We’ve been eagerly awaiting the LinnDrum II since it was called the BoomChik. We called the non-functional prototype one of the best products of this January’s NAMM – reasoning being that, based on what we heard from showgoers, a silent LinnDrum still beat more evolutionary blandness from the rest of the industry. But I’d be lying if I didn’t say some of us were getting a wee bit impatient waiting for some kind of news. Now that news appears to be here — a rough estimate on availability and pre-order details. (Updated: Specs had been posted previously, as Cory observes in comments, but let’s savor them one more time.)

Availability: Late 2008 (“our best estimate,” so that’s not set in stone)

Cost: US$1400 for the all-digital LinnDrum II, or $1800 for the LinnDrum II Analog with the addition of four analog voices as seen in the Prophet ‘08 and Evolver, plus 32 dedicated encoders

Pre-order list: No commitment, no money down; just email support@rogerlinndesign.com and you’re in. Will there be a baby shower at some point?

Dave and Roger have also posted updated specs on the two units. Highlights include:

• A real-time optimized operating system – do lots of stuff without stopping play
• Modulated filters and resonators
• Real-time and step recording – think MPC and 808, respectively – with visual animation on the pads
• Record to Compact Flash
• Lots of controls, including buttons and assignable sliders, and foot switch and expression jacks for pedals, in addition to the pads (in fact, it looks like there’s less mucking around inside menus than on competing boxes from Akai and Roland, one thing that kept me off those units)
• Eight outputs – so you could do some interesting effects routing, or do some crazy surround sound drumming. (In fact, I could see using multichannel outs to a computer and doing effects in the computer…) Four more outputs for the analog voices on the Analog model.
• MIDI and USB, with USB storage operations

I imagined the Analog model would pretty much steal the show, but the Digital model is cute and compact and still pretty unique, so I think we’ll see interest in both.

June 20 LinnDrum II Update [Specs and an explanation of the status of the design]

Via The Chip Collection, who caught me napping out in Chicago

Yep. I still want one. And I don’t very often want hardware.

Here’s the analog model, with a close up on its additional control section. Things are laid out in a really friendly way across the whole design. Promising stuff.

Why should you get excited about Nexsyn, the hybrid soft synth/sample player available starting today from KeyToSound that was developed by Max Groenlund, creator of the Studio 9000 for Koblo?

While I could ramble on about Nexsyn’s true stereo signal path, its 4 Gig Big Fish Audio sample library, its ability to load a 400MB piano in 15 seconds, blah, blah, blah, the most innovative and exciting thing about Nexsyn has nothing to do with any of that. It’s got to do with NetNotes.

NetNotes is a proprietary browser that lets you audition Nexsyn presets from other users. You can play presets via keyboard and even use them in your sequencer. You just can’t save them until you “buy” them. Hold on, relax! You don’t buy other people’s presets with real money, you buy them with NetNotes.

You get 1000 NetNotes with your software purchase, which you can use to buy Nexsyn presets. So how much do presets cost? Well, it depends, because the creator sets the price. That means you too can upload your own original presets and set your price. You can even create public and private folders for your preset offerings.

This system is bound to exhibit some very interesting free market dynamics, theoretically with simpler presets from novices going for cheap and presets used on Trent Reznor’s latest album fetching top NetNotes. An incentive is created for users to make quality patches available to the community in addition to downloading them.

What happens if you spend more on presets than you sell and you run out of NetNotes? You can buy another 1000 more from KeyToSound for $20. (This time it’s real dollars.)

Conversely, if you’ve accumulated 10,000 NetNotes you’ll be able to redeem these for yet-to-be-determined goodies such as professional sample libraries or $100 off a new product release.

All in all, NetNotes is an intriguing fusion of social networking and commerce aspiring to offer good sounds and good fun for all. Other companies are sure to take note.

$299 street price. Mac OS X or Windows XP.

More at www.keytosound.com

Josh Jancourtz is live on the floor of the NAMM show in Anaheim. We’ll be catching up with his dispatches through the week. And we’ll be sure to revisit KeyToSound’s new instrument once we get our hands on it.

Personally, I rely almost entirely on friends (both web- and meatspace-based) for my musical enlightenment. Occasionally I’ll do the rounds of MP3 blogs, generally stopping at Aurgasm, 3hive, Stereogum and more recently The Hype Machine, but more often I let those more musically inquisitive than I do the filtering and feed me the best bits. Most of the artists I’ve “discovered myself” recently were through music video blogs such as No Fat Clips and Ticklebooth.

For music purchases I’m tending to use label sites much more than services such as iTunes Music Store. Having a seperate account for each niche-label isn’t the most friendly setup, but I feel like more of my money is making it to the artist, and the label sites and releases are definitely more fun and personable.

I enjoyed the leadup to Hybrid’s most recent release “I Choose Noise“. First came the single “Just For Today”, released for free download on the Hybrid Sound System site. Then came the “I Choose Noise EP“, containing 2 extra tracks as an MP3 single for £2, which was followed, finally, by the full album release for £8 as MP3 download or £8.50 for a “cd exclusive” including live DVD. All of the downloads are DRM free, format-shiftable, share-with-your-friends-able, 320KBit MP3 files. Lovely.

To get an idea of what other CDM readers and contributors are listening to, check out the CDM group on Last.fm (and join up if you haven’t done so already). There’s also the Today I have been mostly listening to… thread, which could do with some reanimating. That’s only a tiny cross-section of the CDM readership though, so I’d really love to hear from those who are making and releasing music. Sources of free legal tracks we can copy and share with friends are great too, of course.