10. Digidesign Digi001 - this multi-channel audio interface for your computer is only listed here because it shows that Digidesign, the longtime snooty digital aristocrat of the professional digital audio market, has realized that the amateur musician would want one of these, too...

9. Digidesign ProTools 5.0 - MIDI with ProTools? Say it isn't so! We've only been asking for this for, oh, say, 5 YEARS!

8. portable MP3 players - as it is now, they stand to completely take over portable CD players in the next few years. No skipping? Small 2x3 inch cards? I'll take one of those...

7. Opcode bought by Gibson - more a news item than anything, but the long-standard music software and hardware manufacturer (they make Trent Reznor's favorite sequencer, Studio Vision) has been bought out by a company that has been known to gobble companies up and spit out the remains with nothing to show for it. Bye, Opcode. Been nice knowing ya.

6. TransPerformance guitar auto-tuning systems - mechanical retrofits inside your guitar. After a song, turn down your volume knob, hit a special button, and strum. Give it a few seconds, and your guitar is in tune. I'll take one of those, too...

5. Roland V-Mixing series - finally, a challenger for the under $100,000 range for flexible digital mixing besides Yamaha. What freaks me out is the speaker modeling: Want to hear what your mix would sound like on UREIs? How about Tannoys? Maybe Yamaha NS-10s?

4. Line 6 guitar effects pedals - a delay pedal, a distortion pedal, and a modulation pedal. No big deal, except the thing is they actually model almost every popular old pedal known to guitarists. And it WORKS, too.

3. Pluggo '74 - 74 audio plug-ins for $74. How can you POSSIBLY go wrong?

2. Antares Microphone Modeler plug-in - sing into a Rode NT1, make it sound like a Neumann U47. With or without a windscreen? What polar pattern? How far away from the mic? Add to that that there's a list of nearly 75 different models. Amazing.

1. Reaktor 2.0 - Don't just model an old synth, actually DESIGN your own. Need another LFO in there? Just drag the "chip" out of the pull-down menu, and connect it however you see fit! It can pretend to be an SH101, an MS-20, a Prophet-5....and it actually sounds convincing.

THIS is the future.