Released two decades ago this month, Native Instruments’ Massive became one of the most influential soft synths of its era and a staple in the toolbox of countless producers, before a belated sequel, Massive X, was released in 2019.

Today, Native Instruments unveils Massive’s third generation, the successor to Massive X and the company’s most significant instrument release since it was acquired by inMusic, owner of Akai and Moog, earlier this year, after going into preliminary insolvency in January.

A supersized upgrade to its flagship wavetable synthesizer, Massive XL builds on the core synth engine of Massive X with expanded sonic capabilities and an enhanced workflow, introducing custom wavetable creation, polyphonic aftertouch support and Synplant-style audio-to-patch preset generation, while borrowing preset mutation from Absynth, another recently revived NI classic.

Though there are tons of improvements and new features in Massive XL, it’s the Generate function that’s going to steal the headlines. This is an AI model, developed in-house by NI, that analyses any imported audio file and recreates it as a fully editable patch in Massive XL.

Drop an audio file into the newly-added menu on the right-hand side of the synth’s interface, and you can select a slice of up to four seconds in length to use as the basis for a patch. NI has added stem separation here, so you’re able to drop a sample from an existing song, split it into its constituent stems (Vocals, Bass, Drums and Other) before running a slice into Generate.

Generate creates four different patches by default, and you’re able to adjust how much variation there is between presets and how closely they match the timbre of the original audio file. Each preset variant is automatically assigned six macro controls that let you make quick edits to the character of the sound. Placing the kind of audio-to-patch technology pioneered by Sonic Charge’s Synplant plugin in a more sophisticated synth architecture while giving you more control over the results, Generate is a huge step forward for Massive.

Massive XL also inherits a much-loved feature from Native Instruments’ Absynth 6: preset mutation. This automatically creates variations of the currently loaded preset by introducing algorithmically-generated parameter changes that borrow settings from other presets in your library.

An entire preset can be mutated at once, or you can apply mutation selectively to its oscillators, noise sources, filter, inserts, effects and amp envelope; you’re also able to choose between four levels of divergence, which determines how extreme the transformation is. There’s also a randomization function that applies random values to every parameter in a preset.

Like Massive X, Massive XL is built around two wavetable oscillators with 10 oscillator modes, plus phase modulation oscillators, two noise generators and a filter with nine types, three insert slots, three effects slots, semi-modular routing and a flexible modulation system.

Both the Generator and Mutator give users new ways to access fresh sounds at the click of a button, but Massive XL has plenty of upgrades for more traditional sound designers too. You can now create your own wavetables – something Massive users have been asking for for a long time – by dragging-and-dropping any audio file or single-cycle waveform into the oscillator section, and there’s a new single-oscillator view that lets you see the whole wavetable in a waterfall display too.

Joining the 170+ wavetables already in Massive X’s library are more than 100 new wavetables designed for XL, including some retro options lifted from classic PPG synths and the original Massive, and you get over 100 new noise tables as well.

There are three new effects onboard based on existing NI plugins: Raum is a three-mode algorithmic reverb, Replika Shimmer combines delay, reverb and pitch-shifting to create classic shimmer effects, and Tape Wobble adds wow, flutter, saturation and noise in the style of analogue tape machines. Sub-presets for effects, inserts and filters can now be saved too.

Massive XL also introduces polyphonic aftertouch support, so controllers that send per-note pressure can shape the sound of each note independently – any existing aftertouch assignments, including those in older presets, will automatically switch over to per-note response. (Unlike Absynth 6, there’s no full MPE support.)

That’s not all, either: there’s a long list of minor improvements, including animated modulators, interactive envelope graphs with draggable handles and curve segments, custom user banks for user presets, and undo/redo functionality.

Along with Massive XL, Native Instruments is releasing Massive XL Player, a free version of the synth that lets you load and play a limited selection of presets in the Play view but doesn’t give you access to full editing, or the new Generate or Mutate features. NI has confirmed that Massive X and Massive X Player are both being retired with the release of Massive XL.

“Massive has always been about giving producers the freedom to create sounds that feel uniquely their own,” Native Instruments' Senior Director of Product Management Tim Adnitt said in a press release.

“With Massive XL, we’ve focused on helping users reach those sounds faster. It delivers the character, flexibility, and control Massive is known for while introducing new tools that make exploration, experimentation, and sound creation more immediate.”

Massive XL is available now for €199/$199/£179, with an introductory price of €99 / $99 / £89 from October 27 through December 31. Owners of Massive X and Massive are eligible for upgrade discounts.

Find out more on Native Instruments’ website.

What is it?

At first glance, RND doesn’t look much like a synthesizer – it looks like a big black button set in a square of orange plastic. But what exactly is it? An eccentric doorbell? A sci-fi thermostat? A nuclear detonator?

Nope. Believe it or not, RND is a musical instrument: a pocket-sized, multi-timbral generative synthesizer. According to its creators, Parisian synth-makers Cyma Forma and producer Bambounou, it’s an “inspiration machine”, an “infinite source of sounds” that holds the potential for more than 4 billion musical ideas. It’s also, quite literally, just a button.

RND is a synth with a single control. No keys, no knobs and no display, just one button that produces a randomised musical idea every time you press it. Hit that button and RND generates between one and four sequences that play on four instrument tracks, each feeding into a randomly selected synth engine loaded with a randomly generated patch. Hit it again, a new musical idea appears, and the previous one is gone forever.

RND certainly looks simple, but there’s more going on under the hood than you might expect. Though the sequences are randomly generated, they follow some rules. Each one takes the form of a looping pattern, a “jingle” (a one-shot sequence that doesn’t repeat) or a drone, the rhythms follow Euclidean algorithms, and the melodies and chords adhere to a randomly selected scale from a bank of 20 that includes multiple modes and some more exotic options alongside the typical major and minor scales.

Each sequence runs into one of eight synth engines, each of which can randomly be monophonic or four-voice polyphonic: you’ve got subtractive, FM, Karplus-Strong, supersaw, additive and noise, along with a 303-style acid engine and a speech synth reminiscent of the classic Texas Instruments Speak & Spell. After the sequences have been generated, the tracks are randomly panned, mixed together and sent through a randomised reverb on the master output.

RND is a bold idea, and it’s one that split the crowds when it was unveiled earlier this year at Superbooth, producing strong opinions on both sides. It’s not hard to see why: all of the features we expect from a synthesizer – sound design, manual sequencing, preset selection – are largely absent from RND. All you’re left with is a button, and the decision to either work with what that button creates, or hit it again and try something else.

Pricing

Launch price: £149/$150/€169

Performance

Despite its extreme simplicity, there’s a lot more to RND than meets the eye, and there are a few different ways that you can work with it in a musical context. The simplest is to just plug in a pair of headphones and listen. (There’s no battery or built-in speaker, so you’ll always need a USB-C power source and something to listen with.) This is where the definition of RND as a “synthesizer” feels a little stretched; with no way to tweak the patch, edit the sequence, or actually interact with the music, RND feels more like a generative music player than an instrument.

Press the button a few times and you’ll realise that RND is a kind of musical slot machine. It’s very unpredictable – that’s the whole idea – and a significant chunk of what it comes out with isn’t usable. It’s all subjective, of course, but much of the output sounds too chaotic or atonal, some just isn’t very musical, and a minority is borderline unlistenable. As a test, we hit the button 100 times and tallied up the ideas we liked and those we didn’t, and just under half of them got our thumbs-up. That’s not a bad result, and it’s not hard to find something to work with after doing a bit of button-pushing, but it’s fair to say that RND requires a little patience.

There’s a decent amount of sonic variety across its eight synth engines, and it comes out with everything from biting plucks and wobbly basses to ethereal pads and noisy textures. At its best, it can produce bubbling, Buchla-esque sequences in the vein of Suzanne Ciani or Kaitlyn Aurelia Smith, or floaty ambient soundscapes that could pass for an Eno outtake. We were particularly taken with the speech synth, which can sound brilliantly weird and glitchy. Some of the patches might sound familiar, as Cyma Forma has borrowed open-source code from Mutable Instruments – the now-defunct Eurorack brand responsible for much-loved modules like Plaits, Rings and Beads – for its synth engines.

When you land on something you like, you can sample RND’s output and work with it elsewhere; either record it into a hardware sampler via the 3.5mm stereo output or run it into your DAW. You can sample the whole mix, or you can record each instrument track separately in your DAW, as RND sends out multi-track audio over USB-C. This comes in useful when you like a part that’s being played on one track but not the others, which can happen quite often. (The USB stems come in mono and skip the reverb, though, so you’ll have to add panning and effects after the fact.)

On its own, then, RND is a fairly limited proposition, but it becomes a much more versatile instrument when you hook it up to a laptop or another piece of gear. It can send and receive four-channel MIDI over USB, or receive four-channel MIDI through a TRS Type A mini-jack. Two additional mini-jacks handle analogue sync, too, so you can send its clock out to another piece of gear or sync RND’s sequencers to another clock.

By routing MIDI into RND, you get a lot more control over its output. MIDI channel 1 has global controls: you can transpose the sequencer by sending in a root note, and use MICI CC to adjust the master volume and reverb level or choose scales. It’s great to have these extra controls, and they make it much easier to fit RND into a setup with other instruments, but we’d prefer it if they could be tweaked in a companion app rather than only by MIDI.

Sending in MIDI data on channels 2-5 will take over a specific track and leave the others playing, and MIDI sent on channels 6-9 will play an individual track solo. Using it like this and bypassing the sequencer, RND can become a kind of random preset generator – you control what’s being played, but you can switch to a fresh patch with the press of a button, cycling through until you land on something inspiring.

This is a fun way to discover new sounds without handing creative control over to RND completely. It’d be nice to be able to save presets that you want to use later, though, even if that does go against the spirit of the thing.

Another way to use RND is by treating it like a generative sequencer. We set up four different instruments in Ableton Live, each receiving MIDI from a different track in RND, and let the synth drive them while changing scales via MIDI CC. This produced some interesting results that we could record, edit and arrange later on, and sounded like nothing we’d have come up with ourselves. You could also use RND to sequence up to four other hardware synths if you wanted to, but you’d need to route it through the computer or a standalone USB MIDI host, as MIDI output is only available over USB.

Verdict

In the immortal words of Forrest Gump, RND is like a box of chocolates: you never know what you’re gonna get. Oddly, this is both its greatest strength and its biggest drawback. One minute, it’s coming out with something that sounds like you let a five-year-old loose on your modular rig, and the next it’s serving up lush, layered soundscapes that are begging to be sampled. Finding the good stuff takes a lot of button-pushing, though, and when it arrives you’d better be recording.

RND is probably the simplest (and silliest?) synthesizer we’ve ever seen, but the simplicity is kind of the point. It’s not going to replace your do-it-all workstation synth, and it’s not meant to. What it will do is provide an instant bolt of inspiration with each press: a one-of-a-kind sample that can be reworked in your DAW, an unpredictable sequence that can be brought to life by another instrument, or a freshly made patch that’s never been heard before. It’s an inexpensive way to shake up your workflow, a tool for breaking through creative block when every idea starts to sound the same – and at its best, it’s pretty good at it. It’s often said that limitations breed creativity – is there anything more limited than a one-button synth?

RND is understandably divisive. It’s tempting to dismiss it as a gimmick, a toy, or even a meme. A harsher critic might call it the Suno of synthesizers, stripping away any meaningful sense of authorship from the creative process by reducing it to a single button-press. Is RND just a synth-shaped symbol of our doomscrolling, dopamine-hungry digital lives, where an endless stream of fresh content is served up effortlessly at the touch of a button?

We don’t think so, or at least not entirely. RND doesn’t hand you a finished track, it hands you a unique starting point you’d never have found without it, and the interesting part is where you choose to go from there. Used standalone, it’s hardly an instrument – it’s something you can listen to and sample rather than actually play – but when you add a laptop, a controller or a sampler into the mix, it turns into something much more creative. RND is a strange and sometimes frustrating little synth, but it’s capable of surprising you in a way that few other instruments can.

Hands-on demos

Specifications

What is it?

Arturia’s MiniFreak 49 is a new expanded model of one of my favourite hardware synthesizers of recent years. Arriving in late 2022, the original MiniFreak was a 6-voice hybrid polysynth that combined two digital oscillator engines with an analogue multimode filter, VCA and flexible, three-slot digital effects engine.

Despite the inclusion of that analogue filter, what made MiniFreak so interesting was the ways it leant into the creative capabilities of its digital oscillators. This was no simple virtual analogue (although it was capable of being used as such) but rather a synth that, like its MicroFreak precursor, revelled in the weirder and more experimental ends of digital synthesis more commonly found in the Eurorack realm.

That modular influence was made explicit by the synth’s inclusion of oscillator modes developed in collaboration with Noise Engineering, as well as several based on open source code from Mutable Instruments. Between them, the oscillator modes were capable of approaches including two-oscillator FM, waveshaping and stacked super waves, as well as more esoteric approaches to sound generation, such as noise, speech, formant and Karplus–strong synthesis.

None of those oscillator modes were necessarily groundbreaking in and of themselves, but what made the MiniFreak interesting was the way in which it placed these varied and unusual sound sources within such an approachable instrument. Each oscillator mode shared the same three-parameter layout, and while that meant that the level of control could feel a little restricted in some cases, it made for a synth that was extremely easy to morph and manipulate.

The same could be said for the rest of the synth’s design, which blended elements aimed at experimentation – the loopable Cycling LFO and a flexible mod matrix – with an approachable design unlikely to be off-putting to most synthesists.

MiniFreak 49 is, essentially, that same synthesis engine in a bigger box with an improved control surface. While the original had 37 ‘slim’ keys, the 49 has full-sized, semi-weighted keys and adds an additional octave.

The synth also has an expanded range of front panel controls, most notably adding full control sections for both oscillator engines as well as a new ‘multidimensional’ touch matrix used for modulation routing, preset browsing and macro control.

It’s slightly inaccurate to describe the underlying synth engine as being exactly the same as the original MiniFreak though. For one thing, that engine has been substantially upgraded through firmware updates since the original hit the market, adding features including wavetable, sample and granular synthesis modes as well as a vocoder.

What’s more, the MiniFreak 49 adds some small but notable features of its own too, in the form of a new stereo spread parameter and a control for introducing audio-rate filter modulation.

Pricing

Launch price: £699 / €799

Performance

The upgraded keyboard is the most immediately obvious improvement introduced by the MiniFreak 49. With its mixture of influences from weirdo digital devices and classic polysynths, the MiniFreak is a great synth designing pads and ambient textures, and its compact keybed has always felt like a slightly restrictive way of playing such expansive sounds.

Although a single additional octave is a fairly minor upgrade on paper, combined with the jump from slim to full-sized keys it makes the playing experience feel less like a compact synth and more like a proper keyboard. The design also introduces proper pitch and mod wheels, instead of the touchstrips found on the original, and although aftertouch is still monophonic, it feels more expressive simply due to the larger, nicer keybed.

When it comes to interacting with the synth, however, the most exciting improvement is the addition of full knob-per-function control over the MiniFreak’s dual oscillator engines. The original version required users to select engine 1 or 2 using a button before adjusting each engine’s parameters. To be honest, I never found this all that limiting at the time, but within minutes of first switching on the MiniFreak 49 it quickly became clear how much more interesting and expressive it can be to manipulate both engines simultaneously.

