NAMM Show Update: CME introduced the ASX, a DSP board which goes into the expansion slot of UF and VX series keyboards and provides a flexible synthesis engine, turning the CME MIDI controller keyboard into a stand-alone synthesizer.

Yep – it’s a $369 synth on a card.

The ASX offers sufficient DSP power to run dedicated synth modelling plug-ins. Four plug-ins are included with the ASX, which can be dynamically loaded one at a time:

• Minimax – a polyphonic replica of the Minimoog
• LightWave – a wavetable based virtual analog synth
• B4000 organ – a model of the Hammond tonewheel organ, and
• Vocodizer – a vocoder controlled via a dedicated microphone input.

Next to the microphone input, the ASX provides stereo line out, stereo headphone out and a USB port to connect to the ASX Editor Software. The Editor provides graphic interfaces to each plug-in and allows access to all settings of the plug- in.

Sounds can be managed, exchanged via an online server and uploaded to the ASX