Peavey AT-200 Autotune Guitar: Never Go Out Of Tune Again.

Peavey has colloborated with Anatares to create the AT-200 electric guitar. Though it appears to be a standard-issue dual-humbucker Strat, it actually incorporates DSP running Antares' Auto-Tune pitch-correction technology. This means that no matter what the actually tuning of the guitar is, it's always perfectly in tune at the output jack. The technology is even smart enough to know when players intend to manipulate pitch, so bends and vibrato sound as natural as they always have. Peavey haven't announced a price yet but they're saying it will be under $500! Planned ship date is July 2012- good things come to those who wait, right?

Jaw Dropped & Speechless

What: Auria is a 48 track DAW system capable of recording up to 24 simultaneous tracks. It includes a full-featured waveform editor, integrated plugins (including a DSP powerhouse channel strip from famed plugin developers PSP as well as a 64-bit summing engine). You can save or export your sessions and tracks via iTunes, Souncloud, Dropbox or AFF session (insert needle scratch off the record sound here). What's with the output choices? Here's the secret that was THE talk of the NAMM show, the Auria DAW runs on an iPad! That's right, all the above capabilities are literally controllable under your finger tips in a eloquently designed iOS app. Using you fingers to literally zoom in and highlight a section if a waveform is nothing short of amazing!

When: A few months

How much: $49.95 in the iTunes store

Waves Is No Dongle

What: Waves announced NLS which stands for Non-Linear Summing, a plugin that models the analog summing of three specific consoles. For instance, the specific EMI Mk4 desk modeled by Waves is owned by Mike Hedges (The Cure, Siouxsie & the Banshees, U2 and others). This is the next step in making mixing in the box not sound like mixing in the box... and it's a brilliant idea to target specific and well known individual consoles. Of course, this news pales in comparison to Waves announcing Version 9 for their plug-in line up which will bring Waves into the world of 64 bit and lose the iLok dongle requirement! Rejoice! The new system allows authorization via "the cloud" over the Internet as well as allowing users to carry licenses with on a USB stick. Well done Waves!

When: March for NLS plugin

How much: $250 Native/$350 TDM

New Blue Works With iPhone 4 & 4S

What: The already well known Mikey mic is now available as the Mikey Digital and works with the iPhone 4, 4s and iPad. This a very very sleek and cost effective way to drastically improve recording on your iPhone.

When: Spring

How much: $99 MAP

SmithsonMartin Takes Touch To A New Level

What: SmithsonMartin showed off the new Emulator Modular, a customizable touch control surface that at first blush will draw comparison to the JazzMutant Lemur. There are distinct differences to point out though; mostly regarding the software, which incorporates some ingenious concepts. The Emulator software lays "on top" of your computer screen running, say Tracktor, you can then "cut out" a section, say the crossfader, and incorporate the actual crossfader Traktor GUI element into your custom touch surface control layout and make it touchable and visible on the Emulator touchscreen. Nothing like this has ever been available before in the controller world and needs to be seen to believe. One missing link is no OSC support, but it's on the way.

When: Febuary

How much: $2500 MAP

Mackie Takes On The iPad

What: The Mackie DL1608 is a truly new take on the compact mixer. Essentially you get a 16 channels of Onyx mic pres and a whole lot of DSP processing. The cool part is that all that DSP is controlled by an iPad app user interface including gain, faders, onboard dynamics, EQ and dedicated internal aux sends for reverb and delay. The DL1608 also has four analog aux sends as well as an ethernet jack. The ethernet jack allows for plugging into a router and "walkabout" with the iPad, controlling a mix from anywhere "in the house", whether that's the front of house in a club or a living room. Very cool concept that won't break the bank.

When: June

How much: $999

isoACOUSTICS - A New Idea

What: isoACOUSTICS is a patented speaker isolation desktop stand. Think of it like shock absorption for your speakers. isoACOUSTICS decouples the bass from the desk or mixing station and is modifiable into 14 different height and tilt adjustments. The live demos really effectively demonstrated how much this new idea can mprove your monitors for a great price.

When: March

How much: $99 MAP

Apogee MiC Is Very Nice

What: Apogee has a new large-diaphragm condenser mic that looks and sounds brilliant, even from the NAMM stage floor. Apogee's MiC uses a Hirose connector on the mic body (not a standard connector type, but a very durable connector used in audio field equipment), and can be plugged into a USB computer port or with the 30-pin cable into an iPad, iPhone 4, or 4s. The Apogee quality AD/DA conversion takes place in the mic itself and it's class compliant, so it's truly ready for plug and play.

When: Now

How much: $199

Symphony I/O Has A New Card Up Its Sleeve

What: Apogee announced a new 16-in/16-out analog I/O Card for the Symphony IO interface system. The Symphony systems, via a variety of card options, allows for a customized DAW interface built around the I/O (both analog and digital), and even mic preamp needs of the user.

When: February

How much: $3495 for 16-in/16-out analog via DSub multi-pin connectors.

Spark Goes Digital

What: the digital version of BLUE's analog Spark mic. Spark Digital includes cables for direct computer connection via USB or directly to the 30-pin iPad connector port. Spark Digital also has a well designed multifunction toggle/knob controle for mute, gain control and headphone volume. An awesome little mic!

When: Spring

How much: $199 MAP

BLUE's Take On Tiki

What: BLUE microphones introduced Tiki, claiming to be the smallest portable USB microphone on the market. The Tiki uses two mic elements, providing coverage regardless of the computer's USB port orientation. One big feature is that the Tiki has built in processing from the famed DSP boys at Izotope, aiding with both sound source localization and noise cancellation. This is a sweet little mic for laying down a quick acoustic guitar track or making a Skype call on your computer.

How much: $59 MAP

When: Spring

DP On A PC?

What: In what must be a shock for many Digital Performer users, DP now runs on PC's. DP has long been a Mac-only application, even going back to Mac OS 9 days of allocating RAM to apps "by hand". MOTU was showing DP 8 running on HP workstations. Upon release MOTU is stating that similar spec machines (Apple/PC) will achieve similar performance.

When: Spring

How Much: TBA

Apollo, A Giant Step For Interfaces

What: 18x24 AD/DA FireWire/Thunderbolt audio interface.

Four Universal Audio mic pre's.

Onboard Duo or Quad UAD-2 plugin DSP built in.

Really? How can it get better? This is huge!

UA has entered into the interface world by turning it upside down- the only question is when and how much.

When: March
Thunderbolt option available this summer.

How much:
$1999 MAP for Duo
$2499 MAP for Quad

A New Face From RME

What: The new Fireface UCX is the little brother of RME's flagship Fireface UFX with some tricks that even the UFX can't do. With new drivers the UCX serves as a very low latency audio interface, but the UCX can also boot in class compliant mode. This allows for an eight-in/two-out interface with MIDI for an iPad (using the camera connection dongle sold by Apple). When using RME's driver every channel has EQ, dynamics, reverb and delay availed via built-in DSP. This is an extremely flexible and powerful interface from a company that has been a mainstay for years, delivering AD/DA conversion at a reasonable price.

When: Soon!

How much: $1649 MAP

Twitch Lets You Scratch Your Itch

Novation's Twitch is a DJ/performance controller that ships with Itch DJ software but also includes templates for Traktor, Live and other programs. A very cool touch strip controller allows for back spinning and navigation through tracks. The Slicer section works directly with the Itch software to chop up and rearrange  beats in realtime with the touch pads. Fader effects allows the crossfader to control Itch software effects in addition to volume. Overall this looks to be a very capable and tactile controller and also serves as a two-in/four-out audio interface. Nice!

When: Now

How much: $499 MAP