This is particularly true when using engine 2 to process or interact with the audio of engine 1, as when using the FM/AM synthesis mode or processing sounds through the Multi, Surgeon and Comb filter modes.

Along with a full suite of controls for each engine, in another nice touch, the 49 also adds quick access buttons for some of the most useful oscillator functions, such as the Basic Waves mode – handy for quickly thickening up sounds with a simple sub oscillator – and the Wavetable and Sample engines. The controls for these can also be used to quickly load source sounds from the onboard library.

Improved interaction

The new XYZ ‘multidimensional’ matrix is a nice addition too. This can perform a few different functions. The first is as a means to touch and assign modulation routings, which is very easy to use and makes for a fantastic way to avoid menu diving.

The matrix can also be used for browsing presets, with the grid used to select sounds and the accompanying rotary selecting different banks. Again, this works great and really speeds up the process of navigating through the onboard sounds.

The final ‘Freak Control’ mode is actually a collection of four different control layouts. The first of these replicates the two Macro touchstrips and the sequencer’s Gate and Spice parameters, as found on the original. The remaining three modes use the XY pad in different layouts to offer multidirectional control over pre-mapped envelope, filter and effect parameters for each patch.

These modes respond not only to where you touch the matrix, but the width of your point of contact (hence the ‘multidimensional’ tag). This works, although, perhaps because I’ve been spoiled by the lovely ‘morphee’ controller found on Arturia’s high-end PolyBrute synth, it doesn’t feel quite as responsive or expressive as I’d hoped when reading the specs.

In another, slightly hidden feature, the pad is also used along with the sequencer to input steps for the customisable User LFO mode, which makes the process of inputting custom curves a lot easier.

Get your Freak on

While most of these new features merely offer new ways to interact with the existing synth engine, there are two small but powerful additions for the MiniFreak 49 that open up new sound design capabilities.

The first of these is a stereo control placed on the output. Increasing this will spread the synth’s six individual voices out across the stereo field, with a few different modes on offer to control the manner in which they're distributed. With its capable stereo effect section, creating ‘wide’ sounds with the MiniFreak was never a huge problem in the first place, but this new control adds a nice touch of spatial depth nonetheless.

By far the best new feature, however, is the addition of a filter modulation control in the synth’s new mixer section. This allows users to apply audio rate modulation of the filter cutoff from either one of the two oscillator engines, by turning the dial to the left or the right.

This is a really fantastic addition to the synth’s sound design toolkit, capable of adding grit, movement and outright weirdness depending on how it’s applied. In all honesty I always felt like the analogue elements of the original MiniFreak were a little tokenistic – the analogue filter and VCA were a nice concession to offsetting the overtly ‘digital’ feel of the design, but did they really make the sound characteristics that different from the all-digital MiniFreak V version?

Filter modulation changes my opinion on this. With resonance cranked and audio-rate modulation applied, there’s a level of edge and grit available that makes you glad of that proper analogue circuitry. It shines an additional light on the benefits of those additional oscillator controls too. With filter modulation engaged and one of MiniFreak’s ‘weirder’ oscillator modes selected (Harm, Lick and Particles work great) its a real joy to get hands on with the Timbre, Shape, Wave and Cutoff dials and play with the way filters and oscillators interact.

Verdict

The MiniFreak 49 is undoubtedly the best version of Arturia’s hybrid ‘Freak engine we’ve seen so far. The improved playing surface, expanded control layout and added filter capabilities make this an incredibly pleasurable synth to design and play sounds with. The original MiniFreak struck a great balance between creative possibilities and ease of use. This latest version manages to refine both of those sides of its personality, adding a little extra sound design depth and a slicker workflow.

That said, there’s an argument to be made that, for all that it gets right, in some areas the MiniFreak 49 is a little bit of a missed opportunity. While its improvements are nice, there’s nothing here that quite makes this a ‘must have’ upgrade for owners of the original. I really love the filter modulation on offer, but is it really worth dropping an extra few hundred dollars/pounds for?

There are a few obvious additions that Arturia could have added that would push the existing MiniFreak engine to that next level: increased polyphony being an obvious one, poly aftertouch another. I’d love to see an expanded version with an additional oscillator or engine layer too.

This would, admittedly, turn the 49 into a whole different instrument at a more ‘pro’ price point. Perhaps I should stop wishful thinking and be thankful for what I have? After all, one of my favourite synths just got a little bit better. Who could complain about that?

Hands-on demos

Arturia

Alternatives

Specifications

RECORDING WEEK 2026: Jack Antonoff thinks pop music is a paradox. “The irony of pop music is that it's this field that's so rigid, but the only stuff that's successful is the stuff that’s out on the other side of it,” he tells us. “If you write something that you think is a perfect pop song, that fits perfectly into everything, it’s probably boring as fuck. The perfect pop song is by definition the imperfect pop song.”

We’re inclined to agree, because if anyone knows a few things about how to write a chart-toppingly, world-shakingly good pop song, it’s probably Jack Antonoff.

Awarded the Grammy for Producer of the Year for three consecutive years, Antonoff has worked on some of the past decade’s biggest albums; collaborations with Lorde, Pink, St. Vincent and Florence and the Machine all come to mind, and that’s before we’ve even mentioned a screamingly successful year that’s seen him take the helm for The 1975’s Being Funny in a Foreign Language and Lana Del Rey’s Did You Know That There's a Tunnel Under Ocean Blvd.

Are we forgetting something? Oh, yes: Taylor Swift. Since forging a longstanding creative partnership with Swift - by all accounts the world’s most popular artist - in 2013, Antonoff has co-produced and co-written on every one of her studio albums.

Alongside all of this, Antonoff has indefatigably maintained a career as a solo artist, writing, recording and touring anthemic, Springsteenian synth-pop under the alias Bleachers.

With a schedule this packed, it was surprising that Antonoff found the time to sit down with MusicRadar a couple of years back, but that's exactly what he did a little after the release of Swift's album Midnights – a stylistic left-turn that found Swift trading in Folklore’s sensitive, finger-picked guitars for a moody, dark-hued palette of vintage synthesizers, shattering streaming records in the process.

In our interview, which we republish here to mark MusicRadar's Recording Week 2026, he talks us through his deep love of vintage gear, the synths behind Midnights, and why he can’t stop scrolling through Reverb at 4AM.

MusicRadar: Let’s talk about your relationship with gear. For some producers the equipment is just a means to an end, but others love to geek out over technology. Which side are you on?

Jack Antonoff: “I'm completely out of the box with gear. I've never used a MIDI instrument in my life. I'm always pushing myself by using different things, and what's nice about analogue gear is everything is a completely new journey.

“I've been obsessed with Binsons. The Binson Echorec and the Baby Binson and the Binson Reverb, which was a really weird thing. Then I got into this thing of chaining Binsons together, and chaining Binsons into Copicats and then fucking with the tape. I go through these phases because I'm always pushing myself to a new place. When I started messing with the Copicat - that was a phase that I'm now kind of out of, because I'm always trying to use different things - I got really into manipulating the tape by hand.

“You're talking about really old tape machines that have tons of personality. In the same way, every Juno sounds totally different. Every Moog Model D has a life of its own. I'm really now into Opamp consoles and messing with a lot of that stuff. Everything is so sonically specific when it comes to vintage gear, that to make an album and not start - if you have the means to - with a new palette is such a miss, because you should be pushing yourself into a different place through the gear you’re using.”

MR: You’re clearly deep into your vintage gear, but are there any modern bits of kit that you’re a huge fan of?

JA: “I like modern stuff. There's a lot of great modern things, but I think that it takes a long time for something to develop a personality. It's the same with guitars - I think there's amazing modern guitars being made, but very often the feeling of something after it's been around for some amount of time has a different layer to it. It’s the same with microphones and preamps and consoles. I've noticed that the kind of music that I imagine in my head gravitates towards the mystery that comes out of things that are a bit more unwieldy.

“It’s an opportunity to continuously expand your sound and to try things that shock you and excite you. When you have a new piece of gear - especially when it's something that's been around, and has a lot of life in it already, and is filled with ghosts - and you plug it in, you physically can't make the sounds you've been making. You're in the desert, you're in a new frontier, and you just have to find your personality within it. I find that vintage gear pushes you very hard.”

MR: What was the last thing you picked up that excited you?

JA: “The last purchase that excited me… I mean, I buy so much crazy shit. [laughs] But there’s this old Opamps console that’s pretty remarkable.”

MR: How did you come across that?

JA: “The death of me will be that Reverb app. They're not paying me to say that, but Reverb and Vintage King and Soundgas and all those places… You know, at four in the morning when I can't sleep, I'm just looking for things and then dreaming about what I could do with them. Some people buy watches, some people buy cars, I buy gear. Since I was a kid, anytime I had a little bit of money, I would buy gear.”

MR: You’ve spoken before about working with sounds that are tied to a specific time period, but trying to bring them into a contemporary context. Could you tell us more about that?

JA: “I think the most modern thing you can do is use things that have been around for a while in new ways. If you think about the guitar, or the piano or, or the drum set, or the bass guitar, there's not a million versions of these things. It's all about how you use them. When someone picks up a guitar, and they play it a certain way, it feels like a million years in the future, because you’ve never heard it before, but it's the same instrument.

“I see a lot of vintage gear that way, too. If you think about how many instruments Moog actually made, there aren’t many models. If you think about what you can do with the Space Echo or the Chorus Echo or the Copicat - there’s not a million versions of these things. Sometimes, when it comes to soft synths, the ability to make so many sounds has an inertia within that. You can freeze a little bit.

“What I love about older, analogue instruments is that you truly can't duplicate the sound. Every time you turn it on, it’s on. The electricity, the fucking weather, all these things are changing the feeling of it. So it's nice to know when you're in the studio that you're creating something that can only happen right there. Because at the end of the day, I don't want to be able to duplicate things, I want to catch moments. I think vintage gear is very helpful for that.”

MR: You work across a number of varied projects with a lot of different artists. Are there any instruments or bits of gear you find yourself using on almost everything?

JA: “No, because it’s always about doing things I haven’t done before. That's why I spend so much time at night looking at gear on Reverb, because anything I get, I’ll use. So if I can find some old German tape machine, then I'll use that. It’s very important to stay in the wilderness with gear. Even if it's different versions, like you're at a different studio, and someone has their Prophet and it just feels different. Everything just sounds so different. It's the same deal with microphones. That's why it's so exciting to mess with vintage microphones, because no two are alike.”

MR: Tell us about how you approach vocal recording. Do you have a typical approach that you use across multiple projects or is it completely different every time?

JA: “It’s different for everyone. It's based on the context of what's happening. For someone like Lana del Rey, there's a very specific vocal treatment that we carried through her entire recent album. Whereas for other people, there could be different treatments for different songs.

“Lana’s a good example of someone who when I record her, we're just grabbing that moment. It has to be documented from that moment. We don't do overdubs, we don't come in a month later and do more vocals, because it's happening there. So the vocal tone needs to reflect that. The vocal tone has to have a level of the room within it. Not a room mic, but even just in terms of how we're compressing, or where we're placing her, there has to be enough feeling of the space.

“There’s two things that I always think about. The first thing is, what haven't I used yet? That’s the place I want to go. The second thing is marrying that with what the sentiment is. I think about that with effects. I've talked about this a lot, but the song has to dictate it. If the person is meant to be whispering in your ear, you don't want to feel the room - maybe you want to get your reverb from a small box, or maybe I'll get my reverb from a Space Echo instead of a big room. The most important thing is documenting the space that you're making something.”

MR: Are you still working primarily from your home studio in Brooklyn?

JA: “It’s a combination. I like being at home, but I'm at Electric Lady a lot. I'm wherever I am. I'm as happy working on my headphones somewhere as I am in the biggest, best studio. There’s so many beautiful qualities to both. When I'm alone and I'm in a small space, whether it's my studio or laptop, it feels like you're trying to find the idea of a big thing, but not a big thing. You want it to feel like what's happening. But when you're in a big studio, then you want to run around and use all the space. The same way you want to be true to the song, you want to be true to the sentiment and the artist, I feel like if you make something that feels like where you made it, you often recognize it in a very special way.”

MR: You’ve talked before about doing things in a certain way that people have told you that you’re not technically ‘supposed’ to do. Could you tell us about a time that you’ve done the ‘wrong’ thing in the studio and come out with something great?

JA: “Oh, constantly. Those are my favourite moments. Sometimes if I'm using a tape machine or some echo or outboard reverb and before it's levelled out, when it’s exploding the board, that's often the coolest part. Or when we're bouncing things to tape and you're levelling it out, and you're finding that zone when it's coming in and out of the crunch.

“Laura Sisk and I, who engineers with me, we just record everything, because stumbling around the sound is often the most interesting sound. Everyone knows what something sounds like, not everyone knows what something sounds like before you know what it sounds like. Tape is the most fun to play with, because you're really not supposed to touch tape - it's not good for the machines. But if you start physically manipulating tape, really destructive but beautiful things happen.”

MR: When it comes to sound design, are you someone that builds patches from the ground up or are you more of a preset-tweaker?

JA: “I have no presets. I’ve played synths long enough to know how to dial in the sounds I want. I know what to do, but I like the fact that it's new every time. Even if you have presets on a vintage synth, it's still new every time. That's one thing I love when we play live with Bleachers, we have Juno-106s on stage, and nothing ever comes out the same. Those things are just strange. Their mood is so interesting.

“One thing that I like about not having a preset is often if I’m just recording and I'm dialling in the sound as I'm going, the moments of dialling in a sound can become really interesting transitional pieces. If I’m dialling in a sound, it'll inherently sound like a question mark, and that's an interesting thing. So you can just go through the recording and grab those moments. For me, it's transitional bits: my rev up into a chorus or the panning sound that takes me into the next part, that could be a moment when I was searching for a sound and something happened that was interesting.

“The funny thing about that is that it's esoteric but it's universal. When you're in a room and someone's messing with a synth, something happens and the whole room will go ‘whoa, what was that?’ There are certain sonic moments that just play with our brains in a way that excites people of a similar kind. That’s all you're really trying to do. Making music for everyone is an absurd concept. The only thing I think about when I'm in the studio is making things that make me feel a certain way. Then anyone who feels that too, then they're kind of like my pen pal or my friend. That’s just what it is.

“I know enough people who think Aphex Twin is God, but other people can't hear it. Some people listen to Throbbing Gristle and want to tear their hair out, other people think it's sent from God. It has to be just what you feel. That’s what's so amazing about an analogue synth. You can learn it - ‘okay, I'm on a Moog, here's how I get my West Coast sound, here's how I get grime, here's how I mess with the modulation and the oscillators’ - you can learn everything, but at the end of the day, you're turning knobs until you hear your own personality. That’s really special. It makes the machine so human.”

MR: Synths were all over Taylor Swift’s Midnights. Which instruments featured prominently on that album?

JA: “Oh, I went nuts on that shit, man. The funny thing about Midnights is, as synthetic as it is, it's actually very analogue. So much was going into tape. I was really into the Oberheim OB-8, which I had never used on another album, so I got really crazy about that. We were getting a lot from Yamaha DX7s, which I hadn't used before really on anything. I was using the Solina in a lot of places, which I never use in other records. That album was just wanting to push into a different place with synths.

