It's an extremely affordable solution. I just hope it can crank at least 64 voices out of Pianoteq.

The unit just started shipping, so reviews are bound to pop out soon.

I'm not keen on using samples with this. There's a list of softsynths that I would like for this unit to handle:

* Pianoteq
* GForce Minimonsta
* GForce impOSCar
* rgc:audio z3ta+
* NI B4-II (of course!)
* NI FM-8
* Korg Legacy Collection Digital (M1 and Wavestation)
* Terratec Komplexer
* reFX quadraSID
* maybe Waldorf PPG Wave 2.V

And that already is a lot to handle. But all those are available the moment you turn the unit on (solidstate drives are cool ), and you arrange them in patches which you switch then normally with program change.

This is basically an awesome rock keyboardist's rig. Haves almost all the classics here. I just hope that CPU in that little V-Machine can handle it. And all that is up to polyphony used. It's rather affordable, so I can also see having 2 or 3 specialised V-Machines working in tandem.

1 GHZ CPU
1G IDE flash disk
512 MB RAM

1 ghz seems slow, particularly for PianoTeq. Unless it's optimized or in some way faster than a PC cpu of the same speed because it's dedicated to doing one thing. I guess 512 megs of RAM isn't all that small for something that holds vsti's, though I wonder how things would go if the vsti called samples into memory--low polyphony? And PianoTeq does better with more RAM than less. Didn't see if the 1 gig flash drive could be replaced. Most vsti's don't take up much space, but if samples had to be loaded, that gig might get used up fast. And it would be better to load every possibly vsti onto it instead of having to swap them out all of the time.

Do you know of any sites that have reviews?

Google "SM Pro Audio V-Machine".

It is user-upgradeable, it includes 1 GB solid state drive, two USB ports for external drives and dongles, and it allows you to play your VSTs anywhere. You can put it on top of the keyboard (it's not rack-sized, but rack version is being prepared, too, with features better than Receptor, cheaper than Receptor).

All this for 470 euros at Thomann's.

I think it's a brilliant thing, I just hope it can run Pianoteq reasonably (meaning - at least 64 voices).

They are available now, of course, but only for around 2-3 k. I understand why Yamaha and Roland are reluctant to create such an instrument--it puts them in the position of just creating hardware for other people's sounds and makes all of their current instruments obsolete, and\or forces them to develop their sound-creation departments greatly. But the first company to create a keyboard with the ability to load vsti's from a flash drive and a price of $1-1.5 k will change the universe.

Of course, I'd like it to be still better: a Linux-based system that could sell for well under $1k...But to some extent, we already have that with a notebook computer and a midi controller. Maybe the best next development would just be a controller with a slightly different physical arrangement: a recessed area on the top where we could put (and lock in) a laptop, with usb connections behind it, and with lots of knobs, like those on the M-Audio keystation pro, for midi cc's. This may be the best solution, really. Otherwise, as hardware gets better, we will always have to upgrade the keyboard for a better processor and more RAM. Might as well just buy a new laptop every few years.