COLUMN: Hello again, and I hope some of you are finding these holiday music instrument and software count-down deals of interest. There are certainly more and more of them popping up in anticipation of black friday (day after Thanksgiving in U.S.), and the general economy this year finally picking up.

IK MULTIMEDIA: Okay, first off, a really amazing deal on the full line of IK Multimedia’s applications – all of them – in one big box. This collection has been around awhile, and is sort of a “back at you” to Native Instruments’ KOMPLETE. However, for the price, through end of 2009, you get ALL of IK’s wonderful products, for as little as $549 (at retail, online, or via IK’s store). Look at this product line-up, which comprises their best sampler, and the Sonic Reality based sound instruments (Miroslav, SampleMoog, and SampleTron):
Includes:
• SampleTank 2.5 XL
• Sonik Synth 2
• Miroslav Philharmonik
• SampleMoog™
• SampleTron
• AmpliTube 2
• Ampeg® SVX
• AmpliTube Jimi Hendrix™
• AmpliTube Metal
• AmpliTube X-GEAR
• Classik Studio Reverb
• T-RackS 3 Standard.

If you do the math, it works out to be about $45 per product, which is a deal by anybody’s standard. If you just want the music “instruments,” there is also the Total Workstation 2 Instruments Bundle, on sale for $349, also an insane deal, really. Deals end Dec. 31, 2009.

VIRSYN: Next, the folks at VIRSYN are offering deals on their stuff through Nov. 30th, 2009. This includes up to 41% off on their FX line, including BARK, FDELAY, KLON, REFLECT, TDESIGN and VTAPE. More info: http://www.virsyn.de/de/Home/home.html .

SYNTHMASTER NEW RELEASE CONTEST: The folks at KV331 Audio are releasing the new version of their Synthmaster virtual instrument, and have a neat contest, where you listen to ten demo songs created with the beta version, vote on them, and every 10th person entering will win a free (NFR) serial number, which is basically a free copy of the software. The contest runs through Nov. 20th, and the new version comes out Nov. 23. If you don’t win, you can choose to buy a copy through end of the month for only $59, which is a great deal for a great sounding virtual instrument! More info: http://www.kv331audio.com/voteandwinsynthmaster.aspx .

OPEN LABS: In a nod to their strong client base in the hip-hop market, the OL folks are giving customers some “bling” this month with purchase of Open Labs gear. Get a free Dr.Dre pro headset, or with certain models get a free diamond watch. They also plan to announce some super-secret new product on Nov. 18th.

PATCHARENA: This is one of those things I have totally missed with my various distractions the past year, but I just today stumbled onto a really cool site “PatchArena” which has free “patches” for both hardware and virtual instruments. Very interesting, and a pleasant vibe. Check it out: http://www.patcharena.com/ .

That’s it for today. 🙂 .

Disclosure: I have no financial interest in the above name companies, and have been provided no product or service or other promotional value for mentioning them in my column.