October 18, 1999 Web posted at: 12:39 p.m. EDT (1639 GMT) by Jeff Partyka

From...

(IDG) -- Packard Bell NEC's Consumer Division has said that it is introducing a number of new PCs this month, including the NEC Home Music Studio for computer-savvy music enthusiasts.

The NEC Home Music Studio promises just about everything one might expect from a music-centric computer, from cataloging, playlist-creation, and MP3 searching and downloading capabilities to multitrack recording of original music, and recordable-CD burning and artwork production.

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Bundled with the PC are Sonic Foundry's Siren and ACID Style software. The Siren CD-recording software allows users to create mixes from other CDs and licensed downloadable files, while ACID Style delivers the recording capabilities that facilitate creation of original music on the PC.

Priced between $1,349.99 and $1,699.99, the NEC Home Music Studio comes with a Creative Sound Blaster Live! Value 3D PCI sound system and Harman Kardon speakers.

It also offers Intel's Pentium III 500 or 550 processor, as well as a 56K-bps-capable v.90-compliant modem, a CD-ReWritable (CD-RW) drive, a CD- or DVD-ROM drive, a 13GB hard drive, and between 95MB and 128MB of RAM.

Also available this month from Packard Bell NEC are three more traditional PCs, ranging in price from $449 to $699 ($399 to $649 after a mail-in $50 rebate). Intel or AMD processors are available, as well as a hard drive up to 10.2GB and 32MB to 96MB of RAM. A CD- or DVD-ROM drive is included.

Other features include a Microsoft software bundle; several support software tools; and a 3D AGP graphics/video accelerator.

Jeff Partyka writes for the IDG News Service in Boston.