Native Instruments has today turned back the clock again with ABBEY ROAD 50s DRUMMER.

A KONTAKT instrument Abbey Road 50s Drummer features the sound of two classic drum kits from the 1950s. The kits provide the distinctive drum sound of the era, which was necessary to compete with the electrified instruments gaining popularity at the time. Recorded with both state-of-the-art and period equipment at Abbey Road Studios in London, 50s DRUMMER also includes a groove library, mixer presets, and a new set of brush articulations, delivering the authentic feel of rock and roll, rhythm and blues, country, and jazz from the 1950s.

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Ample Guitar M Lite aims to bring the Martin D-41 Guitar sound to your studio.

Ample Guitar Lite M is a 670MB reduced version of the 5.59GB Ample Guitar M virtual acoustic guitar.

It features:

• 668 samples in 16-bit / 44.1kHz 
• First four frets limit with fingerstyle - no strumming here. 
• 5 playing techniques are included; sustain, hammer on, pull-off, palm mute and popping
• Reverb and a stereo delay.

Ample Guitar M Lite is available in VST, RTAS and AU formats on Mac OS X and Windows 32 and 64-bits. You can download and compare it to the full version at www.amplesound.net.

Or check our FREE plug-ins database for all the FREE Pro Tools plug-ins

Our friends at Softube have kindly donated a Summit Audio Grand Channel plug-in which is awesome. Click on the image above to see it in all’s it’s magnificent glory!

Not wishing to mess around with long forms and hard questions, all you need is to complete the form below for a chance to grab this uber cool plug-in. No purchase necessary.

Please complete all fields. One entry per email address. You are entering for a chance to win one copy of a Softube Summit Audio Grand Channel, no cash alterntive. Judges decision is final and no correspondance will be entered into. By entering you are giving permission for either/or both Softube and Pro Tools Expert to contact you in the future. You can opt out at any time after the draw has ended, if you do so before it ends then you will be removed from the draw. Contest ends 16th June 2013.

Our friends over at Vienna Symphonic Products are doing some deals at the moment with 25% off selected products.

If you missed our review of VEP5 running with Pro Tools then check it out here.

Check out their deals here

On a recent Facebook post, Lexicon Pro respond to the AAX question:

“ I can say this is in the works. Unfortunately it is and will take longer that we hoped, but we are working it…and it will be a 100% free update.”

Good news for Lexicon lovers.

More here

Dave Spiers of G-Force has stated on the DUC that…

“G-Force currently have no plans to port any of their existing instruments to aax. We have spent the best part of two years porting existing instruments to 64-bit, and as soon as they’re released G-Foce need to take a break from this endless cycle of porting existing instruments and instead do something creative We think that AAX is one format too far and if you feel that it’s critical for you to get all RTAS plug-ins working on PT11 please contact Avid and try to persuade them to cooperate with SugarBytes to release the VST to AAX wrapper they announced a while back. We might revisit the issue in the future, just not at the moment.”

I have to say it is a disappointment, as they are effectively closing the door on a sizable market of Pro Tools users, who will be upgrading to Pro Tools 11. Of course the other option to his suggestion of persuading Avid to do a wrapper, which I don’t think will happen, is to use Pro Tools 10 and the G-Force plug-ins in RTAS mode.

News from WaveMachine Labs on AAX porting. I reached out to our friends and they responded with the following;

Things are good here; we’re cranking on Drumagog updates as I speak, including an AAX Native version which we hope to have ready around the time of the PT11 release (we’re also doing 64-bit updates for VST/AU at the same time); these updates will be free to Drumagog 5 owners.

Great news and a great attitude.

More on Drumagog here

We have heard from Soundfield about the status of their plug-ins the UPM-1 and Surround Zone and this is what they have said….

“We are just in the process of creating our Plug-In strategy for the future and both AAX (native not DSP) and 64-bit support feature highly. 

We also asked about about comments that the UPM-1 puts a heavy load on the computer and they responded…

“We know that the UPM-1 is resource hungry, in the hardware version we are running a dedicated SHARC DSP which is running pretty much flat out. The new version will have some savings but it will never be a lightweight plug-in, great upmixing takes a lot of resources.”