“There’s no Prophet on there, because I had used Prophet on a lot of other stuff, so I kind of just put that one away. Getting a lot of low end from the DX7, which I'd never done before. I was using patches on the DX7 that I thought were really rich, but then adding my low end afterwards, trying to find low end in odd ways. A lot of really grimy sounds I was dialling in on the OB-8 and then treating them after the fact.

“I was just trying to play with the boundaries of things I hadn't done before. So what happens if all my delays are coming from tape, and all my choruses are coming from outboard gear, and I’m just running everything through as much analogue outboard as possible to make it so incredibly rich? When I listen back to that album, I have these memories of putting myself into those places. But really, for me, the OB-8 was the star of that album, which I hadn't really delved into before.”

MR: The vocal processing on Midnight Rain and Question…? was a real standout moment in terms of production. What were you using there?

JA: “A combination of things. I was mostly using Soundtoys or iZotope VocalSynth to get those, but then what made them really cool was to process the vocals with plugins, find a really cool space, bounce it together and then take it elsewhere. So a lot of the weird modulation on some of that stuff, I'm actually getting by messing with the tape on the Copicat. We would go through some crazy processing on that where we'd send it out there, then take all the noise out and make it sound really clean again.

“We got very anti-plugin on that album. So we got really into recording things very dry. We would send things into the Klemt Echolette - it’s got a very harsh sound, I think it might be German - I was running her vocals through that a lot. That’s what I was saying - there’s no reason, I just wanted to use things I hadn’t used and extend myself. You just run things until you hear something that you think is interesting.”

MR: Another track that stood out to me was Vigilante Shit. It’s so punchy and there’s so much impact in the mix. How did you approach that one specifically?

JA: “Throughout the whole thing, there's moments where you hear this buzzy grind to it and there's moments where you hear this offbeat delay stuff. So I was smashing everything into a Copicat, and then I was taking transients to add to the kicks to make them buzzier, so then every once in a while, you hear the whole picture of the drums going through that when they’re wobbling and delaying out.

“With that, we got really into some fucked up panning with low stuff. Because there's this idea in recording that you don't pan low end. But you can, you just have to start it in the centre so that you can feel where it's going. So we were panning 808s, and that was really intense to carve out enough low end to make it work. It’s all using tape transients to get that buzz.”

MR: You’ve talked before about creating a unique sound world for each album that you work on. How did you approach that for Midnights?

JA: “It usually happens with the writing and the production. I've made a number of albums with Taylor by now and we've started them all in different ways. I think that helps. We did most of it at my house, but we were starting songs on different instruments and with different processing.

“So I'm using different machines - whether it's different echoes or different synths or different guitars - whatever I can just to make sure that we're not jumping off from the same place. So it all comes together: as the writing is coming together, as the concept is coming together, as the sound is coming together, they're all informing each other.”

MR: You’re credited as both a songwriter and producer on many of your collaborations. Are those disciplines entirely separate for you?

JA: “Very separate. My whole life, before I did anything else, I wrote songs. I sang songs and played songs and wrote them, and then I started falling in love with producing, which is the idea. Then I started falling in love with engineering, which has more to do with the execution. They’re very different loves: engineering is one thing, producing is one thing, songwriting, performing, playing… to love them all and to have them work together is a specific thing, but they're very different crafts. A lot of people think they're more blurred, but they're very, very different.”

MR: At what point in your career did you begin to feel that you’d truly adopted the role of producer?

JA: “I always felt that way. It was more that at some point people recognised it. Since I was a kid, I would write songs and I would have ideas for how they would live. That's what production is. Production is the vision of how a song will live, and then how an album will live and how things will sew together and how it will fill the void of what you're not hearing out there. So it's a natural thing, but it took me a long time to literally be able to do it. That’s when you start to learn how to be an engineer and start to articulate and actually have language and have some fearlessness about how to get it.

“It’s the same thing with writing: I've always written, I didn't write because I thought it'd be cool to write, I just always wrote. Same thing with playing, I always loved playing. Even when it came to engineering. They're all different loves. But to me, in my small head, I've always just imagined what things could be and how they could sound and where they could go. The trajectory of entire moments and time and albums and sequencing, I’ve always been thinking about things that way. I always did that. I used to do it with my friends, and I’d do it myself. Then I would do it with some people who'd let me in the room, and then over time, more and more people responded. But I've been on the same journey as far as what I've been after.”

MR: How do you get the most out of the artists you’re working with? You seem to be skilled at bringing a certain level of honesty and vulnerability out of your collaborators.

JA: “The room is a sacred place. There's no bullshit. It's not about this, or that, we're all just working towards the album or the song. Like I keep saying, we’re finding that void in culture and then imagining what we want the world to hear and what's exciting us right now. It’s a gut thing, it's undeniable. When you're inspired, you're inspired. When you're not, you're not. I think that level of zero bullshit about what we're feeling is the bedrock of making it at the level that it needs to be made at. I’ve always felt that way. I've always had a bit of deep, do-or-die, endless preciousness about how important this process is.”

MR: You’ve said previously that as a teenager you felt somewhat dismissive of pop music, but you’ve ended up shaping the sound of contemporary pop. What makes a perfect pop song?

JA: “The only reason that I felt separate from it as a kid was because I was really into a very specific scene. That scene was very claustrophobic, and I liked that at a certain age. The perfect pop song is by definition the imperfect pop song. The perfect pop song is the one that everyone says, ‘I can't believe this is on the radio’!

“The irony of pop music is that it's this field that's so rigid, but the only stuff that's successful is the stuff that’s out on the other side of it. So what's the perfect pop song, Hey Ya? My favourite pop songs are the ones that would be called an imperfect pop song. My quest is more about that. Otherwise, if you wrote a perfect pop song, and you think it's a perfect pop song that fits perfectly into everything, it’s probably boring as fuck.

“Anytime you do anything, you need to have two feelings. Feeling number one is: ‘can I do this?!’ Feeling number two is: ‘I don't care.’ That’s when you know it's time to put something out. I won't put something out unless I have that feeling. Thought number one should be: ‘oh my God, is this gonna make sense?’ Thought number two, ‘I love it so much that I don’t give a shit.’”

The best day of owning a synth or keyboard is the one it arrives at your doorstep. You've been looking forward to this day for weeks, perhaps saving your hard-earned cash for an instrument which, most likely, will change your music-making fortunes.

On this first day, you unpack it and wonder at its gleaming and sparkling finish – it's ready to make some noise and change your life. Three weeks later, it's blended in with everything else you own, is covered in dust, and is about as appealing to play as, well... just about every other keyboard you own.

So here's how to keep your synths and keyboards as new and as fresh as the day you bought them, to keep them inspirational, approachable and fun enough to play and compose with, and – most importantly – to keep those musical ambitions alive.

Dust for life

As the famous synth-player Moby once said 'we are all made of stars', but what he probably really meant was that 'we are all made of dust', and that it gets everywhere, not least on, in and around your keyboards.

Dust is your basically your worst enemy. Not only will it become the biggest removal chore you face when you come to sell your 'board – your camera will enhance any spec of dust you don't remove in your eBay/Reverb photos – but dust has a habit of building up inside any electrical device to the point where mild heating will become a basic issue, or further, more serious damage can become a possibility. If you feel confident enough to open up your 'board without infringing the warranty (unlikely) then a good vacuum never goes amiss.

Of course the best way to avoid constant dusting is to avoid constant dust in the first place. Aside from keeping your keyboard room completely dust-free – perhaps by turning it into some kind of germ-free hospital ward – you could simply invest in some keyboard covers.

These can range from free – we once used the polythene that our keyboard arrived in as a 'better than you might think' dust cover scenario – to 'logo-branded' (especially useful if you like showing off your synth collection while simultaneously keeping is safe from dust), to Decksaver-style see-through moulded plastic covers. This latter option varies in cost – from around $20 to $150 – but, importantly, lets you see those appealing keyboard knobs and sliders that draw you into actually lifting the case and playing the damn keyboards in the first place.

Get atmospheric... or not

There's nothing a keyboard – acoustic or electronic – likes less than a varying atmosphere, both in terms of temperature and humidity. Avoid damp environments, then, and try to keep the temperature constant and temperate – around 18-22 degrees is good, although this will obviously depend on where you live.

If you reside in a damp house, consider a dehumidifier for your studio, even if you only use it occasionally. You'll be surprised at how much damp can build up, especially older buildings, and how much such a machine can help. If you live outside, or on the North or South Pole, consider another hobby.

Dealing with yellow keys

Yellowing keyboard keys can make a keyboard look older than it really is. For ivory keys, yellowing is a natural process, while for plastic keys, it is often caused by direct sunlight reacting with the bromine in the keys.

It's a good idea, then, to keep your plastic keyboard keys out of direct sunlight, but conversely, and slightly confusingly, keeping your ivory keys in indirect sunlight can reduce yellowing. Confused? Just keep the lid (or fallboard) down or your keyboard if you have one, or use the aforementioned dust cover – always good advice for protection against both yellowing and dust.

However, if you find yourself with a keyboard with yellowed keys, there are a number of ways of reducing the colouration. Most rely on using a chemical reaction, either using hydrogen peroxide-based beauty salon gel (the same stuff that is used to bleach hair) to remove any yellow in plastic, or using other acidic – but less dramatic-sounding – solutions. Try anything from lemon juice to toothpaste to milk to provide a gentler cleaning experience for both plastic and ivory.

Whatever you choose, take care with acidic pH levels (you're looking at around a pH of no less than 3), so obviously don't use anything too strong. Be very careful as you clean, and try whatever solution you opt for on a single key first to test the effect.

Constant cleaning

Avoiding dust and yellowing keys shouldn't be one-off issues you deal with when looking after your keyboards. Giving a keyboard a regular clean is also a must – it's a task most of us can't be bothered with, but it'll pay off in the long run.

Using a not-too-damp cloth on the outside and a compressed air canister for the electronic guts will pay dividends and stop the dreaded dust build-up, while also reducing other, inevitable dirt build-up – yes, food and a lot more – that comes from hands making physical contact with keys.

And talking of physical contact, again this is obvious, but don't play your keyboards too heavily or aggressively. Basically treat your keyboard as you would an expensive item of furniture and you won't go far wrong. (In terms of cleaning it, rather than sitting on it, that is.)

Tune up

For acoustic pianos, regular tuning is wise and, like a car service, needn't be a one-off expensive nightmare if you do it regularly. Yes, there's something vaguely honky and characterful about a piano going gently doolally in the tuning department, but if you wish to record your acoustic and mix it in with any other instruments, getting it in tune within the mix will be easier dealt with before you press record and by a tuning expert.

Tuning isn't just reserved for acoustic pianos. In this day and age, especially with the proliferation of newer analogue synths, tuning is almost as important as it was when the synth was first born back in the '60s. Fortunately, most analogue synths that need an occasional tune have it built-in as a quick 30-second or so function, or even do it automatically on boot up. Check your synth tuning regularly by comparing note-for-note with your DAW instruments, if you can – you'll be surprised by how much some analogue synths do drift, and just how often.

Get protection

If you are a gigging musician in particular, then a keyboard carry case is an essential purchase and there are many and varied shapes and sizes out there for you to choose from. The more gigging you do – especially if your keyboard will be stowed in a plane or coach storage – the more protection you will need, so while padded material protective cases might seem like a cheap and lightweight option, they will be 'lightweight' in protection in any aircraft storage situation, so consider an aluminium or a solid moulded case for this scenario.

One other big consideration – aside from protection – is weight. Your ideal combination is light and durable, so that's probably an aluminium, moulded plastic case or combination of the two. We once owned the most protective keyboard case ever built – honestly, it would have protected Indiana Jones in any kind of fridge/nuclear situation – but it weighed thrice as much as the keyboard. It meant every gig was a chore and we ended up with one arm five inches longer than the other. A common top weight limit for a keyboard/case combination is around 40lbs/18kg. Any more and your lust for a live keyboard life might quickly diminish.

Teenage Engineering is going to stop making synthesizers, as it moves away from selling “obvious end products”.

This somewhat startling revelation was made by company co-founder Jesper Kouthoofd in an interview with High Snobiety. “I’ve come to the conclusion that, for us, the products aren’t the business,’” he says, which may come as news to anyone who’s spent a significant amount of money on an OP-1.

Kouthoofd comes across as a freewheeling thinker who’s well aware of how polarising his company has become. “We have a lot of haters because we tend to disturb people’s minds,” he reasons.

Of course, there are plenty of people who love the OP-1, too, a product that, prior to its launch in 2011, Kouthoofd says was devised as a protest against making music on a laptop, and was as much about the experience of using it as it was the results it could produce.

“99% percent of people who buy synths don’t use them as a productive tool for making music,” he argues. “It’s therapy. It’s entertainment. It’s a hobby. That’s what the OP-1 is. The first version didn’t even have an undo button.”

A lot of people will agree with that, but it should also be said that much of the aforementioned haters’ criticism focuses on the fact that some – though not all – Teenage Engineering products are expensive. Kouthoofd, though, says that maximising profits isn’t in his thinking.

“Often, when a product may not be reasonable or probably won’t be profitable, it’s good to just put it out there, see what happens,” he suggests, citing the example of the Computer-2 PC case that TE ended up giving away for free last year.

“I wanted it to be $10,” he says. “Everyone said that was impossible because it cost $10 just to make. Then I said, ‘We won’t sell it, we’ll give it away for free. Now you don’t have an argument anymore.’”

While critics might argue that the company could only afford to do this because it must have been making a lot of money on some of its other products, Kouthoofd seems adamant that it’s not perceived market demand that determines where Teenage Engineering goes next.

“I want to make objects that comment on, or raise questions about, why we accept things as they are,” he says.

Who knows what these ‘objects’ will be – just don’t expect them to be ‘obvious’.

Jean-Michel Jarre has announced a 50th anniversary reissue of Oxygene, the album that turned him into a global electronic music superstar.

Oxygene was released in France in 1976, and in the rest of the world a year later. Famously, Jarre recorded it in his kitchen using an eight-track tape machine, homemade mixing desk and a small collection of synths and drum machines. These included the ARP 2600, the EMS VCS3 and Synthi AKS, a Farfisa organ, a Mellotron, and a Korg Mini-Pops.

The anniversary edition is bolstered by a stereo remaster, along with a Dolby Atmos version that was mixed by David Kosten, Steven Wilson and Jarre himself.

“When I created Oxygene, I was working directly with analogue instruments and tape, and the sound had a particular depth, movement and life of its own,” says Jarre. “For this anniversary edition, we returned to the original tapes with the aim of preserving that character rather than changing it.”

As music critic Alexis Petridis writes in his new liner notes, Oxygene sounded like “a curious transmission from the future” when it was released. “Jean-Michel Jarre managed to capture and tie together every extant aspect of electronica into 40 minutes of music,” he notes.

German writer Torsten Groß, meanwhile, says that “the foundation for this unique career was laid in that kitchen – with a broken Mellotron and ideas for eternity.”

