Open Labs announced at the 2003 Winter NAMM Convention eKo, the world's first open platform musical keyboard workstation and the OpenSynth hardware and software reference platform.

After the 02R96, the DM2000 and the DM1000, the small mixing board form Yamaha has also been revamped.
In this new release, 24 analog & digital inputs (expandable to up to 40) 24 bit/96kHz, a new host interface, ADAT, new internal effects in 32 bit (from the DM2000), surround capabilities (3.1, 5.1, 6.1), cascading, and a 320x240 pixels screen.
The 01V96 will be available in april 2003 for $2,499.

Applied Accoustics Tassman the modular synthetizer software based on physical modeling will be available the 1st of February for OS 9 and X 10.2

The Tassman version 3.0 will be available from their online store on February first for $499, a 100$ rebate is ready if you prebook your copy. If you buy tassman 2.1 now you are entitled for a free 3.0

7 great news from Native Instruments.

MOTU announced its virtual sampler MachFive. A powerfull plug-in available for mac first. MachFive is called by MOTU a "universal sampler" as it supports most of the standards either in plug-in, sample, audio:

- Plug-ins: MAS, AudioUnits, VST, RTAS, HTDM, and DXi
- Sample banks: Akai S1/3000, Akai S5/6000, Akai MPC2000 and 3000, Roland S7xx, EMU III/ESI/EOS, GigaSampler/GigaStudio, Emagic EXS24, Digidesign SampleCell, Creamware Pulsar STS, and Steinberg HALion.
- Import: Kurzweil K2xxx, Akai MPC.snd, WAV/ACID, AIFF, SDII, and REX
- 16 parts per instance (multiple instances possible), polyphony limited only by the CPU power available.
- 4 effects per part
- Surround ready
- One window only throughout
- A MOTU sample library to be released…
- 32 bit internal engine, up to 24bit/192kHz resolution.
- Stereo and surround real time waveform editor
- drag and drop import (samples, banks, audio)
...

Yummy!

Available in March-April at 395$