You can see my review on the UPM-1 here, and certainly in the absence of the TC Electronic UnWrap, this is in my opinion one of the best upmixing plug-in around at the moment and it would seem they are across the process hungry issue too. So I am looking forward to the new version of the UPM-1 that I can run on my Pro Tools 11 HDX rig.

Thanks to a “Heads Up” from Håkan Fredriksson on our Facebook page it appears that Software Plugin manufacturer Toontack have declared their intentions with the AAX Plugin format via their online support forum.

Product Specialist, Rogue Marechal stated: “We will be timing our AAX releases to be following PT11’s availability as close as possible.
Technically they are more or less ready, but a supplemental PT10 update needs to be released to all Avid users before we can safely roll them out. 

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Plugin Makers Hofa have just announced a New AAX Reverb to add to their already great IQ product line. Here’s some specific details:

Heres what they say about it:

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In SoundToys’ newsletter that has just landed in my Inbox they say…

With the recent announcement of the pending release of Pro Tools 11 a lot of questions about AAX are popping up, so here’s the scoop from our side. We’re deep in development for AAX native and hope to get it into a public beta soon. Our goal is to have a solid official release before Pro Tools 11 hits the streets.

We have launched round two of our public beta. This round will include all seven of our real-time native plug-ins in 64-bit Audio Units. Round one gave us some great feedback and we’re really looking forward to finalizing Audio Units and getting it out the door officially. SoundToys Native Effects owners can get the Public Beta installer from their SoundToys accounts now.

So another key plug-in manufacturer on track for AAX plug-ins ready for Pro Tools 11.

Another video showing how to use a third party app to get both VST and AU plug-ins working in Pro Tools and Pro Tools HD, versions 9, 10 and 11, for Mac and PC.

SynchroArts, makers of VocAlign and ReVoice Pro, have given details of their development schedule for the coming months, showing that ReVoice Pro is already 64-bit AAX ready, an AAX version of VocAlign is coming, as is a Windows version of ReVoice Pro.

Now that’s service… more here

According to this FAQ on SSL’s Support site, the famous console maker has no plans to port their fantastic Duende Native plugins to AAX.

However, I have heard from an SSL representative that if enough customers request the move to AAX via their customer support contact channel, they will seriously consider it.

So if anyone out there wants to see this happen, go to your SSL account and make a request through this page.  If you don’t have an account, but want to see it happen, create an account and at the same time get a free demo to try out the current RTAS versions.

A second video where Russ shows hosting VSTs in Pro Tools using a similar method as the audio units video but with some FREE software. Mac only.

Lev Perrey from Universal Audio speaks to the question of Pro Tools 11 AAX 64 bit compaitibilty and offline bounce.

Steven Slate has tweeted via his @Slateproaudio Twitter account that AAX updates to Slate Digital and Steven Slate Drums plug-ins are going to be free.  He hopes we don’t mind; do we mind? 

Russ takes a look at the Pro Tools De-Esser and shows it has more uses than simply fixing sibilant vocals.

• Members click here to watch
• Watch for $1 on our pay per view service

XILS-lab has to announced availability of Oxium 1.5, a Pro Tools 11 AAX format-ready major update to its popular performance soft synth plug-in, as of April 13… they say…

Oxium has gained a solid foothold in the competitive computer-centric music marketplace since successfully launching last year to critical acclaim.

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SynchroArts have a reputation across the industry for creating the best vocal alignment tools - many people have depended on VocAlign for years and more recently Revoice Pro 2 is like VocAlign on steroids. At Messe it featured as part of the Alicia Keys remix session on the Pro Tools 11 demo.

Now Synchroarts have given us a copy of the software for one lucky winner.

Simply complete the form below - you will need to visit their new community site to find the answer to the question ‘When Did Billy Jay Stein First Use VocAlign?’.

It is available in all plug-in formats including AAX and we understand they are currently working on a PC version.