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You can literally have Hatsune Miku under your foot -- provided you can play an instrument. Maybe it's not a lost cause after all.

MIKU STOMP Stomp Effect

Seconded. Especially a virtual analog synth that has friendly knobs which will immediately affect the sound being produced when tweaked.

Or, you could go for a real analogue synth like the Korg Monotron, a tiny, simple true analog synth able to create all kinds of neat sounds.

None of these things will have the bright screen to draw his eye, but they are far more intuitive and engaging for a young mind: pushing different keys and twisting different knobs will effect a definite and immediate change in the sound he hears, whereas pounding on the keyboard of a laptop will generally result in little onscreen action. Synth programming is real programming, too, without the complexity of dealing with language. This will foster his creativity more greatly than any other electronic device, especially if he plays with it as he begins to understand the structure of music.

Korg Monotrons can be bought new for under $80. The only problems I foresee are that Dad might be having too much fun with it to let his son have a try, that adults have a low tolerance for atonal, high-pitched sounds, and that nobody wants their kid to be a starving artist when they grow up =)

In other words, so what's this thing good for?

The most obvious usage is for working with music on a laptop.
It would be nice to have this technology while away from home, like sitting in an airport and wanting to kill some time.
Today I have to lug around a NanoKey in order to have a pressure-sensitive keyboard when I don't have access to my midi-keyboard.
It's roughly the size of a laptop keyboard, uses the same kind of button mechanics but adds pressure sensitivity.

As a U.S. citizen on recent international travel, I had few problems passing borders, outside of the fact that my backpack was searched and put through the bomb sniffer test by security people in both countries. But, given I had this in there, I was expecting some delay. It turned out to be much less of a problem than I thought it would be, and the Immigration folks in Boston were actually surprisingly cordial.

This is a good point - if software doesn't explain itself, then it is broken. I believe this holds all the way from the top level to the basics. If the architecture of the system isn't well signposted and comprehensible, it fails.

If you're talking about everyday desktop software for non-geeks, then sure. But you have to take your audience into consideration too. There is plenty of software out there for people who know what they're doing, and any hand-holding at all will only get in the way of what they're trying to do. Take Blender, for instance. Its user interface is completely different from any other piece of software and is tough to master. But it is optimized for the job of 3D modeling and experienced graphics designers can fly through it with ease.

Another example: I'm trying to get into music production and recently bought a Korg Electribe EMX-1. It's basically a drum machine, synthesizer, and sequencer all mashed into one. You look at it and despite all the knobs and buttons think to yourself, "I've built around 200 different servers from scratch in my day job as a sysadmin, how hard can a little blue box be?" Well, I've been reading the manual two nights straight and have only managed to digest about half of what this machine can do. It's tough because I come from the computer world where a button widget does one thing. On the EMX-1, each button and knob does anywhere between 2 and 50 things depending on what mode you're in, which thingamabob is toggled, or who breathed on it last. Producers have no problem with it though, because it was designed for someone with a solid understanding of music production under their belt already. If Korg were to dumb the instrument down at all, they would either have to remove functionality or increase the cost of the device, neither of which are attractive or necessary.

Then could you please explain what the Roland V-Synth V2 and Alesis FusionSynth or others are?
And what's this Korg Electribe series about?
Just curious. By the way, what 10 Korg products do you own? My only piece of Korg gear is an Poly62.

My first - and only - 'high-end' keyboard was a Roland.

I was living in England at the time, and me and my band-mates took to hanging out in Cambridge and prowling the music stores looking for deals. I wanted, but could not afford a top of the line Yamaha DX-1 - so instead settled for a Roland JX-3P. This was 1983/84 timeframe. Rumor had it that Thomas Dolby acquired his keyboards from the same shop (but that is highly speculative - although interestingly the linked article does mention him - so my machine could have been from the same lot :p ). I never did buy the DCO controller unit - and spent many hours programming the thing through the push button interface (perhaps why I ended up becoming a computer programmer?). It also included a pitch bender (to get the effect equivalent to slurring notes) and a rudimentary midi interface - which I never used.

I remember seeing a Moog synth - a Prodigy in the same store - slightly used - and I kick myself for not getting that one instead - again lacked the cash flow. I did purchase a BOSS DR 110 drum machine which I used for composing, and when our drummer would crap out on us; I ended up loaning that to a friend in later years - and never saw it again (friend having moved with no return address). Also acquired a BOSS DM-3 Analog Delay floor switch unit - used that as a general purpose delay for all kinds of ambient effects - and still own it today (great little unit) and use it with my guitar.

When I came back to the states I got an electrician to modify the power supply on the keyboard to handle US power. After a few years I gave it to my sister who was studying music in college at the time. No idea where it is or what it is doing now...(sigh)

This new Korg sounds interesting (combining both my love of computers and music in one device). I wonder if I will have to sell my firstborn to afford it? Has anyone priced these? Would it be better for me just to get a good midi capable soundcard and some computer software combined with a cheaper keyboard?

And the musicians are having the most fun kludging stuff together to make some phat sounds out of the common peripherals they already own. I have been hooking up a Sidewinder Force Feedback steering wheel to the x-y controller in FL Studio scratching it like it was a vinyl turntable. and also use the gas/brake pedals for stomp-box effects and a wah controller for the guitar...Easy shit. Also, try using a Wacom tablet as a tool similar to what a KORG KAOSS Pad can do. I am amazed that it's taken the rest of the geek community is just starting to catch on. Oh well, kudos for those who make the most of it.

