M-Audio, part of inMusic Brands, has announced a new range of affordable bundles for composers, combining award-winning software from Waves, Steinberg and Ableton, together with a powerful collection of virtual Instruments for drums, piano and more, from AIR Music Technology. The bundles are centered around M-Audio’s M-Track II, M-Track Plus II, and M-Track Eight interfaces or the Vocal Studio Pro II package.
M-Audio, now inMusic Brands’ music production and recording technology arm (InMusic also owns Alesis, Marantz Professional, Denon Professional, Akai, Alto Professional, etc.), announced the launch of Songwriter Software Suite bundles for it’s full-featured M-Track II Series audio interfaces.
M-Audio still is a prestigious name among the recording community, albeit the fact that they’ve been under the radar in recent times. M-Audio started as Midiman, a driving force in the desktop recording revolution that followed the introduction of MIDI in the 1980s. In the year 200, Midiman introduced “M-Audio” as the new brand for their audio products and, in 2004, it was acquired by Avid Technology. Avid combined its Digidesign and M-Audio operations has a way to create separate market segments for its popular Pro Tools software, with M-Audio targeting musicians and home-studio. In mid-2012, Avid sold M-Audio to inMusic Brands.
M-Audio is currently focused on its original musicians’ market segment, with a complete range of affordable audio and MIDI interfaces, keyboard controllers, monitors, microphones and headphones. The new Songwriter Software Suite combines its latest range of M-Track II, M-Track Plus II, and M-Track Eight interfaces, as well as its Vocal Studio Pro II package (M-Track II interface, studio microphone and headphones) to expand creative possibilities with the newly added Strike 2, Mini Grand and Xpand!2 virtual instruments packages from Germany-based software developer AIR Music Technology (also part of InMusic), alongside the existing software bundles from Waves, Ableton Live Lite and Cubase LE.
With M-Audio’s Songwriter Suite, musicians and composers benefit from an expansive virtual instrument collection worth over $300. Spearheading the software suite lineup is AIR Music Tech’s Strike 2, a dynamic drum and arranger instrument featuring a world-class sample library and hyper-realistic performance engine, that grants access to 19 customizable kits recorded at the legendary Blackbird Studios in Nashville, Tennessee. Whether it’s rock drums or syncopated Acid Jazz fusion polyrhythms, Strike 2’s premium, sought-after samples enables musicians to easily create customized patterns with an ultra-intuitive, user-friendly Style Editor.
AIR Music Tech’s Mini Grand is also included in the Songwriter Suite, a powerful virtual instrument comprising seven distinct piano sounds, expertly tailored to accommodate a broad range of musical styles and production needs. Combining premium, production-ready piano samples, 7 selectable piano models, innovative re-pedaling technology (for realistic string resonance behavior) and built-in room simulation, Mini Grand provides songwriters with an adaptable in-demand sonic-arsenal, perfect for performance and recording scenarios alike.
Completing the Songwriter Suite is AIR Music Tech’s Xpand!2, a multi-timbral workstation as versatile as it is feature packed. Using everything from Wavetable to FM Synthesis to sample playback, Xpand!2 presents thousands of production ready, ready-to-play patches suitable for a wide variety of genres.
M-Audio’s M-Track II interfaces boast 24-bit studio-quality audio performance, along with a pro-grade rugged all-metal chassis, high-headroom pre-amps and class-leading audio performance on the inputs. M-Track II and M-Track Plus II provide singer-songwriters with a solution for recording two separate instruments simultaneously, with a pair of Mic/Line combo inputs with dedicated headphone output offering zero latency monitoring. These interfaces are combined with the Songwriter Software Suite and the existing M-Track Software bundle — including Waves Audiotrack, Waves Eddie Kramer Effect Channel, Waves TrueVerb, Ableton Live Lite and Cubase LE (M-Track Plus II only).
The M-Track II series is also accompanied by Vocal Studio Pro II, an all-in-one recording and production package comprising an M-Track II audio interface, a large diaphragm condenser microphone, studio headphones, mic clip, tabletop stand, an XLR Mic cable, the Waves plugin pack and Ableton Live Lite.
M-Track 8 completes the series line-up, offering bands a complete, pro-grade recording solution combining eight Octane Preamps with XLR/1/4” combo inputs, 10 separate outputs, 2 headphone outputs and an expanded software suite that builds upon that bundled with the M-Track II and M-Track Plus II, to include Cubase LE and the in-demand Waves L1 Ultramaximizer and Waves Manny Marroquin Delay.
MSRPs for the M-Track Interfaces including the Songwriter Software Suite are $99 for the M-Track II bundle, $149 for M-Track Plus II, $399 for the M-Track Eight package and $199 for the Vocal Studio Pro II package. That’s affordable!
www.m-audio.com/m-track | inmusicbrands.com
