Sure, it may sound crazy to stick a Windows PC into the chassis of a big, blue keyboard. But trust me, the people at Open Labs are even crazier than you think. This isn’t a keyboard you’ll check email on. It’s a keyboard you’ll watch movies on. Here’s my hands-on report (or, as I like to say here at CDM, grubby, greasy fingers-on report . . .)

Open Labs is slowly teasing out the specs of a new portable music device called the MiKo, promising a complete portable workstation for everything from DJing to music production to VJing and . . . podcasting? The company won’t make a full announcement until the NAMM trade show later this month in Anaheim; in the meantime they’re releasing weekly updates, so it’s a little like watching a press release as a miniseries. But you can make a smart guess based on Open Labs’ previous products, all of which involve Windows PCs packed into music keyboard form factors. If you read the site carefully, you’ll also notice Open Labs says it has an audio interface and VGA port, and calls it a “standalone home theater PC.” I’ve also put together some additional specs on the MiKo after the break.

Release a synth with the heart of a PC, and it’s only a matter of time before someone tries to use it like a PC. Sure enough, Korg’s flagship OASYS, with an Intel CPU and a Linux-based OS, has been hacked to run off-the-shelf distributions of Linux and Windows from its CD drive:

Karma Lab Forums - OASYS Runs Knoppix! (via Luca Capozzi’s Synthosium)

Open Labs’ NeKos are powerful keyboards that pack a full-blown Windows PC, tuned software, and control surfaces into a single musical instrument. They’ve got some heavy-hitting celebrity endorsements, and they’re rugged: one NeKo managed to continue functioning after being being beaten with a baseball bat and set on fire by DJ Richard Devine.

This month, Open Labs unveiled the next-generation NeKo keyboard: sexier looking, more features, and cheaper. Porsche car paint, faster processors (up to a dual core 64-bit AMD CPU), Pro Tools software, and even Borg-like ability to clone your hardware synths and automatically create multisamples. Priced for mortals, too: US$2,295 gets you all the basics, up to US$5,995 for the absolute top-of-the-line. More after the jump.

While on the subject of Post Musical Instruments and Post Pianos, here’s a glimpse of Post’s custom Post Piano, a piano-computer hybrid. Now pretty much anyone can prop a Tablet PC on their keyboard controller and go to town with samples, and Michel Post admits to CDM that “the PostPiano was never a commercial success, we have 5 left and use them in house, since we’re totally focussed on sample libraries nowdays.”

As a concept, though, you can’t argue with it: with 200 MB of samples per key and built-in software for notation and sequencing, the digital piano has a lot to offer. And this design was attractive enough to be featured in a concert of the music of Dutch minimalist Simeon ten Holt. (Minimalist, indeed — it’s a 1-foot concert grand.) Prototype photo after the jump.