Korg's white elephant, Korg's see snake, in one word OASYS. This long long to come project, believed to be stored away due to the tremendous need of computing power needed. After years of development, it was supposed to be after having brought the OASYS card and induced the Z1 and Prophecy. Well, after more than 10 years, I don't even recall… Korg can release the OASYS synth. It's a synth workstation, a MIDI controller, an effect rack, but for now you don't see the real innovation into. It integrates into an underlined by LINUX platform: PCM, analogue modeling, tone wheel modeling (B3 anyone?), KARMA, sampling, vector synthesis (think Wavestation)… All in 24 bits, and if I remember rightly, it's not the full OASYS yet, there's expansions possible and it's not the end of it…

OASYS 76 keys $8000, OASYS 88 notes $8500 (oooch!)
More specs at Sweetwater.com

Native Instruments has released Komplete Sound, a huge collection of ensembles, sounds and samples for NI's software instruments, combining all eight products from the Native Instruments sound line into one single pack. It contains Reaktor Electronic Instruments Vol. 1, Reaktor Electronic Instruments Vol. 2, Battery Studio Drums, Synthetic Drums , FM7 Sounds Vol. 1, FM7 Sounds Vol. 2, Absynth Sounds Vol. 1, and B4 Tonewheel Set "Vintage Expansion".

N.I. Komplete Sound will be available in March 2005 for $339 / 289 Euro.

Waves releases Q-Clone, a very new product utilizing a new technology that lets you use your outboard hardware equalizer in a completely new way. By capturing the sound of your own gear, Q-Clone allows you to use that sound freely throughout your session, adjusting the sound of each track just as you would if you had dozens of that same hardware equalizer. Q-Clone has softwares: Q-Capture is used to capture the sound of your hardware, and Q-Clone shows you the equalization curve of your hardware

Q-Clone costs $1000 and is available for MacOS X in VST, AU,RTAS, MAS, AudioSuite and HTDM formats. A demo version is available for download.

Native Instruments presents Electronic instruments 2 XT, the extended version of NI's Reaktor instrument collection. The new version contains all the synthesizers, drum machines and effects from the collection as individual self-contained software instruments. The eight instruments included in Electronic Instruments 2 XT are:

PHOTONE . hybrid master synthesizer
LIMELITE . advanced beat composer
METAPHYSICAL FUNCTION .soundscape synthesizer
KRYPT . granular drum machine
AKKORD . sequenced chord generator
FAST FX . advanced performance effects
RESOCHORD . programmable polyphonic resonator
CYAN . extended vintage chorus

Electronic Instruments 2 XT will be available in February 2005 for $169 / 149 Euro.

Ableton announces the worldwide release of Operator, a powerful new software synthesizer instrument optimized for use inside Live 4. Operator brings an eclectic spectrum of sonic possibilities and musical inspiration to Ableton Live users. Operator features powerful oscillators, innovative Time and Tone controls, multimode resonant filters, looping envelopes, an LFO and more.

Operator is available now for $149, and a demo version of Operator is included in the Live 4.1 update.