The 50th anniversary edition of Oxygene will be available on half-speed vinyl, limited-edition coloured eco-vinyl, CD and digital platforms. There’s also a ‘Blu-ray mediabook’ that includes Dolby Atmos and new 5.1 mixes, the stereo remaster and archival material.

Prior to the album’s release, on 20 November, Jarre will appear as guest of honour at the Amsterdam Dance Event on 21 October. He’ll not only be performing there, but also speaking on the history of electronic music and its future in the age of AI.

Let’s not forget that Jarre has a book on the way, too. Machines: A History of Electronic Music will be released on 24 November.

It’s no secret that we’re big fans of Bristol-based synthesizer developer UDO Audio. The brand’s debut Super 6 scored a 5 star review when it landed in 2021, and UDO’s CS-80-referencing follow-up Super Gemini topped our 2023 gear-of-the-year list.

The company’s latest release is DMNO, a bi-timbral 8-voice poly that we described as “a brilliantly crafted synth for synth heads” in our recent review. Although DMNO is a cutting-edge synth, sporting FPGA digital oscillators, a binaural signal path and DSP effects engine, there’s still an analogue heft to its dual-engine design that results in a sound and feel reminiscent of Oberheim’s classic Two-Voice synth.

Now UDO has released a desktop counterpart named DMNO ON, which sees the company leaning into that Oberheim comparison with a pair of optional expander modules that feel distinctly SEM-inspired in terms of their look – even if they're functionally something of a different beast.

The DMNO ON system will be available in three parts. The base DMNO ON is the same, full-feature synth as the original DMNO. Once again, it has eight hybrid synth voices structured as two independent four-voice engines. These can be used in a variety of different ways thanks to the synth’s innovative play modes, which allow the engines to be layered, split across the stereo field, cycled, played in serial and triggered at random.

Each synth engine makes use of a gorgeous-sounding dynamic multi-core stereo VCF with parallel, series and stereo modes. Each also features its own modulation tools and a mixer section that can be overdriven for additional grit and harmonics.

Where DMNO ON deviates most significantly from its bigger sibling is in its cutdown control interface. The full-sized DMNO has two independent synth sections that allow for full hands-on control of both synth engines simultaneously. DMNO ON cuts this down to just a single control panel shared between both engines.

It’s here that UDO’s new ONM-1 module comes in. Described as an ‘optional expander unit’, the ONM-1 offers an additional set of synth engine controls that can be used alongside those found on the DMNO ON, allowing for simultaneous control over both engines. The ONM-1 connects to the rear of the main synth using a screw-locking D-Sub cable. The control unit is plug-and-play with no need for an additional power supply.

While the ONM-1 is the only expansion available alongside the desktop unit at launch, UDO has also announced a forthcoming ONM-2 unit that gives hands-on access to DMNO’s digital effects section.

This gives users direct control over send and insert effect parameters as well as the 3-band EQ – all features hidden within menus on both the desktop and keyboard versions of DMNO. The ONM-2 also has an LED display for indicating parameter values.

There’s no information as yet on pricing and release dates for DMNO ON and its ONM expansions, but you can head to the UDO Audio site for more information.

Analogue purists might bemoan the advent of digital music production gear, but an undeniable upside is the ease with which brands can now roll out firmware updates for existing synths, not only fixing bugs and improving usability, but occasionally adding whole new capabilities to existing.

Originally released in 2022, Arturia’s hybrid MiniFreak polysynth is an instrument that has done particularly well out of this form of free upgrade. Built around a synth engine that combines multi-mode digital oscillators with an analogue filter and comprehensive digital effects, MiniFreak’s mix-and-match approach to synthesis lends itself particularly well to being tweaked and updated.

In the four years since launch, the six-voice MiniFreak has gained capabilities that include a vocoder, wavetable, sample and granular oscillator modes and a variety of new effects. Now, with the launch of its fifth major firmware update, MiniFreak is becoming more customisable by allowing users to upload their own samples and wavetables as source sounds for the oscillators.

MiniFreak 5.0 lets users drag and drop samples and wavetables into the synth’s companion plugin MiniFreak V, which will handle all necessary conversion and allow users to then upload sounds to the hardware.

Samples can be imported in WAV, AIFF and FLAC formats that can be used with the instrument’s sample and granular oscillator modes. The synth’s engine imports mono wavetables with 24-bit, 512 point compatibility, allowing users to upload files from a wide range of banks and libraries.

Along with the new capabilities, MiniFreak 5.0 comes with a bank of 23 new presets that also add new samples and wavetables to the stock library.

Although v5.0 perhaps isn’t as radical an upgrade as some previous iterations, it does add a nice extra dimension to an already impressive instrument, one which we described at launch as being “a joy to get lost in.”

Perhaps the most exciting possibility is the prospect of loading ‘vintage’ wavetables from classic ‘90s synths in order to impersonate hardware classics from the likes of PPG or Waldorf.

As with previous updates, the new features come to both the MiniFreak hardware and its MiniFreak V counterpart. The latter is available as a standalone purchase, allowing users to access the synth’s full feature set in a DAW without buying the hardware – albeit with a virtual recreation of the analogue filter.

MiniFreak 5.0 is available now as a free update for owners of either version. Head to the Arturia site for more.

Japanese synth brand Sonicware has launched a new desktop module version of its ELZ_1 synth, ELZ_1 core.

The new module is based on the same digital synthesis engine as Sonicware’s ELZ_1 play, but trims down that instrument’s already somewhat compact form factor to fit into a pint-sized hardware box, ditching the original’s button keyboard in the process.

The ELZ_1 engine has three oscillators, each of which can make use of 18 different synthesis approaches ranging from wavetable synthesis through virtual analogue, FM, physical modelling and more. The instrument’s selection of stock wavetables include 16 officially licensed from Waldorf’s classic PPG and Microwave synths and it can also import wavetables created in Xfer Serum.

Beyond the oscillators, the ELZ_1 features nine varieties of filter and EQ, four types of envelope generator and 49 effect types, the latter of which can be used across four effect slots covering both inserts and sends. The synth also has a 128-step sequencer and 12-mode arpeggiator.

The new ELZ_1 core hardware is designed to be used alongside your existing MIDI controller, sequencer or DAW. It can connect to external gear via its MIDI input and output ports. There are also USB-C and USB-A ports, the first of which can be used for MIDI and audio streaming, the latter as a MIDI host that can also provide bus power.

The new synth has a 2.4-inch colour LCD screen that displays the redesigned Edit UI, which can be manipulated using a bank of five rotaries. Three of these can also be used as macro controls, configurable to adjust up-to three parameters simultaneously across the ELZ_1’s oscillators, synth engine and effects.

Alongside the launch of ELZ_1 core, Sonicware has updated the firmware for all versions of the synth adding a new system of preset tagging and favourites.

If you’re tempted by the look of the ELZ_1 core, you probably don’t want to hang around. Like the ELZ_1 play before it, the synth is being sold in limited, made-to-order batches. According to Sonicware, this decision comes down to the impact of, “Rising component costs and ongoing supply instability, [meaning that] it has become difficult for us to secure the quantities required for mass production.”

ELZ_1 core is available to order for £449/ €539/$499, with the first batch of 50 due to ship mid-October. Head to the Sonicware site for more information.

There are some people whose advice is worth listening to and, if you’re a musician, legendary keyboard player Greg Phillinganes is probably one of them.

Alongside synth programmer Anthony Marinelli, Phillinganes has recently been in the studio recording a bang-on recreation of Baby Be Mine, a song from Michael Jackon’s Thriller that was written by Rod Temperton. Both Marinelli and Phillinganes worked on said album, and it was during a discussion about that time that Greg dropped his truth bomb.

It came as they recalled what producer Quincy Jones used to tell them: “You’re never more of a musician than you are a human being”. This is something that Jones was himself told by Nadia Boulanger, his famous music teacher, and Phillinganes suggests that it’s still as valid today as it ever was.

“That comes in the music,” he says. “That’s infused in the music.”

Explaining further, Phillinganes argues: “You have to respect the groove, and there’s certain musicians that understand that and there’s certain ones who don’t. And you can tell – you can tell if they’re respecting it or not. No question. It’s painfully obvious.”

Reiterating what he’s just said, Phillinganes adds: “Respect the groove – by any means necessary, respect the groove. Or else, stay home. What’s the point?”

Addressing the camera and wagging his finger, he says: “Yeah, I’m talking to you. Stay home. If you can’t respect the groove, just stay home. Wash dishes. Sell shoes. What’s the point if you can’t respect the groove? [If] You can’t respect the groove, you can’t respect people. If you can’t respect people, what’s the point. Yeah, I said it.”

Consider us told.

Phillinganes’ respect of the groove is certainly evident during his runthrough of Baby Be Mine. He plays a variety of synths, including the actual Minimoog and Prophet-5 that were used on the original recording.

The drums and synths were programmed by Marinelli, and the guitar played by Jarrett “Bueno” Goodly. Ray Monteiro, Jesse McGinty and Garrett Smith made up the horn section.

It feels like there’s always been an unwritten rule that no synth or MIDI controller should have fewer than 25 keys on it, but PIanni could be about to break that with the Orphea.

Featuring just one octave’s worth of keys (plus an extra C at the top, giving you 13 in total), this has the advantage of being barely larger than a smartphone, so is certainly portable. It also features a built-in multi-wave synth engine, a rechargeable battery, speakers, a 3.5mm audio output and MIDI I/O.

The not so good news is that the keys aren’t velocity sensitive, which will limit the amount of expression you can generate, and although it’s possible to shift the keyboard up or down three octaves, there’s no getting away from the fact that there’s not a great deal of serious playing you can do with just 13 notes in front of you. Even simple basslines could be tricky, and you can forget about forming anything other than basic chord shapes.

In fairness, it looks like the Orphea is primarily being aimed at kids who simply want to “explore melody and composition,” but even absolute beginners might hit a creative wall with it pretty quickly.

The people will be able to make a judgement, though, when the fate of Orphea is determined via a soon-to-be-launched Kickstarter campaign. No news yet on how much the device will cost or when it could potentially ship.

What is it?

The significance of the Prophet-5 synthesizer, in the evolution of commercial music and production cannot be overstated. Where the Minimoog brought pseudo-affordable synthesis to the masses, the Prophet-5 picked up the torch and single-handedly reinvented synth production, with real musicians in mind. All of this was courtesy of Dave Smith and his company Sequential Circuits Inc (now just known as Sequential).

Initially released in 1978, the Prophet provided 5-note polyphony, coupled with the ability to save and recall patches. This was a revelation for keyboard players, alongside a five-octave keyboard and the immediacy of hands-on control, thanks to the beautiful control panel. As one successful UK session keyboardist commented to us recently, “it was the only synth you needed!”. That might not be quite true today, but it certainly was back in 1978, with little choice or competition.

After three major revisions of the original instrument, production ceased in 1984. Dave Smith released several other synthesizers with a slight nod to the Prophet moniker, but it wasn’t until 2020 that he revisited the original format, with the release of Version 4, in both five- and ten-voice iterations.

There have been many software versions of this legendary machine since the dawn of the plugin era, but we have had to wait until now for synth behemoth GForce to offer its own model on the original. Impressively, its Prophet-5 is the only example with official endorsement from Sequential.

Performance

GForce has included all the usual plugin formats, as well as a standalone version. With its scalable interface, this allows you to get lost in the programming by blowing it up to the full size of your computer screen, and just playing… and playing!

We are fortunate to have a hardware Prophet v4 in our studio, which allowed us to place the two against each other for direct comparison. The software also includes all of the original patches, which are present without any additional layer of effects, so this was the perfect place for us to start.

We probably shouldn't be surprised by what we heard, given GForce’s amazing reputation. The attention at the sonic level is exceptionally good. The behaviour of the pots is a little different; the software pots tend to offer a greater level of detailing and accuracy, particularly with the lower values, which is just where you want the fine-tuning. By comparison, the hardware offers conventional, equally-measured operation from 0 to 10.

Reducing both synths to their basic waveforms equally provided no clues in our attempts to separate the two, in our blind testing. Maybe the filter section would reveal differences between the two? No! In fact, much like the v4 hardware, GForce has included the original Mk1/2 SSM filter, alongside the Mk3 Curtis chip filter, and other than a difference in pot position, there is nothing to choose between the two, sonically.

In fact, despite keeping our own hardware in V.4 territory (which should be very stable), our own hardware had a tendency to wander in terms of its pitch stability. A Vintage pot was introduced to allow users of the hardware to engineer how stable they would like their Prophet to be, and in a nice touch, GForce has included this pot, not that you will want the instability of a v1 Prophet-5!

More notes good

Despite the revelation of five voices in 1978, later polys did attempt to address the problem of note stealing, for more grandiose synth pads with long release tails. This is not going to be an issue here, as the software allows 10-voice operation, effectively like the Prophet-10. Where GForce goes further is with the ability to stack voices into layers, with both layers offering full 10-voice operation.

If we add this to the exceptionally good effects section, we can't be surprised that the overall stature of the effected output is stunning, and all of this with the ability to control parameters on screen, or using automation within the DAW. Like other GForce products, the mapping of modulations or control through MIDI CC is very simple. There are several hardwired modulation paths, just like the original instrument, but one of the most eye-catching is the inclusion of the XLFO and XADSR sections, which offer more flexible, capable and advanced sources for modulation. Assigning these elements is as simple as selecting the modulation destination and adjusting the settings in the ‘X’ section. We were even able to modulate the Vintage pot in this way, although it might be more useful to generate pulses and gates in the direction of the filter.

If working within a DAW, a dedicated CC button allows the assignment of MIDI CC to pretty much any parameter, and certainly all the ones you need.

The other Poly

One element which we have to pay particular attention to, is the Poly-Mod section. This was always a unique form of cross modulation, which quickly became part of the Prophet sound, allowing the generation of metallic tones and thunderous effects. Experience tells us that this can be very difficult to capture in software, but GForce has really nailed it. It is every bit as effective as it always was, but if anything, offers a greater degree of control, thanks to its software domain.

Located down in the performance control area, there are a number of other tasty tidbits that were never available on the original instrument. Firstly, the original Prophet only ever offered a mono audio output. Thanks to a pan mode, with spread amount, you can quickly generate stereo depth, before using the onboard effects.

There is also the addition of chord memory and the exceptionally useful arpeggiator. In standalone mode, the latter really does allow you to get lost in the sound, particularly when used alongside the hold control.

Verdict

We have to conclude that this is a pretty special release. Firstly, the Prophet-5 holds a very special place in people’s hearts as the first machine of its kind, and GForce has really looked after its legacy beautifully. If you are a purist and just want an original machine in software, you are firmly in luck. You can dial back any of the additional elements, and just use this like an original Prophet-5.

However, for more contemporary or stylised work, the software has an incredible amount to offer. With over 420 new patches, alongside the original 38 factory patches, the programming team has taken full advantage of everything this new iteration has to offer while truly respecting its heritage. The subtle detuning of the oscillators, with the greater control of the envelope section, means that you have the sound of an original, with extraordinary levels of control and greater depth of modulation. It is undoubtedly the best of all Prophet worlds, and an enormous testimony to the original machine and the brilliance of GForce for looking after the details in software.

Hands-on demos

GForce Software

Alternatives

Specifications

What is it?

