As keyboard player, songwriter, and founding member of Bon Jovi, David Bryan has seen and learned a lot about music and the music business in the past 20 years. After selling 100 million albums, traveling the world and playing to millions of people in 50 countries, and living through the rock and roll years, the grunge years, the rap years, and everything in between, David has a lot of experience to share.

Contrary to his name, Joe Solo is all about partnerships. As head writer and producer for Famous Music, Paramount's music division, Joe works with signed songwriters developing pitch songs for major-label artists including Barbara Streisand, Celine Dion, and Eric Clapton, just to name a few. Joe also develops influential artists such as Macy Gray, works with Rami Jaffe of the Wallflowers, and composes music for film. And Digital Performer is one partner Joe works with on every project.

This year's Mega Summer Tour season is in full swing, and Madonna is on the road again to promote her most recent album release, "American Life". Like many top artists, Madonna mixes studio-produced tracks to support her highly choreographed live performances and the musicians on stage. Mike McKnight produces those tracks, and makes sure they sound great at every show. In fact, Mike has programmed every major Madonna tour using a MOTU system driven by Digital Performer. We recently caught up with him during Madonna's Re-Invention tour, in an interview directly beneath the stage, to get the latest details about …

"Finally, a new sampler that doesn't make your old libraries obsolete!" exclaim the editors of EM. "This universal sampler plug-in lets you import, audition, and load sound banks in a long list of sampler formats, including Akai, Roland, E-mu, Kurzweil, SampleCell, EXS4 and Giga. And that's not all: MachFive can also import samples in WAV, Acid, AIFF, SDI and REX formats." They go on to say: "Machfive strikes a welcome balance between simplicity and functionality." Even with its long list of high-end features, "MachFive never sacrifices its straightforward architecture and easy-to-use interface. Add to that its new direct-from-disk sample-streaming capability, …

"MachFive reads just about anything, works with just about anything, does surround and hi-res audio, has lots of extras, and is priced right. What's not to like?" EQ goes on to say "MachFive looks très cool" and "Given a fast computer, MachFive has a responsive feel." In regards to MachFive's industry-leading import capabilities: "UVI-Xtract is very effective. I used it for successful Akai, Creamware, SoundFont, SoundFont 2, and Giga sample CD conversions on both platforms. Given MachFive's ability to import just about anything, it's highly unlikely to wear out its welcome over time, and is adaptable to changes in musical …