Like most synth aficionados, I love the sound of analog synths. My main synth is the Dave Smith Instruments Prophet ’08—analog synth goodness and tone for miles. And of course one of the classic analog monosynths of all time is the Minimoog. But spending over two-thousand dollars for a monophonic instrument, even a spectacular one, is a bit much, in my opinion.

So I was rather excited when Moog Music unveiled the Little Phatty family of monosynths based on the Minimoog but stripped down to its essential analog goodness—and under the magic two-thousand dollar price. Still, I’m a huge fan of arpeggiators, MIDI over USB for direct recording into Logic Pro, and other such goodies.Well, it seems that Moog Music has decided that they want to try and make a customer out of me after all (well, they already did for the MoogerFooger MuRF pedal, actually…). This week they’ve quietly posted information about a new Little Phatty, the Stage II.

This seems to have a couple of the features that I was really hoping for:

MIDI over USBMIDI Clock SyncArpeggiatorTap Tempo

That’s a pretty solid collection of goodies! And I’ve read that it’s computer editor is also quite good, which sounds like it can extend it’s flexibilities even more. This one I’ll definitely check out seriously.

So every now and again, something comes around that as soon as you see it, you just know that this is going to alter the way that people make music in the future. This is one of those things.

Celemony, makers of the already popular Melodyne series of products, has just extended the line even further. There is a video on their website showing off their forthcoming Direct Note Access technology. And by “forthcoming” they don’t mean five years from now, they mean later in 2008. The first product this technology will be added to is the Melodyne Plug-in, which means you’ll be able to use it in your current audio sequencer, Mac or PC.

When this ships, if its even half as good as the video demo, it will really shake things up. Stay tuned….