A few months ago, I asked the question, will your iPhone be your next sound module? Well, perhaps that time has come, thanks to Akai’s SynthStation25 and SynthStation49 keyboards, which threaten to turn your iDevice into a fully fledged music workstation.

It’s a neat concept, and Akai seems to have implemented it well.  The accompanying iDevice app contains three virtual-analogue synths with all the controls you’d expect, complemented by a simple MPC style drum machine.  All elements can be brought together by the onboard sequencer, and there’s lots of onscreen controls, from a touchscreen mixer window to an X-Y controller.  The keyboards themselves are touch sensitive, have pitch and modulation wheels, and an array of buttons, including 9 lovely MPC style drum machine buttons on the 49 key model.  The keyboards also can operate as regular USB/MIDI controllers, effectively turning your iDevice into a proper MIDI synth.  The iDevice can be mounted into the keyboard dash, much as the old Yamaha QY10s used to fit into Novation keyboards almost 20 years ago. It’s a lovely idea, though I think the synths will need to be a bit more powerful to attract serious use.

The thing is, Akai plan to open up development to third parties, which will mean more powerful synths and sequencer will come very soon.  Indeed, a few have arrived already, such as 50-in-1, nanoStudio and VirSyn’s iVoxel, a very functional vocoder.  Expect more very soon.

With the more powerful iPad 2 just launched, and the iPhone 5 probably only a few months away, things are really hotting up yet again in the music/iDevice realm.