JOE WALLACE: I'm Joe Wallace for Gearwire.Com. This is the Gearwire Gossip Video Blog Edition, kind of an experiment we're doing with the gossip column and video blogging. We'd love to hear from you about it. Drop by Gearwire Forums and let us know what you think. We posted one last week. We're going to post a couple of more this week and just see how it goes. Gearwire Forums is definitely the place to drop by and throw your rotten tomatoes and tell us what you like and didn't like.

Kicking things off for the V-blog this time, Arturia announces its first ever hardware synth. It's called the Origin, and it's going to contain a whole bunch of modules from things like Moog Modular, the 2600 by ARP, the Minimoog, and a whole lot more. Now, that's already been talked to death, but what's really interesting to me is the way you can combine these modules to make unique sounds out of these other classic sounds, and that's thanks in part because of the use of an analog devices DSP processor called TigerSHARC. Arturia claims that TigerSHARC inside the Origin is going to give the Origin more power than a dual core PC processor. Pretty heavy claim, we'll try and get our hands on one of these Origins when they hit the shelves in September and give it a test drive and see what it can do.

Arturia says the Origin isn't your father's hardware system. This is "an integrated system that's the best of both the hardware and software worlds." The company promises more info next month. And again the release of the very first Arturia hardware synth, the Origin, comes in September at an MSRP of just under $3,000. Save your pennies.

Last week, in the print edition of Gearwire Gossip, I talked about the little controversy going on between Stanton and Native Instruments. Stanton is pretty disappointed that there is no Intel/Mac support for Final Scratch 2, and they were basically begging people to go over to Native Instruments and ask them to write software support for the Intel/Mac for Final Scratch 2. Now, according to Native Instruments, they had originally planned to maintain Final Scratch compatibility in their new Traktor 3 for an indefinite period of time. They didn't have time, according to press releases from Native Instruments, to develop an Intel/Mac version of the support for Final Scratch 2, and then they said Stanton Magnetics issued and never retracted a legal statement forcing Native Instruments to remove Final Scratch timecode compatibility from the Traktor platform.

Now, what does all that mean? If you're into Final Scratch and you're an Intel/Mac user, you're kind of screwed, but Native Instruments says in their minds a favorable alternative is to offer a special crossgrade for Final Scratch owners. They can switch to the Traktor Scratch system at greatly reduced costs while allowing them to keep their Final Scratch system. This basically means you get to spend more money. I'll let our viewers who own Final Scratch 2 and Intel/Macs to decide how they feel about that one.

Now last week, in our very first V-blog for Gearwire Gossip, we talked a little bit about Martin Atkins' book "Tour Smart". That's the book that Atkins wrote using the benefit of his 30 years as a touring musician to give people who don't have as much experience advice on how to manage a tour, how to avoid pitfalls and potholes along the way, the little tips and tricks you can do to make your tour easier and a lot more manageable.

I dropped Martin Atkins an email last week to the web site at tstouring.com, which was plugging the book but we haven't heard back from them yet. We'd really like to talk to Atkins and get his two cents worth on the book and maybe even a little advice for our Gearwire readers and viewers on what they can do to help themselves when it comes time for that first tour. As soon as my team of bounty hunters tracks down Atkins and extracts a few good comments from him, we'll let you know.

That's it for this edition of Gearwire Gossip. Please drop by the Gearwire Forums. Let us know what you think of the V-blog idea and Gearwire Gossip in general. I'm Joe Wallace for Gearwire.Com.