Our weekly roundup of production-related news gathers up previews of Live 9’s audio-to-MIDI functions and Elektron’s Analog Four synth, shares news of iZotope’s recently release Trash 2 plug-in, and attempts to help you navigate a few of Black Friday’s better deals in the realm of production and DJ gear.

Unofficial previews of Ableton Live 9 and Elektron’s Analog Four:

– Earlier this week, a video detailing the new audio-to-MIDI functions that will be available in Ableton‘s forthcoming Live 9 software surfaced. The almost eight-minute “tutorial” is a little dry, but as we said in our post from earlier this week, “the possibilities that this seamless—not to mention considerably fast—audio-to-MIDI conversion function seem to hint at are rather remarkable.”

– Last week we shared the first details of Elektron‘s recently announced Analog Four synthesizer. While Elektron still has not shared any detailed videos of the synth (although, they did recently upload this “commercial” of sorts), a DIY-style clip showed up on YouTube this week, with a user showing off the sounds they’d been able to create while giving a better idea of how all the controls, knobs, buttons, and such appear to work on the as-yet-unreleased unit.

iZotope’s Trash 2:

– Despite what the—there’s no other way to say this—unquestionably bad music in the preview video above may lead you to believe, iZoptope‘s just-released Trash 2 plug-in is a powerful piece of software that gives users an incredible amount of control over the tone, color, harshness, and just about every other aspect of making interesting distortion sounds. All we ask is that you use it responsibly, because whoever scored this promo video clearly didn’t.

A few Black Friday/Cyber Monday deals of note:

– Moog is offering 10% off and a free EP-2 expression pedal with all purchases over $250 (US only).

– Native Instruments is offering 50% off a large portion of its Komplete series of instruments and effects, as well as 50% off Maschine Expansion Packs and Traktor Pro 2 until November 26.

– Online DJ/production equipment retailer DJ Tech Tools is offering up some special deals, as well as 15-40% off everything in its store, until 11:59 p.m. Monday.

– Plugin Alliance, the aptly named online hub for a wide range of plug-in needs, will be giving 30% off to purchasers of one or two plug-ins and purchasers of three or more plug-ins will receive 50% off as part of its “Black Friday Week.”