UDO's Super Gemini is one of our favourite synths of the last couple of years, so we obviously have sky-high expectations for the company's new DMNO, or Domino, another double-timbre beast with a massive amount of onboard tweaking. This time, though, you get less polyphony in favour of more interaction between these engines, and a fabulous screen to help peel back the synth's many layers.

As with Gemini, DMNO is double the synth fun, but the end result is different enough to make it another ridiculously characterful UDO synth, and one aimed fair and square at proper 'synthusiasts'.

UDO is one of the most exciting synth brands around – and we’re not just saying that because (like us) it is British. The company has an obvious passion for creating cutting-edge synths that might sometimes borrow the best bits from the odd synth icon, but always deliver something completely new and without compromise, and machines that often feel alive and unpredictable – traits again shared with their vintage forebears.

Gemini, which we reviewed a couple of years ago, is a prime example: two synths in one, a nod to the Yamaha CS80, and with a signal flow between both engines that can create an all-new and awe-inspiring sound. The company’s new DMNO follows a similar path: two independent 4-voice synths, this time with design cues from the Oberheim 2-voice, but again resulting in a synth that delivers sound design options in spades.

Unlike Gemini, DMNO has a superb screen to help you navigate around the all-important signal flow, which is all about the interaction between those two synth engines. DMNO also allows you to shift between eight different Play modes for extra performance versatility, but it still delivers a similar Gemini user experience where things might not always go according to plan, but they do always seem to go right.

And while DMNO lacks the polyphony of Gemini – four binaural/eight mono compared to 10 and 20 respectively on Gemini – it’s another gert lush synth from our local Bristolian neighbours which looks like succeeding in extracting cash from our bank account. But will it do the same to yours?

Performance

You can think of DMNO as two synths in one because that is exactly what it is: DMNO 1 and 2 have almost identical controls, sitting side-by-side on the front panel, and they each have their own effects, arpeggiators and modulation setups.

The hybrid workflow starts with two FPGA Digital Oscillators per voice, before going into an all-new analogue, dynamic multi-core analogue filter with parallel, series and stereo connection modes.

The digital FPGA-based 'super-waveform' oscillators deliver classic analogue waveforms and user selectable wavetables. They also feature six of what UDO call ‘sister oscillators' which come into play in ‘super mode’ where you can pretty much 'super trance' up any of your supplied waveforms, of which there are plenty.

With Osc 1 you get six basic waveforms and you can load in another six wavetables from 32 options. It's a similar story for oscillator 2, but here you only get three additional slots rather than six, as the other three are taken by Osc 2's 'keyboard off' options. This is where the oscillator can operate in LF mode as a sub or, handily, as an LFO and modulation source. And while DMNO is not a wavetable synth per se, you can morph between waveforms, upload your own, and generally tinker with your core ingredients beyond what you'd expect.

The filter section is pretty incredible with parallel, series and stereo modes, each with several filter setups to choose from. And with a dozen LP, HP, BP, all pass, and phase shifter filter types available – most with selectable poles plus two resonance choices for LP – there is a lot to choose from.

The all-pass mode is particularly worth auditioning, where resonance becomes the main operating parameter, driving certain sounds in a more unpredictable way, and great fun at extreme settings.

DMNO's screen is a real bonus, and while we didn't miss one on Gemini – with that synth it almost helped not having one as you focused on your hands-on tweaking – the one on DMNO kind of shows you what your were missing. It combines brilliantly with the four rotaries beneath, and certain parameters go brighter as you select them, very useful, especially great when modulating, as we'll see.

To the left of this is a mixer for the synth layers, with panning and effect sends to overall reverb and delay for your mix. There are other drive, chorus and EQ insert effects plus reverb and delay send effects within each layer. You can tweak up to four effect parameters at a time with those rotaries beneath the screen, and again the screen is a highlight, indicating graphical changes like EQ.

Extra performances

With DMNO's ingredients, then, you're already starting with something different, but it's the interaction between DMNO 1 and 2 where things start going on a tangent, and it's a path you will gladly follow – just make sure you have a few hours to pass, because this thing will eat your spare time, albeit richly rewarding you along the way.

Chief among these workflow extras are the eight play modes which we'll list simply because they tell you all you need to know, and reveal an insight of the leftfield thinking behind the synth. Single, Dual and Split are the most obvious. The first allows you to play either DMNO with maximum 8-voice (mono) polyphony; Dual plays both synth layers together, each with the polyphony halved; while Split simply puts each synth on a selectable range of the keyboard, as you might expect.

Fourth mode One-Two allows you to play the first synth with your first four notes of polyphony but switches to DMNO 2 for the rest; Cycle alternates between each engine, so press one note for DMNO 1 and the next plays DMNO2, then swaps back and so on. Random alternates between the layers randomly based on user definable probabilities; Chaos is Random plus random pitch changes (by octave, fifths etc); and finally Series is where the audio of DMNO 1 can be routed into 2.

Whether you'll use all of these modes is, of course, debatable – some might be a little too out there for you – but we love anything that adds performance variation, and particularly like Chaos mode, especially combined with the arpeggiator, as you can keep things relatively in control while sounding off-beat and a much more interesting player than (in our case) you might well be.

Modulation

Each DMNO layer has two LFOs, although, as we said above, Osc 2 can additionally be used as one in LF mode and one of the envelopes can be looped to act as an LFO – this doubling up of functions across DMNO is very 'on brand', if you think about it. Similarly there are two envelopes with a not-so-hidden third able to shape the VCA.

To the left of the keyboard there's a dedicated block for more performance/keyboard based modulation, and one other feature well worth picking out is the envelope follower. Here you can modulate with an external signal, a bit like side-chaining with a kick through a compressor, and it's yet another small addition with big dividends.

There's a lot of modulation to delve into here, and like Gemini, DMNO can be incredibly hands-on and instant, but its screen again adds another dimension. You'll be switching between fat, detuned super waves (not just saws) by way of several three-way switches to select more obvious sources and destinations, and the screen acts beautifully here, highlighting each options as you shift.

However, the display comes into its own when offering more complex modulations that can be set up by way of the modulation matrix, with seven slots, 10 sources, 15 destinations, and levels all controlled with the four rotaries beneath. Easy and plentiful.

Verdict

All of these features add up to a synth with a very big and layered sound, which is particularly suited to sound designers and, really, those after something a little different. Sure you can get huge, analogue-style leads, basses, sequences and the like, but it's really what happens when you combine your Dominos using either the play modes or straight audio routing.

Here DMNO stands out and, like Gemini, it seems to be another synth designed from the question, 'what can we make that would be really cool?' rather than 'what can we make that will sell?'. That's not to say it won't sell – it certainly deserves to – but this isn't yet another analogue synth, another wavetable or another wacky hybrid. We have enough amazing synths that fit the bill in all three of those categories, but DMNO tends to forge its own path around and through all of them.

In that sense it very much has its own character, but perhaps makes it a harder sell, especially if you are after the huge pads that we love about Gemini. For those, you might find DMNO's polyphony lacking – you're only getting the full eight voices in mono mode – but if you think of DMNO as a massively souped up dual mono synth or a twisted paraphonic, you certainly won't be disappointed.

So where Gemini is all about rich, massive and expressive walls of sound, DMNO is more like its rather unruly nephew – less to say, a massive attitude, probably a chip on its shoulder, but it talks the talk and you listen when it does.

Hands-on demos

UDO Audio

Alternatives

Specifications

What is it?

The history of commercial music is littered with instances where a new technology has inspired creativity to go in a different direction: acoustic to electric guitars, acoustic to electric pianos, drum machines and, of course, synthesizers.

While synths took a little while to take hold of the mainstream, there were moments of backlash, with the '90s being an example, through bands such as Oasis. But it was in 1997 that Roland released a hardware synth called the JP-8000 that would notably change the sound of commercial music forever. This initial influence was evident through the style of electronic music known as trance, but quickly infiltrated other styles, remaining incredibly fashionable in today’s commercial production landscape.

The JP-8000 introduced the concept of the supersaw waveform to the world; it was a sawtooth wave, but with clones of itself that could be detuned in a controlled way, giving rise to the enormous-sounding synth pads that were popularised in trance. It also influenced other commercial synth products, with the Virus range of machines, from Access, being notable supersaw ambassadors.

These sounds are fully omnipresent in pop and commercial culture, with a majority of synths providing some form of capacity to embrace the sound. It is, however, sometimes difficult to get the exact sound you want, so wouldn't it be great to have a specific software instrument that embraces this technical trait and stamps its endorsement on the name of the product?

Performance

Super*Saw (pronounced as SuperStarSaw) is a new plugin from Native Instruments, designed in collaboration with critically acclaimed producer AG Cook. If you are unfamiliar with his work, search out his album Britpop, or his work with Charlie XCX, and you'll hear plenty of evidence of supersaw usage.

Apart from integrating seamlessly with other NI products, such as Komplete Kontrol and Maschine, Cook has supplied many of the patches, while the visual aspect of the plugin includes design elements from his longtime visual collaborator, Simon Whybray. It is very striking in its appearance, albeit in green and pink!

The new Super Star

Upon loading Super*Saw for the first time, there is a degree of familiarity, which begins with the oscillator section on the left-hand side. To be honest, this rather undersells the concept, as we will quickly discover!

Super*Swarm is equipped with two partial sound sources, which are identifiable by a pink and green dot, located on the top left-hand side. Each of these sources is identical, but they are described within the context of the instrument as Swarms. Each Swarm is equipped with its own set of parameters, which begins with the number of audible sawtooth oscillators, which can then be detuned. You can't start with a single oscillator, but what's the point of that in this context, particularly when you can increase the Swarm up to 16 saws per partial? You can see how many are in play from the square graphic located on the top left-hand side of the Swarm section. Once you have selected your Swarm level, you can then de-tune and spread the oscillators across the stereo field. Even with only one Swarm in operation, it sounds gigantic!

In the lower half of the Swarm section are a host of modulation elements. Changing parameters is simple enough, once you get the hang of it, but requires the movement of the mouse over a particular parameter, at which point a value will appear, allowing you to increase or decrease with the mouse. Your connection with this interface may just depend on what you are used to. It is an elegant and simplistic piece of design, but as with all levels of minimalism, sometimes things aren't as obvious as you might hope! Like anything, once you know how it works, you quickly get used to its modus operandi.

Mix it up

Moving to the central part of the instrument (and with previous thoughts on the design ringing in our ears) you definitely have to do some experimentation.

Located at the top in the centre is a mix control, which indicates levels between the pink and green Swarm layers, as a circle. This fills or depletes with each click and drag. It's elegant, but you have to get used to it. This is also where you can change the tuning of each Swarm layer, with the ability to transpose up or down two octaves, either side of the core note.

This central section is described as the Morpher, as it allows you to take a snapshot, using the target icon, located in each corner. Much like an X/Y pad, it then allows you to seamlessly shift between the snapshots, and does so very smoothly indeed.

At the bottom of this section, icons relating to amplitude envelope and filter quickly reveal a host of control elements related to each menu category. To be honest, this felt a little bit fiddly, as a lot of information is displayed in a relatively small space, and while the elegance is maintained, a larger display area would certainly be beneficial here. The filter itself is very in keeping, stylistically speaking, with the genre intended for a synth of this kind. You can switch between 2- and 4-pole filters, with lo, band and hi-pass filters being available.

The central display is also switchable to Voice Control mode, which allows the engineering of a host of different elements, particularly relating to control of polyphonic playback. Here you can engineer all sorts of glides and bends, which can be particularly useful for creating risers or quirky synth sounds.

FX and more

The section on the far right is switchable between the effects section, which provides chorus, delay and reverb, and further modulation sources, which include LFO and two ADSR envelopes.

Verdict

It becomes very clear, very quickly, that Super*Saw is an immensely powerful sound source, as long as you don't mind starting with a sawtooth as your main constituent component. No problem there, because that's the whole point, right?

In order to get you going, there are a considerable number of presets, all placed in categories to guide your path. It doesn't take long to hear how complex sounds can quickly become, and we have to admit that despite our admiration for the concept, we felt like we only scratched the surface with its capabilities. A large part of this is because of the hieroglyphic and graphical nature of the interface, which is really fun to use, but does find you scratching your head occasionally. Of course, in an ideal world, you would work with the synth to fully understand its operational elements, and make no bones about it: if you have a requirement for huge-sounding saw-based pads, this is a fantastic synth which is going to reward you continually, but you’ll need to have the manual on hand to get the absolute most from the instrument.

Hands-on demos

Native Instruments

Alternatives

Specifications

What is it?

Native Instruments’ Komplete is the company's ‘everything you could wish for’ bundle of instruments, effects and sounds, and it has just been upgraded to 26, from 2024’s v15. This isn’t a jump of 11 versions that you missed, rather NI’s new and logical annual naming convention.

And now that NI has been bought by InMusic, you can be pretty sure that Komplete has a decent future, into the '30s at least, we’d hope.

As ever, when it comes to reviewing Komplete, we’ll give you the meat of what’s new, and assume you have some knowledge of the more established NI titles. Don’t expect 340 individual reviews – we’ll give you a flavour of each level, but the ‘konclusion’ might end up back in your court with the old ‘how much can you handle’ versus ‘how much do you want to save?’ arguments.

Performance

First up the various Komplete bundles are still called Standard (£494/$549 for 315GB of 180 instruments and effects, 70+ expansions and 63,000 sounds); Ultimate (£1,124/$1,249 for 950GB of 280 instruments/fx, 100+ expansions and 116,000 sounds); and the Collector’s Edition (£1,754/$1,949 for 340+ instruments and effects, 150 expansions and over 180,000 sounds).

Yes, when it comes to Komplete, reviews tend to be numbers, lots of them, and large ones at that.

And before we delve in deeper, we should mention the three additional Komplete Select editions: Electronic, Beats and Band, where you get titles dedicated to those broad genres and styles. At just $99, these are a very good intro to the Komplete universe and even pay for themselves with a $99 discount should you upgrade to Komplete Standard.

On to the more expensive bundles, and each of the three comes with what NI rightly calls its flagship products comprising Absynth 6, Massive X, Kontakt 8 and Guitar Rig 7 Pro. Just in the last title alone you have pretty much every effect ever created, and not just for guitarists – it's a superb suite of plugins.

The synths are pretty awesome too. Absynth 6 is new to all three and is an update to one of NI's longest-serving instruments and slots easily into a 2020s DAW rack, while Massive X has become the mainstay of dance music producers everywhere. Between the two, you have all your dreamy textures and pads, and feisty basses and leads properly covered, and a lot more besides.

As for Kontakt 8, well, this instrument shell, player and organiser has also recently been beefed up with more creative tools and we're using it more than ever. You pretty much have everything you need with these four titles, then, and we've only just started.

A lot more newbies

Time for the newcomers at each level, so grab yourself a big cuppa. Starting with the Standard edition, you get two titles from NI's Definitive Electric Keys Collection, namely Jade and Teak. Jade is designed more for gritty and punchy sounds, suitable for more pop and rock piano styles, while Teak has a warmer tone with a '60s vibe, better for sparser arrangements to our ears.

