I’ve been reading the blogs about new products from NAMM. This new controller interface from AKAI seems promising. The APC40 is Ableton Live specific but they may add support to it for other software in the future.

Read more about it here.

Previously known for making knock-off VST emulations of classic hardware synths, Arturia is releasing their first hardware synth, Origin. It’s a DSP box running their synth plugins. Yawn. A VST Arp 2600 or CS-80 will never sound like the real thing and there are a million virtual analogs out there already. I heard an amusing conversation on a ride in the Manhattan subway last month. Two late-teen/early twenties guys were riding next to me and one was talking about how there wasn’t a difference between VST synths and hardware and VSTs were just as good and there wasn’t a reason to ever buy hardware. I almost fell out of my seat laughing but I didn’t have time to get in a debate with a guy who’s probably never even written his own synth patch or played on a decent hardware synth before. Plainly put, you owe it to yourself to check out the real thing.

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