Apogee is shipping Ensemble with a beta version of the FireWire Audio driver that supports a single Ensemble used with G5s or Intel-based Macs with OS X v. 10.4.7.

Big Fish Audio has released Acid Jazz City ($99.95), a collection of 36 construction kits with over 1,300 loops of downtempo, retro and free jazz styles infused with a hip hop groove. Click here for the demo.

Camel Audio has announced Biolabs Absynth Research Sounds, Volumes 4-6 ($99). The collections have almost 400 Absynth presets and include a 350 MB sample library. Camel Audio's Web site provides demo MP3s and a bank of 32 free presets.

EastWest will soon release Soundclash ($99.95), a collection of Nu Electro dance loops and samples. Soundclash comes in multiple formats and has over 1,650 samples and 1.1 GB of content.

Prodyon has released Randomax (Win; $29.95), a VSTi drum sampler that creates random drumkits. Randomax features four stereo outputs, the ability to play up to 17 drums at once, 800 drum sounds, and 128 ready-to-use drumkits in various genres.