These new electric piano titles now increase depending on the Kontakt bundle you buy, so for the Ultimate edition, you get two more (Ember for more rhythmic and percussive keys and Moonshell for light and soulful), and with Collector's Edition you get all six pianos, with the addition of Phoenix, more of a Fender Rhodes/'70s style piano, and Diamond, a '60s version more suited to jazz. That's a lot of electric pianos – overkill perhaps.

Back to the newcomers for Standard and you get Electric Neon Essentials, one of NI's Session Guitarist titles and aimed at pop and EDM guitarists, although there's a decent amount of flexibility under the bonnet, meaning you can easily stretch these sounds into a wide variety of genres. It's slick, and the very definition of 'mix ready', almost too smooth on occasion.

As with the pianos, you get more guitars as you step up Komplete levels, so Ultimate adds Session Guitarist – Electric Ruby Deluxe. However, both Ultimate and Collector's have the same 12 Session Guitarist titles and, as it turns out, the same pianos, organs and drums, so if sampled instruments are your thing, Ultimate might get you what you need for less outlay than Collector's.

In fact, as far as major upgrades go, that is it for the Standard edition, as most of the new fun does sit with the more expensive options. For example, both Collector's and Ultimate now feature Claire: Avant, a virtual version of the world's biggest piano.

Bigger doesn't always mean best, of course, but Claire does deliver an impressive and varied sound covering jazz, soundtrack, mellow, distorted and even harpsichord. In the (perhaps unlikely) event that you find yourself short on piano sounds, this definitely fits the bill. Collector's Edition (of course) boasts more, another Claire piano called Avant, which adds a more experimental edge to your piano sound.

Another big, new title – again only for Ultimate and Collector's – is Erosia, an instrument for cinematic sound design. This is one of the most impressive of the new additions, combining four soundscape parts for eerie pads, grain effects and shimmering atmospheres. It also has a very decent amount of tweaking available, where you can dig into some waveshaping, harmonic resonance and effect parameters – a very solid '26' inclusion.

Along similar lines, but with a very different UI and approach – although, it has to be said, a similar soundscape vibe – is Circular, only available for the Collector's Edition. It's essentially an instrument that combines layers, each with its own sequencer, so you can create dynamic and evolving chords, while being able to adjust parameters on the UI circle.

You get 30 sound types to choose from, each with its own presets, so there are a lot of ingredients, and while it is basically another way of layering four parts, it does offer some intriguing and usable results.

The final two big NI offerings are both orchestra-based and available for the Collector's and Ultimate bundles. LCO Strings is a recent release that allows you to combine those four layers – NI loves its four layers – with high-quality samples from the London Contemporary Orchestra. Bland UI aside, it manages to not only deliver realistic orchestra sounds pretty quickly, but also has enough articulations, LFOs, and core samples to deliver expressive and flexible results that can be pompous and dramatic or eerie and atmospheric.

Cremona Quartet Ensemble is another orchestra engine, this time with a string quartet taking up those four layers. The instruments are modelled on the kinds of antiques that cost tens of thousands, including a Stradivari cello and violin, and Guarneri and Amati violins.

Of the newcomers we have discussed so far, this is probably the one with the most realism attached to it. It includes a playing style where the quartet only plays its individual parts as mono instruments, so if you play two, three or four notes, the other instruments kick in; or play them polyphonically – your choice. Either way, the results are very good and this is likely to be one of the additions we'll be keeping on our drive.

Other brands

Of course, NI is now offering Plugin Alliance/Brainworx and iZotope plugins as part of Komplete. Rather than attempt to go into depth on all of these, all three levels of Komplete offer the iZotope Elements versions of Ozone 12 (for mastering), Neutron 5 (mixing), and Nectar 4 (vocals), so that's pretty much all your production plugins sorted, albeit with less grunt than the full-fat versions.

Other iZotope highlights include FXEQ, which is a rather brilliant (and cheap) workhorse plugin that lets you add effects with ease as you would an EQ. You also get VocalSynth 2, which might be old but still does exactly what it says on the tin; and Trash, a distortion, filtering and convolution plugin which is a production favourite, although we were less than impressed by its current version. Still, good to have anyway.

The Brainworx/PA standouts for all three Kompletes include the bx_enhancer saturator/ compressor/EQ, and the multiband compressor, bx_glue. Ultimate adds the bx_XL mid/side mastering plugin and bx_clipper, while the top-tier Collector's bundle adds the excellent bx_console AMEK 200 (our only criticism was the price), and bx_masterdesk PRO, a full mastering plugin which delivers great results, fast.

While Komplete can often look like NI throws everything at the bundle, these third-party inclusions do make sense in the overall scheme, as the iZotope plugins bring their AI assistant technology to your productions, while both Plugin Alliance and Brainworx fill the gaps and make it more hands-on if that is your thing.

Finally – and we're almost breathing a sigh of relief just writing those words – all three Kontakt bundles now include 28 Play Series titles (that is, streamlined sound collections/instruments for Kontakt) which have been bolstered by half a dozen newbies including Marco Polo Drums, 24k Drums, Hypr, Halo Vox, Luxa and Roux. Look, they're free, there are 28 of them, you get them whatever. Never look a sonic gift-horse in the mouth.

Verdict

It's so easy with Komplete – whatever the bundle level – to get swept away by the sheer numbers, the savings and the absolute might of these great tools and how they could and really should positively impact your music making. We all love more for less, right? And with that in mind, Komplete is as big a bundle, upgrade, bargain, and bloody huge outlay as it’s always been. Better in fact!

You will not need another plugin (whichever version you opt for).

But right about now, and in every Komplete review, we get to that nagging question as it starts emerging from our sugar-rushed brains: do I really need it all?

Here we go again, back at this argument and always the Komplete Kaveat: that throwing plugins at a project doesn’t always make it better or indeed finished. The tyranny of choice is real and sometimes a deliberately slimmed-down plugin setup can be more creative.

Yet, short of allowing you to pick and mix your own titles – which would be great but, we suspect, messy – NI has probably got the balance just about right between the various Komplete bundles in 26, and, of course, upgrades are possible if you just want to go small to start with.

But do balance up your needs, your hard drive size, your time, the style of music you make and, of course, your budget. There’s no doubting that Komplete really is 'complete' but, as we pointed out above, certain editions might just do – Ultimate over Collector's for example, especially when it comes to recreations of 'real' instruments.

Either way, with the incorporation of many excellent titles from Plugin 'The Rebel' Alliance and iZotope, Komplete is still the greatest music software bundle(s) you can buy (or subscribe to from $15 a month with NI's 360 deals).

But is your music missing focus or plugins? That is the question, and only you can 'Komplete' the answer. We've done our job and warned you about the tyranny of choice, but we're still quietly making space for the Collector's Edition anyway. As your dad used to say: 'Do as I say, not as I do, my young Padawan'. (Well, ours did anyway.)

Hands-on demos

Native Instruments

Alternatives

Specifications

When did music production begin to have so many rules? It used to be that you could get away with pretty much anything when making tunes. Vinyl mastering engineers would probably tell you to make your bass mono so the needle doesn’t jump out of the record, but other than that, the sky was the limit - if only because in a pre-social media era, who was going to tell you otherwise?

Nowadays, however, you can’t take two steps on the internet without tripping over a loud and confidently stated opinion on the “correct” way to make music. Reddit, Facebook, YouTube, they’re all lined with hot takes masquerading as unbreakable rules, purists and gatekeepers claiming that analogue is always better than digital, Behringer gear is garbage, and your cheap-ass monitors must be ruining your mixes. What’s an up-and-coming musician or producer to do? In short: ignore them.

Many of the most transformative genres to emerge in the last 50 years - from punk to jungle to trap - were based around breaking the rules. Producers of old didn’t worry about what they were supposed to do, or waste their time pondering the opinions of beard-stroking strangers. They just got on with making the music that they wanted to make. Many of the most persistent myths that get repeated as fact don’t even hold up in real life. Here’s our number one rule: if it sounds good to you, it is good.

In the spirit of those legendary rule-breakers of old, here we take a closer look at ten oft-repeated music tech myths that fall apart in the harsh light of day.

1. Analogue is better than digital

Let’s start with this old chestnut. Many people will try to tell you that analogue synthesis is somehow inherently ‘better’ than digital. They don’t bother with any of that virtual analogue nonsense (despite the power, flexibility and convenience that digital can provide), nor will they trouble themselves with wavetables, FM or indeed anything other than tried-and-true, old-school subtractive synthesis.

Analogue can sound great, it’s true. It’s hard to top a vintage Minimoog or CS-80 in top condition for sheer sonic deliciousness. But objectively better? That’s a stretch. Limiting yourself to just one flavour can lead to bland results. It can also be a real challenge to get a lead to pop out of an all-analogue mix. And if analogue is the be-all and end-all, why are digital synths like Serum so popular? (Hint: because they sound good.)

Choose a synth because you like the way it sounds, not because of what’s under the hood.

2. Behringer gear is garbage

Comments about Behringer gear tend to fall into two main camps: it’s either complete garbage, or it’s incredible, and the company is going to save the world by releasing budget synths. Somewhere in between these two polarities is the truth: products from a mass-market retailer occasionally do fail, but no more than those of any other manufacturer working at a similar scale.

So why the hate? This appears to be a holdover from users who got burned by unreliable products in the ‘90s before Behringer made a number of manufacturing changes. It also restructured the company, with Behringer now just one of many brands under the Music Tribe banner, an umbrella that also includes respected outfits like Midas, Klark Teknik and TC Electronic. They can’t all be bad, can they? And why would Behringer's products be inferior and the others' not… even though they’re all made by the same company?

It’s not just poor musicians that use Behringer products, either; plenty of big-name artists do too. Hans Zimmer famously took his Behringer 2600 on the road to spare his vintage ARP the abuse, while the acid clone TD-3 has been caned by Squarepusher, KiNK, Anthony Rother and many more. Some may question their imitative designs, but Behringer makes solid gear at an unbeatable price. Don’t let the past grudges of others prevent you from enjoying what the brand has to offer.

3. Korg Volcas are a joke

In 2013, Korg released a trio of tiny instruments, the Beats, Bass and Keys. These were all part of the Volca line, and they kick started a trend of low-priced, diminutive synthesizers, samplers and drum machines that continues to this day, with Korg now offering 10 Volca machines and plenty of other companies copying their style. And yet somehow, the name Volca has become synonymous with ‘joke’.

This smacks of gatekeeping. While the Volcas may be limited compared to other items in the Korg catalogue, they’re also much, much more affordable. This low price makes them ideal starting points for newbies looking to explore music production, or wanting to make the jump from software to hardware.

With their built-in sequencers and motion sequencing capabilities, Volcas are also exceedingly fun. Many also feature circuitry borrowed from much more expensive units too, ensuring that they sound just as good as their bigger siblings. They also have some pretty famous fans, with artists as diverse as Aphex Twin, Octo Octa, Gorillaz and Mura Masa all having used them.

The next time someone calls a Volca a toy, take that as a recommendation - toys are fun to play with, after all.

4. FM synths sound cold

In 1983, Yamaha’s DX7 completely disrupted the synthesizer world, knocking analogue off its perch and introducing the world to the possibilities of digital synthesis. With its precise sounds and metallic, glassy tones, FM soon gained a reputation for being icy cold - particularly when compared to warm and fuzzy analogue synthesis.

While the famous EPiano 1 - the electric piano preset that dominated a thousand ‘80s hits - is admittedly on the chilly side, FM synths don’t have to be frostbite-inducing. A lot of this is down to the way you program them. While FM may excel at colder timbres, it can certainly do warm strings and brass too - you just don’t notice them as often, because they don’t stand out as much in a mix.

And, as FM synthesis has evolved over time, it’s also gotten warmer along the way. FM synthesis circa DX7 had only sine waves to play with. Modern FM synths are much more varied, with the Korg opsix (pictured above) offering 21 different waveshapes, ensuring many more toasty harmonics in the sound. They also often have analogue filters now, which can also heat things up a few degrees.

FM synthesis has a lot to offer. Frigid tones are just a small part of its repertoire.

5. GAS is bad

According to the armchair doctors of RedditMD, GAS is the worst affliction that can befall a musician. Short for Gear Acquisition Syndrome, it’s a colloquial acronym that describes what happens when purchasing new gear becomes more important than using and making music with said gear.

There’s a persistent attitude online that if you’re not making and releasing music with your gear or software then you’re some kind of worthless poseur. If you believe this, then getting caught up in buying gear can become shameful. Really, though, what’s so bad about it? As long as you’re having fun, who cares? And, with local music shops fast disappearing, there’s really no other way to try out gear than to buy first and ask questions later.

Not everyone sees it as a negative either. Take this anonymous Reddit user, for example: “(GAS) seems to be common in musicians, they love their instruments, and each one brings something a little different. Inevitably you have your favourite that you use all the time, but loving the tools you work with is not a problem, in my opinion.”

Of course, if you’re buying gear with money that you don’t have, that can become an issue. But having fun acquiring new gear within your means? Have at it.

6. Roland has lost it

Spend enough time in the online synth community and you’ll start to see a pattern, especially when a new Roland product is announced. The story goes that the company has fallen off - it just isn’t as good as it was back in the day. This is largely due to the fact that it famously doesn’t “chase ghosts”, meaning that it won’t clone its own past products.

This refusal to dwell in the past is particularly irksome to those who pine for the halcyon days of analogue - never mind the fact that clones of the instruments they want are already available from a variety of competitors, both large and small.

Whether Roland is as innovative today as it was in the ‘70s and ‘80s is certainly up for debate - many of its most lauded products, such as the 808, 909 and 303, were actually failures at the time of release - but it remains a reputable company with a wide variety of successful product releases every year.

Just because it’s not focusing solely on the development of retro-styled analogue synths (although it occasionally still does), that doesn’t mean Roland is no longer a force to be reckoned with. The company continues to release affordable and innovative products that consistently rank highly in our reviews: just a few months ago, we included its P-6 sampler in our round-up of 2024's best gear.

7. Your monitors suck

Have you ever experienced this? You post a flex photo of your studio to a Facebook group, fishing for a few compliments on the set-up that you’re really rather proud of, and then the insults begin to roll in: “When are you going to get new monitors?” “I’ll bet you don’t mix your own music with those speakers.” “Ew, Rokits.”

Despite being consistently well-rated and used by, well, pretty much everyone in the entire world, KRK’s Rokit monitors have become a target of internet scorn. Perhaps because they’re popular, or perhaps because they’re not quite specialist enough, they’re the gatekeeper’s first port of call when they want to take you down a peg.

Are there better monitors out there? Of course there are. But not everyone has that kind of expendable income, especially not in these days of mindless tariffs and sky-high inflation. Isn’t knowing your monitors and how they react to the room the most important thing anyway? And speaking of rooms…

8. Without sound treatment, your studio is worthless

Once the trolls get tired of picking you apart your monitors, they’ll inevitably move on to the next low-hanging fruit: the lack of acoustic treatment in your studio. Oh, the eternal shame to be sans rock wool, bereft of bass traps, and short of sound-deadening panels. You may as well put your gear on Reverb and take up golfing because with those bare walls, you’re now persona non grata.

Don’t worry. Many home studios are without sound treatment of any kind. You can happily - and successfully - make music without it. Proper treatment could make things easier, sure, but only after spending a lot of money and/or time setting it up. Not to mention the fact that not everyone owns their own home and most landlords won’t take too kindly to you drilling a bunch of big holes in their property.

