Akai announced its new impersonation of MIDI wind controller the EWI4000S. It's much more than the previous models as it's now an analogue modeled synth (built in), so it sports MIDI in and out ports. But it's not everything, there's some effect processing too: reverb, delay, and chorus, another first in wind controllers. And for the complete image, there's a dedicated software for editing sounds which are stored in the EWI4000S synth.

Line 6 will launch in spring its ToneCore range of modular stompboxes. They are based on the actual models, but you can plug modules into the StompDock (available in mono or stereo). So it's swapping time when you want to change your sound but not break the bank of the guitar heroes. As the original ToneCore, it's still modeling,and it runs from batteries or AC adapters. Now, when will we have the relevant guitar rigg?

Modules: Uber Metal, Dr. Distorto, Otto Filter, Crunchtone $41.99 each ; Space Chorus, Tap Tremolo, Constrictor, Liqua-Flange, Roto-Machine $55.99 each ; Echo Park, Verbzilla $99.99 each.
ToneDock mono $99.99, stereo $112.99

Behringer has a thing for keyboards this year as they announce two digital Pianos the EG1040 and EG2040. They are in wood looking case, black or dark rosewood, feature a 88-note, weighted hammer-action keyboard and 14 sounds (Grand Piano, EPiano, organ, harpsichord, strings…) for 64 voices of polyphony. Add to this effect (reverb, modulation and brillance) before the 80W of stereo amplification. The EG2040 has a sliding key cover.

Price and availability TBA.

Native Instruments, beside abusing of K letters in their product name, knows a thing or two about virtual instruments, I'm sure we can agree on that. Now, NI announced they've been working not only on some hardware, but:

- A universal controller for all your plug-ins.
- A universal VST and AU host on your computer (unified interface of plug-ins on the computer), itself a stand-alone or a plug-in.
- A universal sound database within the host (find your sound by attribute, and don't care if it's in a virtual sampler or a virtual synth or whatever).
- A unified file format, KoreSound, to store layers, routing, configuration and categorization data.

Behringer announced it will release a brand new range of controllers: the U-Control UM25, UMX49 and UMX61. They only differ by their keyboard size.

Features:
- USB controller/MIDI interfaces
- 25, 49 and 61 velocity-sensitive keyboard, full sized keys.
- 10 programmable MIDI controllers and 8 assignable switches.
- Assignable mod wheel, volume fader and pedal value.
- MIDI Out (NO MIDI in!)
- 6 free instrument plug-ins (50 for windows PCs… sigh) 4Front Epiano, Piano, and Bass Modules, Ultimatesoundbank Plugsound Free, AudioNerdz DelayLama, reFX Claw 1.0. (Well, you see…) And Ableton Live 4 Lite.
- Power from USB, batteries or AC adapter.

UM25 $129.99, UMX49 $159.99 and UMX61 $189.99

As a side note, the F-CONTROL AUDIO FCA202 firewire ($99.99), and the U-CONTROL UCA202 ($34.99) USB audio interfaces previously announced will be available this quarter 2006 as the UM-X range.