July. This also demonstrates Cakewalk's commitment to supporting its very successful instrument line. Both Series 1 and Series 2 Expansion Packs are available now as free downloads to registered Rapture and Dimension Pro owners. Rapture Expansion Pack 2 highlights:

• 350 new professional sound programs by Frank Genus and RenŽ Ceballos.
• 140MB of new wavetables and multisamples.
• New programs expand the factory sound set with new basses, drums, keys, leads, film textures and sound effects, Micropiano, pads, sequences, sweeps, and more.
• Sample content provided by Nucleus Labs

• 350 new professional sound programs by Frank Genus and Rene Ceballos.
• 120MB of new multisamples.
• New programs expand the factory sound set with new digital and FM sounds, Dimensions, drums, electric pianos, drum and bass breaks, hip-hop breaks, guitars, leads and keys, orchestral sounds, organs, real and synth basses, reeds and brass, sweeps, analog, pads, and more.
• Loopmasters sample content includes hip-hop and drum n' bass grooves in REX2 format.

  Korg Announces K61P USB-MIDI Studio Controller
About a decade ago, MIDI controllers were huge, expensive, and weighed just a bit less than the average minivan. Today Korg has announced the newest member of its K-series USB-MIDI Studio Controller keyboards, the K61P, which combines powerful controller functions with 24 onboard keyboard sounds, bridging both computer music and stand-alone performance needs. The onboard sound engine includes a high-quality stereo piano that has been carefully sampled to capture all the richness and detail of a real grand. Five additional acoustic pianos are also included, along with five electrics, two harpsichords, three jazz organs, three church organs, clavinet, vibraphone, choir, and string sounds. Chorus and reverb effects are also included for processing the internal sounds. The K61P also comes bundled with Korg's M1 LE software synthesizer, a software version of the classic M1 Music Workstation. As a bonus, K-series users can upgrade at a special "Preferred Owner" price to the Korg Legacy Collection — Digital Edition, which includes a significantly enhanced version of the M1, the WAVESTATION v1.6 software synthesizer and the MDE-X v1.2 multi-effect plug-in. Mac and Windows editor software is included, as are free demo versions of popular software titles that include the Korg Legacy Collection, Live by Ableton, Lounge Lizard EP-3, Ultra Analog VA-1, String Studio VS-1 from Applied Acoustic Systems, and Reason 3.0 by Propellerhead. The K61P can be powered via a USB connection to a computer or via an optional AC adapter.

  Guitar Of The Day
We must admit that this particular guitar was a real surprise! As fans of high-end Les Pauls, we figured the Gibson Les Paul Faded Double Cutaway would probably make a nice first guitar. It has a solid mahogany body in a Worn Cherry finish, so it has the appearance of an instrument that's been around for a while, gigging weekends in smoke-filled clubs. It has a pair of P-90 single-coil pickups, a contrasting black pickguard, and a 1960s slim-taper mahogany neck. Though Gibson isn't calling it by this name, it's actually a recreation of the 1958 Les Paul Special, which was the double-pickup, double-cutaway version of the original Les Paul Junior. Imagine our surprise when we plugged this baby into one of the new line of Gibson tube amps and heard this amazing tone! With the P-90s, it can deliver more bite than a typical Les Paul with humbuckers, but with the tone controls rolled back, you get a sound very much like early Clapton. The more we played it, the more we fell in love with it. So, we bought it. But the good news is that there's still one left in the Cherry finish and for those of you who like black, there's also a Satin Black version of this guitar in stock. This is one of the best values in Gibson's entire catalog. What more could you ask for?