If you’re concerned about your room and don’t have the means to put up treatment, there’s always room correction software to help out.

9. DAWs have their own sound

Here’s a myth that refuses to die, despite plenty of tests having irrefutably proven otherwise. Every DAW has its own sound, some say, with Ableton Live leaving a different sonic fingerprint on a track than, say, Pro Tools or Logic Pro. And now even Bob Horn is claiming that Pro Tools meters have a sound too?

Let’s put this to bed once and for all: DAWs (and meters!) don’t sound different. They’re recording digitally to ones and zeroes. There’s no ‘sound’ being imprinted on them. Of course, a DAW's stock plugins will affect the sound you get out of them - but bouncing out audio as-is will give you the same audio file, every time.

10. Moog synths are low-quality now

Whenever a beloved company changes owners, rumours start to circulate. This is doubly true for Moog Music, who were bought by inMusic in 2023. Moog synths were famously made in Asheville, North Carolina and now that’s all changed, leading to a drastic drop in quality. Or so the gossip says.

While inMusic hasn’t gone into too much detail about what, in fact, has changed, it seems that Moog may have been manufacturing components in Asia all along, with assembly happening locally in Asheville. That will continue for Moog’s high-ticket items, while the rest of the products will be put together where the components are made.

As for a change in quality? While it’s true that some users are vocal about issues they’ve experienced with some modern Moog products such as the Grandmother, just as many have attested to their robustness and roadworthiness. Is this just a case of a vocal few dominating the conversation? Or a bias from people who disapprove of an independent brand being eaten up by a corporate giant? Either way, the vast majority of Moog users are not reporting problems.

Moog synthesizers continue to be highly-rated musical instruments with a sound that thousands adore. If you’re concerned about quality control, hang on to your warranty card (not a bad piece of advice for any purchase, certainly).

We hear a lot about hit songs having long runs at number one, but spare a thought for those that stayed at number two for numerous consecutive weeks but never managed to hit the top spot.

One notable example is Donna Lewis’s I Love You Always Forever, which peaked at number two on the Billboard Hot 100 almost exactly 30 years ago and remained there for nine weeks.

Born in Cardiff, Wales, Lewis was all but unknown before the song became a hit. Remarkably, what you hear on the finished record is pretty much exactly what Lewis recorded in her home studio – but as we’ll discover, things could have worked out very differently.

These days, it’s taken for granted that you can make a release-quality track from start to finish in your bedroom, but in the mid-’90s, most aspiring songwriters were working with far more limited technology, and Lewis, who had spent years trying to get a record deal in England without success, was one of them.

“I was working with my Tascam PortaStudio eight-track recorder and my little Alesis MMT-8 sequencer [an ‘80s multitrack MIDI recorder that enabled DAWless music-making before DAWless music-making was ever talked about],” she said in an interview with Sony Music Publishing earlier this year.

“I probably manifested that song because I was walking around the streets in Birmingham [UK], and I was thinking to myself, ‘I wonder what it's like to write a song where you get on stage and everybody knows it as soon as you start singing it?’ And so I had this ‘feels like’ [opening line from the song] in my head, that little melody, and got to Martin, my husband's office, and said, ‘Give me some paper. I need to just jot this down. You know, I did some manuscript lines, to write the melody, so I didn't forget it, as we didn't have phones in those days.”

There’s definitely something quaint about the idea of someone rushing to notate a musical idea rather than humming it into a phone or mobile recorder, but Lewis clearly knew she was onto something, and was determined not to lose it.

“I think some songs come on the wind and you just go with it,” she says. “I think that probably took a day or so to write because I was obsessed with the single note sound on the Korg M1 [a synth that Lewis had recently bought] so I started sequencing that, and then adding all these atmospheric sounds around it, and then I was ready for the melodic ideas.”

Discussing the song’s lyrics and title, Lewis explained: “Originally, it was called Lydia when I wrote it because at the time I was reading the book For the Love of Lydia by H E Bates – just a simple romantic novel set in the 1920s in the English countryside – and I just thought, ‘Oh, the verses will work well, you know, falling in love for the first time in this descriptive wonderful world.

“There's a line in the book – ‘I love you always forever, near and far closer together’ – and I just thought that was great. So that ended up being the chorus.”

Lewis has said that she had doubts about this main hook: “I remember trying to rewrite the chorus because it sounded too much like a nursery rhyme,” she told Celebrity Parents Magazine in 2023, “but when I did, it didn’t work, so I kept it the same.”

A good idea, as it turns out, but there were other potential changes along the way that could also have scuppered the song’s ultimate success. The demo eventually got into the hands of Jen Stark, who worked in Atlantic Records’ A&R department, which resulted in Lewis being flown out to the US to meet company boss Doug Morris.

“I wasn't that optimistic because I thought, ‘Oh, probably just another rejection,” Lewis admitted to DJ Bowie Jane in a podcast interview last year. “So I sang a bunch of songs for him, and then he said, ‘Congratulations, we'd like to offer you a record deal. And who do you fancy producing – Trevor Horn, Steve Lipson? And it was like, you know, all my heroes. And so it's a bit like a fairytale at that moment.”

Ultimately, neither Horn or Lipson was available, so Lewis ended up working on I Love You Always Forever with Canadian producer Pierre Marchand. After a while, though, she began to feel like the song was going in a direction that she didn’t like, so she ended up back in New York working with another producer, Kevin Killen.

“I’d recorded everything on my Korg M1 keyboard - the brass organ, the sequence, everything – and then when we came to record it [in the studio] he said, ‘Why don't we get Chris Botti [US trumpeter and composer] in to do all the brass section? OK, that sounds great. And we did a bunch of different things with it. But then when I went to meet with Jason Flom [record company exec] after it was finished, he said, ‘What do you think?’ And I said, ‘I do feel it's lost the magic.’”

At this point, it sounds like frustration was starting to creep in in some quarters: “I did have a couple of people saying, 'Oh God, you're being so obsessive, Donna.’ But it had – it had lost the magic, and so he said, 'Do you know what to do?’ And I said ‘I do.’

“So we went back in the studio. We got rid of – it sounds crazy – we got rid of all the real brass. We brought in all the Korg M1 corny brass organ, everything.”

The result is that, other than a re-recorded vocal, the finished version of I Love You Always Forever is pretty much identical to the demo. “I'm glad I stuck to my guns,” says Lewis. “It was hard, you know, because you can so easily say, ‘OK, yeah, you're right,’ but it definitely lost magic, and so we brought the magic back. And thank God, you know, it did what it's done.”

What is it?

The original MicroKorg is a tough act to follow. Released in 2002, the MicroKorg dominated its corner of the synth market in a way that few other instruments have this side of the Millenium, shifting units in the hundreds of thousands over the course of two decades.

It’s tough to say exactly why the MicroKorg was so much more successful than other synths of the era. It was neither the most powerful nor the most groundbreaking virtual analogue of its time, being largely based on the engine of Korg’s existing MS-2000. Its matrix-style programming interface could be fiddly too, and made designing patches something of a slog.

But there was also a lot that the MicroKorg obviously got right. It was affordable and accessible, with a genre-based approach to presets that made exploring its sounds feel fast and fun. Crucially, many of those presets sounded great too – it was capable of convincing retro pads, basses and lively arp patterns, as well as acting as a vocoder via its detachable gooseneck mic.

Having tried, with mixed success, to evolve the MicroKorg concept with the XL and XL+ in the late ‘00s, Korg finally launched a true successor in 2024.

The MicroKorg 2 is another virtual analogue synth, although its oscillators are now also capable of generating sounds through additive synthesis and PCM samples. Once again, at the core of its workflow is a chunky dial that lets users browse through eight banks of presets that are grouped by genres.

The biggest change from the original MicroKorg is an increase in polyphony, from four voices to eight. The MicroKorg 2 is also bi-timbral, allowing it to simultaneously play two patches of up-to four voices each.

As with the original, the instrument ships with a gooseneck mic for use with its internal vocoder. That section is further upgraded with harmonizer and hard-tuning vocal processors, all of which can be used alongside the synth engine thanks to the bi-timbral design.

More recently, significant firmware updates have refined the MicroKorg 2 – so how does it stack up to the legacy of the original in 2026?

Pricing

Launch price: £479 / $549 / €599

Performance

It would be doing the MicroKorg 2 a disservice to imply it’s merely a vessel for presets, but as with the original version the eight banks of genre-themed patches are the core of its design. Each of these is broken into four categories, the first three of which are labelled Classic, Modern and Future, while the fourth is saved for user sounds.

This method of selecting sounds feels like a throwback, particularly compared to something like the plugin-style library found on Arturia's AstroLab 37. I quite like the MicroKorg’s retro approach, although I’ll concede this may be down to nostalgia, seeing as the original was the first hardware synth I ever owned back in the mid-’00s. Other might understandably find it a little naff.

The sounds are generally good quality and many feel highly usable. Despite coming labelled with specific genres, a key part of the original MicroKorg’s appeal lay in how versatile many of its sounds were – even if a few verged into cheesy territory. Unlike some synths’ presets that come overloaded with modulation and effects, the MicroKorg was a great source of classic virtual analogue basses, pads and – a particular speciality – arp lines.

This successor does a good job of building on this legacy, although the increased complexity of the synth engine and the addition of effects does mean that some presets veer a little into ‘show off’ territory. For the most part the banks are full of sounds you could easily imagine using in the real world, either in a DAW project or for jamming with other musicians.

Take control

As with the original, parameter changes are handled by the five rotaries that sit to the top right of the interface. Here, however, the overall experience of editing sounds is a vast improvement on the original. This is largely thanks to the 2.8-inch colour LCD display, which is probably the MicroKorg 2’s smartest addition.

Although it’s not massive, it’s streets ahead of the basic numerical display of the original version and also a vast improvement compared to the simplistic displays found on other recent Korg synths like the Modwave or Opsix.

Thanks to the new display it’s easier to keep track of what the five parameter controls are doing and as a result they’re able to do more. Rather than controlling a set parameter across every patch, these function more like macro controls, changing what aspect of the synth sound each alters depending on the currently loaded patch.

The screen is most useful when editing deeper parameters or designing sounds from scratch. The original MicroKorg relied on the user navigating a convoluted matrix printed beneath the controls and then setting values numerically. The enhanced screen makes finding parameters much, much easier, and visualises things like envelopes and filters in a clearer and more engaging way. It’s a radical improvement.

The bi-timbral design works well too. As with the original, arpeggiated synth lines are a speciality of the virtual analogue engine and these work particularly well for dual layer patches, allowing users to pair a melodic arp with underlying chord progression, a wash of ambience or a deeper bass patch.

That arpeggiator has always been a core part of the MicroKorg’s personality, and little has changed in this regard for the MicroKorg 2. This is an easy-to-use and immediate arpeggiator, which makes use of a hold function and ten selectable patterns to quickly turn chords into melodic patterns.

Thankfully, the MicroKorg 2 keeps the step arpeggiator feature of the original, which lets users engage or disengage individual notes in an arpeggio using the preset selector buttons. It’s always been a nice feature for quickly creating and editing simple riffs and patterns.

Whereas the arp is a fairly like-for-like copy of the original, other aspects of the MicroKorg design have been more significantly overhauled.

The most notable of these is the vocoder. The MicroKorg 2 once again ships with a gooseneck mic that can slot into the rear panel of the synth and connect to its audio input. As on the original this can be used to input a modulator signal into the synth’s vocoder engine. Here, however, that engine has been upgraded and expanded into a full vocal processing module.

Alongside the existing vocoder the module now has hard tune – real time Auto-Tune-like pitch correction – and harmonizer modes. Both can create effective, if slightly dated-sounding effects, although neither offer the comprehensive functionality you'll find in dedicated software or hardware competitors on the market.

Synth section

The expansion of the synth engine itself is more successful. MicroKorg 2 layers a third oscillator into the virtual analogue engine, and all oscillators have been expanded with additive DWGS and OneShot PCM sample modes.

The oscillator section is also now capable of cross modulation, allowing for ring mod and phase modulation. As of the v2.0 firmware update, the third osc also has a ‘low’ mode, allowing it to function as a wide-range LFO that can act as an additional modulation source.

These new features make MicroKorg 2 a more versatile synth than its predecessor and, coupled with the improved editing workflow, make it a much more interesting environment to build sounds from scratch. That’s enhanced further by a simple but effective modulation matrix, which lets users route two mod sources for each destination, making use of the synth’s LFOs, envelopes, and a random voltage-style Analog source.

It’s arguably a shame that the filter section doesn’t offer the various emulations found on other recent digital synths from Korg, which can make use of virtual recreations of the distinctive circuits found on the MS-20, Polysix and more. The MicroKorg 2 offers a more straightforward resonant multimode filter with 2- and 4-pole low-pass and high-pass, and 2-pole band-pass modes.

The onboard looper and effects module are the MicroKorg 2’s strongest additions, and both were significantly enhanced with last year’s free 2.0 firmware update.

The Loop Recorder can capture and overdub audio from the synth itself as well as the mic and aux input. That in itself is a fun tool for basic recording and layering, but the functionality has been expanded further since launch, adding capabilities including step sequencing and loop slicing.

This latter feature is particularly fun, as it allows users to capture a loop of audio and then slice and retrigger segments across the keyboard. It all adds up to a module that is great for instantaneous fun, and feels refreshingly different to the sequencers found on other synths at this price point.

The effects section, meanwhile, is pretty run of the mill in its basic functionality, with modulation, delay and reverb effect slots, although each sounds great and there’s a good level of control over both sound parameters and routing options.

The effects modules became more noteworthy as of the v2.0 firmware though, which opened them up for use with Korg’s Logue SDK. This is an open source format, originally developed for the company’s Prologue and Minilogue XD synths, which allows third-party developers and users to code their own effects and oscillators that can be loaded into the synth via a librarian.

Although there are a variety of paid and free expansions that make use of the SDK, Sinevibes is the developer most closely associated with ‘Logue’ expansions. The company’s site offers a range of MicroKorg-compatible expansions that include granular reverb, multiple types of distortion, new modulation effects and much more.

Verdict

Overall, the MicroKorg 2 does an excellent job of updating the formula of the original in a way that modernises the design while still feeling familiar.

It’s a shame, however, that the keyboard itself does little to improve on the 25-year-old design of the original MicroKorg. Although the three-octave keyboard has a nicer action than the springy keys of the first generation MicroKorg, the mini keys themselves are the same fiddly size and, although the keyboard is velocity sensitive, there’s no aftertouch (as is found on the similarly priced Arturia MiniFreak, for example).

Given the expanded capabilities of the engine and improved modulation system, it feels like a real missed opportunity to not offer aftertouch within the synth itself. It's a shame too that the MicroKorg doesn't respond to poly-aftertouch or MPE, although it's more understandable that these options aren’t included for the keyboard itself.

Things like this might sound small, but could prove to be make-or-break for the MicroKorg 2 in the long run. Although this is still an excellent and approachable synth at this price point, it has entered a far busier and more competitive market than the original did in the early 2000s.

Microkorg 2 is a great workhorse virtual analogue, but it runs up against more characterful synths from the likes of Arturia and Korg themselves. It’s a worthy successor to one of the most recognisable synths of all time – but it feels unlikely to replicate its predecessor’s iconic status.