Move along, nothing to see here.

Just wanted to make a post in case others might be interested.

Well, in that case: my newest toy, a Korg Triton Extreme works too. It has a built in USB-MIDI interface and you can access the compact flash slot as usb-storage (the EX must be in usb-storage mode). I had to patch usbquirks.h in alsa to get it to work, but the changes have been added to CVS.

FWIW, I also have a Radium 61 key and a Midisport (this device is sold under many names) working just fine in Linux.

So, yeah, Linux audio isn't that pathetic. Granted, I'm no pro, but I can make sounds. I love using the Radium to control AmSynth. Sweeper madness. :)

I'm just using a Soundblaster Live for audio at this point. Sometime in the near future I'll get a M-audio 2496, but I need to pay some of this other crap off first.

There are TONS of huge, complecated, expensive, synthesizers out there and they do get bought and sold. This one is the same, but features teh ability of have software synthesizers and the like loaded on it. Those have become rather popular, and in fact some companies sell nothing but soft synths.

There is plenty of market for this sort of thing.

Sliders and touchscreens are nice, but the mark of a good keyboard is how it SOUNDS.

I've seen plenty of Workstation keyboards like the Korg Triton set up in studios, and in every case they were being used just like normal keyboards - the sequencing functionality was completely unused.

The plain fact is that a view screen that points upwards and forces you to lean over every time you even look at it is an ergonomic nightmare.

which was stranded on Earth after an accident after a battle against the Korg.

Considering the internal architecture of the Gamecube and the former n64, I'd expect a G5, MacOS X 10.3 (panther) based console, where the games would run over either aqua or XDarwin. Also, new available devices such as USB keyboards and mice and an in-board ethernet card would be available. The ATI graphics card seems to be already popular among PPC (mac, camecube) machines so I'd expect nothing less than the top-of-the-line ATI card. Of course, for the sound device, it should be no less than the equivalent of a Korg Triton Rack or a Yamaha motif rack. Optical sound output is a must. Who doesn't have his/her gamecube conneted to some S/PDIF-capable receiver? Controls should include the already successfgull desing for the original gamecuge but also mind-controlled devices, so you can at last beat andross without getting the pain in yout thumbs :)

If you thought hauling around a portable studio in a laptop was pretty cool, there are already recording devices from the likes of Fostex and Korg that incorporate four- and eight-track multitrack recorders into handheld packages. About the only thing that keeps these things from getting smaller is the size of the jacks required to get audio in to and out of the device.

With CF and MMC media becoming smaller and cheaper, to the point where you can now get 256MB for less than $50, combined with advanced adaptive audio compression techniques like MP3 and MP4, are going to make these things as powerful as a Sonar-equipped laptop in a couple years' time. I like to take it with me when I go to shows or open-mic nights and get a 'hard copy', so to speak, of my performances. If I like them, the quality is high enough that with a little mastering compression, EQ and reverb, I've got an instant live recording.

Doing creative video production can be a lot like creating a game, and in this particular instance, what you're searching for is pre-made foley.

A lot of effects can be made simply by rubbing/banging objects together and then tweaking them, e.g., a grandfather clock is a piece of thick, taught cable hit lightly by a tire iron, slowed down 300%, and repeated. A sizeable personal effects library can be made by going around with even so much as a tape/MD recorder and a good mic just getting sounds from anywhere and everywhere. I'd recommend a boom mic if at all possible to prevent picking up background noise. But you might look a little weird doing it.

For "artificial" effects and maybe a little music, Korg's Electribe series of synths (EA-1 Analog Synth, ES-1 Sampler, ER-1 Rhythym Synth, EM[X]-1 "Music Production Stations" -- does all of the above to a limited extent) can provide endless resources, when properly played with, at least. I remember being in a crunch for a project and synthing out a perfect submarine "ping" in ten minutes on the ER-1. Obviously, more expensive synths will do more.

If you're really going for pre-made (despite my lectures to the contrary), try Opsounds -- Copyleft for audio. Make sure and contribute back, mmmk?

And of course, Sounddogs. The sounds (and even short-length compositions) are incredibly cheap -- we're talking $0.30-2.00 or so depending on length and license, high-quality, downloadable OR they can burn a CD and send it to you, and it's royalty-free forever at purchase. Considering they merely resell licensed effects, you'll probably find more than a few effects that you're trying to imitate in the first place.

You be surprised by the number of film scores that are produced by something like this instead of an actual orchestra.

The ProTools rigs sound good (especially the big ones with the hardware-based effects plug-ins), but they're way overpriced and the software is a little messy.

Then again, I was commissioned to compose a piece for a performance festival in Zurich, and ended up buying a Sound Blaster from a market in Istanbul (I love tight deadlines). It sounded a bit crappy compared to what I usually use, not surprisingly, but it did the job. (Look for the piece "Renewal" at MP3.com if you're at all curious; by contrast, the "Diffusion" piece there was done on a big ProTools rig.)

>> No matter what happens though, IBM keyboards are the best ever made. :) I thought Roland [rolandus.com] made the best keyboards.

No way! Korg makes the best keyboards. Specifically the godly Triton. Only problem is that even for a well paid geek a Triton costs about 2 weeks salary, or about as much as a duel athlon.

The iBook is nice (look: computers meet Tupperware!) but it doesn't do CardBus. I have a Magma PCI card cage attached to my Pismo, which means that I can gig with the Pismo running something like MOTU Performer or Max/MSP, and use a PCI-based synth/effects processor like the OasysPCI. It makes a really powerful rig.