by , 7:15 AM EST, March 29th, 2005

M-Audio announced Tuesday the debut of its own brand of software -- a virtual keyboard rack and a virtual bass and drums rack.

Key Rig covers all the basic needs for today's keyboardist in a single virtual rack housing. The SP-1 Stage Piano module serves up grand pianos, Wurlitzer, classic electric pianos, FM, clavinet and more. Each preset can hold a combination of two instruments with individual settings for Mix, Octave, Detune, Velocity and Tone. Owing to a dual effects section, each preset also has its own effect settings including delay, chorus, phaser and more.

The Drum and Bass Rig delivers a wide variety of bass and drum sounds in a single virtual rack. Drum and Bass Rig delivers four modules ideal for creating backing tracks in both authentic and electronic styles. The LC-5 Loop Creator is designed for people who want their own loops but find it hard to create them from scratch. It has a pool of 250 source loops including slice-reordering, slice muting or group muting of ranges of slices. It also offers a vast range of real-time controls for dynamic playing/arranging.

Key Rig and Drum and Bass Rig are built on the same engine and therefore share some common features. The master MIDI/Mixer section of Key Rig and Drum and Bass Rig lets users route, split, layer and mix each set of four powerful modules in whatever way best suits users' performance and recording needs. A master effects section even allows for adding a common effect in addition to the individual effect section included with each instrument.

Minimum system requirements for Mac are G3 500 MHz (G4 or faster recommended), 256 megabytes of memory, 1 gigabyte of free hard disk space, Mac OS X 10.3, VST 2.0, AU or RTAS compatible host software, MIDI interface, CD-ROM drive for installation, Internet connection (on any computer) for software certification.

Key Rig and Drum and Bass Rig are now shipping at a retail price of US$129.95 each.