JOE WALLACE: I'm Joe Wallace for Gearwire.Com. I'm here with David Kerzner of IK Multimedia. We're talking about the recently announced partnership with Moog Music. Tell me a little bit about the partnership and what it means for you guys.

DAVID KERZNER: Okay. Well actually I'm the owner of company called Sonic Reality. We do the sounds for IK Multimedia, and it started several years ago where I, for years I've been a fan of Moog synthesizers, I've owned quite a few myself, and worked with several artists over the years that are known for using them like Keith Emerson and also a lot of Sampletank artists that we have like Rick Wakeman, Geoff Downes. You know, there's this sort of club of Moog lovers, and basically what we did is we approached Moog when Bob was around and came up with this idea of sampling every Moog synthesizer and making it available and accessible to everybody. And you know there's been some plugins that have modeled certain things like a Minimoog, and what we wanted to do is a different approach that basically covers the entire range of Moog, including instruments that would never be modeled like, I don't know, a Multimoog or the Realistic Radio Shack Moog which was my first synthesizer ever. And so, and also by sampling them, we really have the authentic sound of the Moog. Instead of trying to replicate it, it's a recording of the Moog running through the Sampletank's subtractive synthesis so you kind of have the best of -- and that's why it's called SampleMoog. It's half Sampletank and half Moog.

JOE WALLACE: Now, for those who aren't familiar with Sampletank, give us a little description of what Sampletank is and how that factors in to the Moog sounds that you're coming out with.

DAVID KERZNER: Okay. Well, Sampletank was introduced by IK Multimedia, Sampletank 1 in 2000 or 2001, and we've been a part of that, Sonic Reality has with the sounds. It's basically a workstation plugin similar to the Yamaha keyboards and the Roland keyboards but in a plugin, so you have multitimbral part, built in effects, easy-to-use synthesis, but very powerful, and that's what's made it very popular for musicians because Sampletank 2 XL, the product is -- has a little of everything, and so you have guitar, bass, drums, synthesizers, and a lot of people use it for their main writing setup. And then what's great about products like SampleMoog is it is its own plugin, you know, that you pop up and looks like a Moog but you can also load the sounds into Sampletank to add to your workstation environment.

JOE WALLACE: Now, when Bob Moog was alive, part of his vision was making music and the tools of music more accessible and easier to use. How does this partnership with Moog Music help achieve that reality a little bit more?

DAVID KERZNER: In my opinion, every extent that we could. From just the -- Well, the packaging and everything comes with a little history of Moog. We've done this not only in cooperation with Moog Music Inc., which is the company that Bob made the Minimoog Voyager, which we also have sample of too for the first time, you know, people get to hear that as a plugin. But also with the Moog Foundation, with the support of Michelle Moog, Bob's daughter, who has a foundation, moogfoundation.com, where people can donate and support a fund for electronic music, which is great, giving back in that way. And one thing that we decided to do, again, to pay homage to Bob and all of his achievements and to the great synthesizers that, you know, been in everyone's -- so many musicians hearts, and I just sound corny here, but -- I'm going to cry -- But it's we do something special like we have a special edition that's going to have some extra bonus stuff, artists' signatures and some patches and sounds, maybe some of Keith's modular system and donate a portion of that to the foundation as well. And so I mean I guess overall there is the education of the history of Moog side of things, and then there's the -- even if you've never heard of a Moog, bringing the shocking sound of Moog to whatever music you're making now, and new musicians are just learning about it, maybe they've never laid their eyes of as Minimoog, the beauty of a Minimoog, but they're hearing this thunderous bass or, you know, this incredible sound that we've captured almost like photography, audio photography like these great sounds, to be recreated in any fashion. I think this is something that Bob Moog was all about. It's just moving forward. He wasn't just staying in one place or, you know, staying on one thing. It was just moving forward with technology and enlightening people to make music with these sounds.

JOE WALLACE: Thank you very much. I'm Joe Wallace for Gearwire.Com on the floor of Musikmesse in Frankfurt, Germany.