Back in 1994, the original Korg Wavedrum had a fancy durable wooden casing with a real metal rim to encase the drum pad. It was expensive and it was cool. Now Korg is offering the Wavedrum digital percussion synthesizer to the "next generation," this time with lots of plastic and the look of a round Tenori-on.

The new Wavedrum can be used as a standalone percussion instrument, or it can be integrated into an existing drum kit or percussion rig. The synth has a real drum head as the playing surface, inviting you to play it as you would a real drum head, with sticks, brushes, mallets, and / or your hands.

Under the drum head is an audio transducer similar to a microphone, which drives the DSP and PCM sound engines. The rim, on the other hand, is outfitted with different-sized raised patterns on the left and right sides. If you rub them the right way, you can create interesting percussion effects.

Myriad drum and percussion sounds, synthetic tones, and sound effects can be played, including "exotic" percussion instruments such as the udo and jegog. Strings and other non-percussion instruments like the sitar, koto, and berimbau can also be played. The Wavedrum comes loaded with 100 preset programs and memory storage for 100 user programs. Korg expects to ship it in January 2010, so look for it then.