Top 10 Musician and Music Software News Items of 2010

I thought it would be fun to got back over the news this year and see which stories had been most popular with musicians - so here they are, the top 10 news items ranked by popularity:

10. GarageBand 11

GarageBand has long been the most popular entry level recording app for Mac, and with some of the more advanced features built into version 11 it's starting to become a little more than 'entry level'.

9. Auto-Tune 7 is Now Available

It seems the world can never get enough of Auto-Tune. Just when you think it's over-use will kill it off, it comes back better than ever - of course you can use it for it's original purpose of touching up your vocals a little.

8. Free Love: Download 1GB of Free Loops & Samples - PLP Taster

When Peace Love Productions (PLP) released this free taster it was always going to be a hit.

7. New Electronic Drum Set - Alesis DM6 USB Express Kit

With a street price of only $399 this was always bound to be popular, particularly with musicians who aren't drummers, but like me love to have a bash when they get the chance. Now you can afford to play at home anytime you want without annoying the neighbors.

6. VOCALIZER - A Creative New Tool For Vocalists

SONiVOX made a huge splash with the release of VOCALIZER - part effect plugin and part virtual instrument.

5. Music Computing - New Hardware and Software Company Upcoming Live Web Launch

Music Computing also made quite a splash this year with the launch of new Keyboard/Mixer/Controllers that use your laptop as the 'brain' allowing you to use any computer and software combination you want.

4. New Pro Tools 9 Announced at AES

This may have come late in the year, but the news was awesome. For the first time you can now use Pro Tools on your Mac or PC without having to buy any special hardware. Part of the popularity of this story was due to the fact we published it seconds before the live launch was even completed.

3. FL Studio 9.6.0 Public Beta & FL Studio 9.7 Public Beta

The public Betas of FL Studio were extremely popular - many of the features will be incorporated into the full release FL Studio 10 expected sometime in 2011.

2. Top 10 Free VST/AU Virtual Instruments For Macintosh

This was a follow-up to the most popular story below - as you'll see from the comments in the next one a lot of people wanted a list dedicated to Mac.

1. Top 10 Free VST Virtual Instruments

As you can see by the large number and the quality of the comments in the feedback below the story, this one really captured the attention of a lot of computer musicians.