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Vernon Reid

Having earned his guitar-legend wings as a founder of the funked-up hard rock outfit Living Colour, Vernon Reid has always been a sonic instigator. After picking up two "Best Rock Performance" Grammys with Living Colour, Reid moved on to carve up jazz contexts at avant NY and European venues. As both a producer and session musician, Reid's string of adventurous collaborations, albums and movie scores have kept him free from categorization. He is a rare musician who is equally at home rocking an arena, spinning wild jazz improvisations or skanking it up on hip hop guitar (this summer, with The Roots).

In the studio, Reid has been working on a group of movie soundtracks and has discovered that Live is a versatile tool that allows him to retain his originality. "I'm using Live a lot these days," says Reid. "I'm working on a documentary project, and I've been recording live percussion, keys, bass and guitars into it [Live]. I can set up alternate cues very quickly, which is a much slower process in other DAWs. Live is a hearty and stable audio environment that offers a real alternative to everything else out there. With the inclusion of MIDI in its already impressive arsenal of audio-altering tools, Live is limited only by your imagination. Fantastic."