Propellerhead Software have recently announced Balance which is their very first hardware product.

For many years Propellerhead have been a software only company and now we see that they have followed in the footseps of companies like Native Instruments to offer a tailor-made harware solution to compliment their software.

What is it?

Balance is a 2-in 2-out audio interface and is supplied with Reason Essentials which packs all the recording, editing, effects, instruments, and mixing tools you need and can be upgraded to the full version of Reason 6.

The hardware unit is nicely designed, very neat and tidy as well as being compact to save desk space and easy to transport should you need to take it with you.

It's great to see Propellerhead Software branching out into the hardware market; will be see a tailor-made Reason controller from them at some point in the future? I'd like to think so.

I've really just skimmed the surface of this as there's little point duplicating all of the information from the Propellerhead website; read all about it at the link below:

Propellerhead Software have recently announced Reason 6 which integrates the functionality of Record to create one, unified product.

On top of that they have included three new devices: Pulveriser, The Echo and Alligator.

With bringing the functionality of Record into Reason they have allowed us to record audio directly into the Reason "rack" and in my opinion they should have done this in the first place really; there can't have been that many people running Record without Reason anyway.

Unfortunately there's still no MIDI out; I mentioned this before and I realise that it's pretty difficult to implement but as Reason becomes more and more of a DAW in it's own right it feels as though the Props are missing a trick here - I know that it was never supposed to be a DAW replacement but it's so powerful now that it really could be if only it had full MIDI suport.

Pulveriser

Pulveriser puts crunchy compression, dirty distortion, a multimode filter and flexible modulation in a single, sound-crunching effect.

The Echo

The Echo is an advanced stereo echo bringing together the brilliance of modern delays with the organic sounds of analog circuitry and old-school tape machines. The Echo is equal parts pristine stereo delay, sound sculpturing toolbox, and playable performance effect.

Alligator

Alligator is a three band pattern-based gate effect that turns bland pads into rhythmic textures, radically twists your loops, and tweak boring beats into blockrocking breaks.

I've really just skimmed the surface of this as there's little point duplicating all of the information from the Propellerhead website; read all about it at the link below:

If you haven't heard of or seen the Korg Monotron I have to ask: Where have you been!?

The basic blurb from Korg is:

Product Highlights:

• Features the same classic analog filter found in the legendary Korg MS-10 & MS-20
• Filter any external source using the audio input jack
• Inspiring, easy-to-play ribbon keyboard
• Intuitive, fun-to-tweak controls
• Full-fledged, true analog synthesizer: VCO, VCF, LFO
• LFO can modulate either pitch of filter cutoff
• LFO Rate knob features cool LED visual indicator.
• Battery operation and palmtop size equals true portability
• Internal speaker/headphone jack lets you enjoy the sound anywhere – alone or with friends!

I've been following the hack and tweakablility of this amazing little synth and decided that I don't need one; I need four of them!

I managed to get hold of 4 for an amazingly low price; I will sample the hell out of them and then use them for their amazing filter before totally bastardising them and making them do what I want them to.

Check out YouTube for a number of very cool videos showing how these can be easily modified and used to create amazing sounds and read more about the Monotron from the official Korg website: http://www.korg.com/monotron