The neKo LE, unveiled a couple weeks ago, might play second fiddle to big brother neKo 64, but for a (mere?) $2600 it still offers some pretty hot features for less than half the price of its predecessor. Like the neKo 64, the LE model is a fast workstation (a Pentium 4 rather than the 64’s AMD Opteron) built into what looks more or less like an expensive synthesizer. Albeit, a synthesizer with a hardware DSP processor that runs Windows XP and thus WaveLab, Cubase, etc. as well as all the VST and pretty much any other plugin(s) you care to throw at it. Oh, and full size PCI slots (hot). Open Labs has created a pretty slick tool here, although cheap bastards like myself will probably continue to pick up commodity x86 parts for their home studio rig; the neKo LE might be cool, but you can get reasonable facsimile of its functionality with a $600 workstation and a MIDI controller. Still, the neKo LE will undoubtedly offer compelling advantages to some, especially those with deeper pockets than mine.
neKo LE Product Page [OpenLabs]
