In this month's newsletter we are trying our best to give everyone something to cheer about. So we have some competition winners to announce (pictured here: last month's winner Adam Goodfellow at the end of his Ableton Live 201 course) and links to some really cool plugins completely free to download.

We are also announcing some new short and cheap courses, which hopefully are going to come handy for those of you that feel the need for a bit of a career change. Let's face it, working in the City was never what you'd call a healthy lifestyle. How many great minds have we lost in the last decade to the world of finance? Now that they're not so busy using their creativity to balance imaginary books (which as it turns out is NOT a good thing), these brothers and sisters can come back to us and create new music (which is definitely a good thing, because most of what we hear on the radio is rubbish).

Damn! if you thought that spending a few quid to upgrade to the latest version of your favourite software was annoying, imagine how we feel.

This month we are upgrading all our computers to Pro tools 8, and the new versions of Live (version 8), Cubase (version 5), Melodyne (the amazing DNA technology) have all been announced.

And that's not to mention the new Akai controller designed just for Ableton Live and the competing Native Instruments Maschine.

Obviously we are already in a queue to get the first ones of everything,ad we'll try to host some public demonstrations, so stay tuned for more announcements.

Ableton & Akai APC40 Video

Native Instruments Maschine Videos

Digital Village Reason Competition

Congratulations to Mr. Roland Saunders for winning the Propellerhead Reason competition hosted on DV's forum.

Roland wins a copy of Reason Premium Edition and a place on the next Reason 101 course.

For everyone else, there is more software+training to win. To enter the last competitions follow this link:

Logic Studio Competition (deadline 16th of February)

LSS Survey

Last month we asked your help in answering a few questions about us, you, how much you spend on instruments, and life in general. The replies arrived and two names have been selected at random to win the main prizes.

Congratulations to Peter Braun for winning a Novation V-Station synth and to Roger Barke for winning a Korg Nano-Pad. In a surprisingly generous move all the other entrants will receive a 2Gb usb memory stick or a LSS mug, as a thank-you for taking the time to reply.

In March this year we are going to start a new Music Production LITE course, entirely focused on Logic. This course is not as comprehensive as the Music Production 101 course but it's ideal if you have only taken a short weekend course on Reason or Ableton and are ready to step up your game and move to Logic Pro.

The best part is that at half the price of the regular Music Production course and with only one lecture per week, anyone should now be able to get proper training while still managing a busy life. For more info see Music Production with Logic Pro

Free Pro Tools Plugins from Massey

Massey produces really really useful high-end plugins (unfortunately only compatible with Pro Tools). They are available to download as 'demo' but the only limitation is that they will not work on projects with a sampling rate higher than 48Khz. They don't expire, don't mute the audio, effectively you can use just the demo as long as you want, and upgrade when you feel the need for higher sampling frequencies and a few extra features. Follow this link to download them all (mac & pc versions) http://www.masseyplugins.com

Waves GTR solo free (for one year only!)

Here is a company who has a well-deserved reputation for quality (indeed very few will question Waves' position as industry leader in pro-audio plugins) and evil. Just ak any registered user and you will find that the relationship between this company and its customers is very much a love-hate thing. In an effort to improve their likability, for the first time ever, their are giving away something free. And what a thing! Gtr Solo features software emulations of 10 Amplifiers, 13 stomp-box effects and 10 Cabinets. Obviously, being evil and all that, they couldn't really give something away free: so you get a licence that lasts one year, and when this expires you can choose to buy the real thing. It's easy to see how you will get seriously addicted to this software and end up having to buy it, if anything just to be able to open all the projects that you have created with this plugin. Nevertheless we think that this initiative should be applauded, a year is a realistic amount of time for anyone to really understand whether a product is worth using, while demos that mute the output or quit every 30 minutes serve only to frustrate users and encourage piracy. So well done Waves, and now let's distort some guitars.

Gtr Solo is RTAS, AU, VST compatible (Mac and PC).

Follow this link http://www.wavesgtr.com/html/product_gtr_solo.html > you will have to create an account with Waves (it's free) before you can proceed, and you will need to have an iLok to store your licence.

Free Synth for all

Mr. Alias 2 uses non-bandlimited oscillators which can be transposed near to and beyond the Nyquist frequency, causing most of their spectra to be aliased back into audible non-harmonic frequencies. The sound can then be further processed by a number of crude “effects.”

Mr. Alias 2 is available as a VST plugin for Windows (32-bit), Mac OS X (Universal Binary), and Linux (x86), and as an Audio Unit for Mac OS X, and yes, it's totally free. In fact you can even download the C++ source code, if you are the type of person that likes to read code while eating breakfast.

Download Mr Alias2