It seems that the busy people at Muse Research didn't want to get lumps of coal in their stockings this holiday season, so Receptor begins shipping this week. If you need a last minute gift for that special someone, and that special someone spends about 90% of their life in a production suite; this is probably an ideal gift.

For those musicians who have tried playing live with Guitar Rig or Spektral Delay, only to find their computers bogged down, Muse Research has offered yet another tool in the fight against memory drain. The new Muse Receptor is a rackmount computer, completely independent of any external hardware. What makes this extremely advantageous is that now you can run Komplete 5 either with or without your laptop, and avoid worrying about CPU speed or RAM.

If you ever dreamed of the perfect sampler, sound module, synthesizer, and effects processor, you'll be happy to know that Komplete 5 gives you 11 different instruments and effects, letting you cover any style of music. When installed in Receptor, you're able to turn 11 plug-ins into 28 total, since you can run any of the instruments through the effects sections of some of the other plug-ins. Komplete 5 is powerful, but Receptor makes using Komplete 5 easy to use, all of the instruments and effects are pre-installed, pre-authorized and ready to play.

Receptor gives you instant access to any of the thousands of sounds available right from the front panel thanks to their unified preset architecture. Lastly, if the inspiration strikes and you want to create your own completely distinctive sound, Receptor's graphical user interfaces provides support for the plug-ins.

Perhaps what is most appealing about the Receptor is that it is a self-contained synth rack version of Komplete. Your Ableton, Pro Tools, or Sonar sessions can be run without the hassle and frustration of audio dropout.