Hands-on demos

Korg MicroKorg 2

Alternatives

Specifications

Here’s something we didn’t have on our bingo card for 2026: there’s a new release on the way from Jean-Michel Jarre. But it isn’t a new album or even one of his multimedia extravaganzas in an unlikely location. Oh no. It’s something almost quaintly old-fashioned for him: a book.

And it isn’t a memoir. Well, not a straightforward one anyway. Instead, it's a proper weighty tome that tells the story of electronic music, a genre he played a not-insignificant role in shaping himself.

Machines: History Of Electronic Music will be published via Thames & Hudson in November and purports to cover the whole nine yards, from Luigi Rossolo’s 1913 Futurist manifesto The Art Of Noises, via Surrealism, Bauhaus (the art school not the goth band), Westdeutscher Rundfunk, the BBC Radiophonic Workshop and Kraftwerk. The book also charts the technical breakthroughs, such as tape manipulation, the switch from analogue to digital recording and AI-assisted music.

Contributors include Vince Clarke, Gary Numan, Nicolas Godin of Air, Richie Hawtin, Armin Van Buuren, Hans Zimmer, Gillian Gilbert of New Order and - perhaps rather more unexpectedly - Pete Townshend.

But as well as being a history of the music, Machines sounds like it will be a must for devotees of the actual hardware, too. The publisher’s blurb promises that Jarre "invites readers into his formidable archive - one of the world’s largest and most significant collections of electronic and electro-acoustic instruments.

“Through these machines, Jarre traces the evolution of a century of sonic experimentation, underscoring the ideas, technologies and cultural movements that shaped electronic music as we know it today.” It also features “130 curated, specially photographed examples - from iconic modular synthesizers to rare prototypes and bespoke one-offs.”

It also sounds like there will be plenty of personal reminiscing from the 77-year-old electronic pioneer. Machines, Thames & Hudson say, “is the account of an artist whose life and work are inseparable from the history of electronic music itself. Jarre reflects on his childhood fascination with reel-to-reel tape machines… Personal anecdotes and expert commentary are interwoven with rare archival material, technical schematics, recreations of sonic experiments, and sequenced stills from legendary live performances.”

The book is out on 24 November and, if you’re into doing the pre-order thing, head over to the Thames & Hudson website.

Fledgling Hong Kong-based synth outfit Mach Devices has unveiled the MD-7, a stylish, innovative and open-source mini-synth controlled via motorized discs that might look a little familiar to owners of the Teenage Engineering TP-7 field recorder.

The MD-7's two discs can not only be used to navigate menus, dial in parameters and scrub through sequences – as demonstrated in the Instagram video embedded below – but also provide haptic feedback that the company promises will allow users to "stop looking at the screen and start feeling the patch". (This will be helpful, as the screen is fairly compact.)

What this means in practice is that the discs don't merely sense rotation, but also communicate information to the user through the varying response of their FOC motors. The synth will adjust the resistance of the discs' rotation depending on the parameter that's being tweaked, and can simulate mechanical detents that represent stepped values or even create "virtual walls" when the end of a parameter's range is reached.

MD-7 is also equipped with a backlit keyboard comprised of 13 button keys, three smaller buttons and the aforementioned 1.65" IPS display. In the product images, the display squeezes oscillator, filter and envelope controls for the MD-7's synth engine into its limited real estate, which admittedly looks a little crowded. (Mach Devices notes that the UI shown is in development and subject to change.)

Speaking of the synth engine, no specifics have been provided, but the display shows a basic subtractive architecture with four oscillator waveforms, a resonant multimode filter and a standard ADSR envelope. The promo video also shows a drum looper and 16-step sequencer, its playback being controlled DJ-style by the motor discs, which is an interesting touch.

Aside from the haptic discs, the most intriguing aspect of MD-7 is its open-source software platform: Mach Devices says that the instrument's firmware, including its DSP engine, modulation system and sequencer, will all be publicly available on GitHub, meaning that owners can customize its operation and build their own features, workflows and even new sound engines.

As for connectivity, MD-7 features dual USB-C ports – one for power, and the other for MIDI and audio output and mic input from compatible USB microphones. There's also a 3.5mm headphone output and a microSD card slot for storage.

Comparisons are unsurprisingly being drawn with Teenage Engineering's distinctive designs, but the MD-7's price is one point on which the two companies diverge: the synth is generously priced at $299/£230.

After going viral on Instagram, the MD-7 is currently sold out for pre-orders, and Mach Devices says it will be available in September 2026.

Find out more on Mach Devices' website.

InMusic – the parent company of Moog Music – has donated an extensive collection of vintage synthesizers, prototype models, schematics and letters to the Bob Moog Foundation Archives.

The vast collection of 4,489 items includes a Fairlight CMI, a Synton System 3000 modular system, and a bench-model Minimoog Voyager prototype.

There are also letters and schematics from legendary synth pioneer Bob Moog's personal office files and effects, alongside rare product catalogues and industry magazines dating back decades.

The donation shines a light on Moog's personal and professional life, revealing thoughts, ideas, and providing fascinating insights into his relationships with other visionaries like Wendy Carlos and Herb Deutsch through letters of correspondence.

The Bob Moog Foundation was established in 2005 to pay tribute to the godfather of subtractive synthesis and an icon of electronic music. The collection now consists of over 15,000 materials, preserved at the so-called 'Moogseum' in Asheville, North Carolina, where Moog lived for the final 25 years of his life.

"The Bob Moog Foundation serves as an essential steward of one of the most important legacies in electronic music," said Joe Richardson, President of Moog Music and Executive Vice President of inMusic.

"We are proud to contribute these materials so they can be preserved and made accessible to researchers, educators, musicians, and fans."

The Foundation's Executive Director Michelle Moog-Koussa added: "This donation helps solidify the Bob Moog Foundation Archives as a world-class repository for Moog and electronic music history. Every donated piece helps us tell the story of Bob's complex, indelible legacy."

Visit the Moogseum's website.

A listing has appeared on music gear marketplace Reverb for a Yamaha CS-80 that the seller claims belonged to legendary Greek composer and producer Vangelis, priced at a whopping £400,000 – more than $534,000 in US dollars. (And that's with a 10% discount.)

"This is Vangelis' very first Yamaha CS-80," the product description reads. The seller Synthesizerman describes the synth as "fully functional with its original stand and lid", and says it's in "excellent condition", aside from small cosmetic blemishes and a cigarette burn on one of its keys.

"This is the real deal. Early prototype no serial number. It can demolish a whole block of flats. This is the 'Spiral' CS-80, historic. Priced accordingly."

If this is a legitimate claim — and it's important to note that there's no evidence provided that this synth actually belonged to Vangelis, other than the seller's word — then this would be a "holy grail" synth and a collectors' item of historical significance.

The CS-80 is one of the most sought-after vintage synthesizers and regularly fetches five-figure sums on the second-hand market. A well-maintained example that was verifiably owned by Vangelis (the musical figure most closely associated with the instrument) would represent a rare, museum-grade piece of musical history.

What's more, if someone forks out the asking price for this CS-80, this could well be the highest price ever paid for a celebrity-owned synth, far surpassing the $115,200 paid at auction last year for Florian Schneider of Kraftwerk's EMS Synthi A. (Interestingly, Schneider's Sennheiser VSM-201 vocoder fetched more than double that, selling for $256,000.)

Though this CS-80 has the potential to smash that record, the fact that it’s been casually listed on Reverb rather than sold through a professional auction house with independent authentication is likely to dissuade buyers from parting with their cash.

The seller claims that the CS-80 was used by Vangelis on Spiral, widely regarded as a landmark release in electronic music history, and an album that laid the groundwork for the vastly influential Blade Runner soundtrack and demonstrated the power of Yamaha’s then-innovative CS-80.

The CS-series instruments were some of the first fully integrated polyphonic synthesizers and some of the earliest commercial synths to feature preset memory. In a 1984 interview, Vangelis himself called the CS-80 “the most important synthesizer in my career", describing it as "the best analogue synthesizer design there has ever been.”

This iconic instrument was pivotal in shaping the futuristic, ethereal soundscape of Vangelis’ score for 1982 classic Blade Runner, but even if this CS-80 was indeed used on Spiral, there’s no guarantee that Vangelis – who recorded with multiple CS-80 synths – reprised it for later projects.

Whether the listing is genuine or not remains to be seen – we've reached out to the seller for comment.

He might be best known as a synth-pop artist, but Howard Jones was originally on a path to becoming a classical pianist.

At the insistence of his mother, Jones took lessons as a child, but in a new interview with Rock & Roll High School, he says that she also had a love of pop music. And, as he was looking for someone to inspire him, he found one artist in particular who was able to bring these two worlds together to create something truly spectacular.

“I saw the classical music as my way to get good at playing the pop and rock stuff, because Keith Emerson was my hero, and he was a brilliant concert-level classical pianist and also the best rocker you could get, for keyboards,” says Jones. “So he was an absolute hero.”

Jones’ first foray into rock music came at school when he formed a band, Warrior, writing what he describes as “complex, 20-minute, multi-sectioned pieces that were very, very difficult for the rest of the band to learn and play.”

They managed it, though, and it was the drummer from that band who gave Jones his first taste of owning a synth.

“He made me a monophonic synth from an electronics magazine kit,” he confirms. “Having seen Emerson at the Isle Of Wight Festival in 1970 playing the huge modular Moog, I'd heard how amazing synths could be in that context, and [I was looking for] any chance to get anywhere close to it. The synth he made me would go out of tune all the time, but it was a synth, and it was amazing.”

What of the ‘one-man electronic band’ concept that would eventually become a Jones trademark, though? Where did that idea come from?

“I was teaching piano, and one of my students lent me a drum machine,” he remembers. “And so I put the drum machine on top of the piano and was playing along to the terrible, like, bossa nova rhythms and stuff that you had in those days. It was very primitive, but it sparked this idea of the one-man electronic show – that I could have keyboards and the drum machine and, you know, link everything together with MIDI and triggers and little sequences, and that's what I set about doing.”

Jones would go on to have hits on both sides of the Atlantic, carving out a successful niche in the ‘80s synth-pop landscape. The influence of Emerson remained, though, notably on the synth blasts that feature in the intro to 1983 hit What Is Love?

“I think there's a lot of Keith in my work,” agrees Jones, “But yeah, you know: fanfares – that's what I think of it as. Absolutely, 100%.”

Native Instruments has announced the release of Super*Saw, a new soft synth developed in collaboration with AG Cook, the Grammy-nominated producer, solo artist and PC Music founder best known for his work with Charli XCX, Caroline Polachek and Beyoncé.

Super*Saw is inspired by the supersaw, a classic synth patch that has figured prominently in Cook’s production work. Built by layering multiple detuned sawtooth waves together, it’s a bold, bright and aggressive sound that’s closely associated with trance music of the ‘90s and early ‘00s. Though the technique itself predated the synth, it was Roland’s virtual analogue JP-8000 that popularized the sound through its dedicated Super Saw oscillator.

Native Instruments says that Super*Saw seeks to push the supersaw “further than it was designed to go”, turning a "time-consuming production technique into a fast, fun, and flexible workflow” and producing everything from “rich harmonies to metallic dissonance, ravey leads to impossible glides, euphoria to tension, all from the same sound source”.

At the heart of Super*Saw are two independent 16-saw oscillator banks, Swarm 1 and Swarm 2. The Swarms panel, on the left-hand side of the interface, adjusts the number of active oscillators in each swarm and fine-tunes the pitch, panning, and amplitude of each saw wave, and three Motion controls introduce modulation to these parameters that’s applied to each oscillator individually.

In Super*Saw’s central panel is the Morpher, an XY pad that can morph continuously between four different patch states in each corner of the grid. (You can also hit the dice icons underneath to instantly generate a random patch.)

Here you’ll also find controls for the amp envelope and filter, which can be applied to each Swarm individually and offers both 2-pole and 4-pole slopes, along with high-, band- and low-pass modes and keytracking. Super*Saw also has three onboard effects: chorus, delay and reverb.

Super*Saw is an eight-voice polyphonic synth, but also features monophonic, unison and poly-unison assignment modes. In the Voice Control menu, you’ll find controls to adjust the detuning and stereo width of the voices in Unison mode, along with sophisticated glide controls that can be used to set individual portamento times for each of the synth’s eight voices, and a Shape control that adjusts the contour of the portamento.

The synth features five modulation sources, each of which can be assigned to an unlimited number of parameters. There’s a single tempo-syncable LFO with rate, shape, phase and retrig controls that can be applied per-voice or globally, and this is joined by two tempo-syncable, velocity-sensitive ADSR envelopes.

You’ve also got the mod wheel and the Voice Offset section, a bank of eight faders that each represent one of the instrument’s voices: when routed to any potential modulation target, that control will be offset by the value dialled in at the fader.

Though there’s plenty of scope here for manual sound design, Super*Saw also comes with a broad preset library of AG Cook-style patches, covering basses, leads, pads, plucks, soundscapes and more.

We spent some time with Super*Saw prior to launch, and were impressed by the depth of control and diversity of sound on offer in an instrument that’s designed to explore the possibilities of a single synthesis technique.

Much more than just a Native Instruments plugin with a famous producer’s name stamped on it, Super*Saw feels like a genuine collaboration that represents an extension of AG Cook’s artistry. Capturing the bold and distinctive hyperpop sound design Cook experimented with on projects like Charli XCX’s Brat, the plugin takes the classic supersaw sound to new heights with its focused but versatile architecture.

“It’s funny having my own synth plugin,” Cook says in the video embedded above. “It’s something that’s always been a goal of mine… I’m really interested in very specific tools, and I’ve been excited when I’ve seen certain artists do their own tools around the ideology they have.

“I’ve really enjoyed building on what was established as the supersaw in the ‘90s. A lot of instrument design is about taking things that exist in the world and looking at the corners of it, like: ‘what could we do?’, or ‘what could be improved or flipped on its head?’ To actually be involved in that sort of process, that’s the enjoyment – you’re building into this family tree of a musical idea that was started a long time ago.”

Native Instruments Super*Saw is available now for macOS and Windows in VST3/AU formats, and is priced at $99/€99/£89.

Find out more on Native Instruments' website.

Behringer has made the AKS Mini available for pre-order, an analogue mini-synth inspired by the EMS Synthi AKS, a legendary '70s instrument used by Pink Floyd, Brian Eno and Depeche Mode.

Released in 1972, the Synthi AKS was designed as a portable development of EMS' VCS3 synth, repackaging the modular instrument into a suitcase-sized enclosure with a built-in touch keyboard and digital sequencer. Among its many quirks, the AKS is known for its joystick controller and 16x16 pin matrix, which acted as a modulation matrix and routing system.

Behringer's take on the AKS is loosely based on the architecture of the original synth and retains some key features, like the X/Y joystick, while adding a handful of modern enhancements and dropping the pin matrix. A compact instrument that weighs only 360g, an AKS clone it is not, but more of a quirky mini-synth that draws some playful inspiration from EMS' classic '70s instrument.

Behringer's paraphonic AKS Mini is equipped with three analogue VCOs (voltage-controlled oscillators) with variable saw and square waveforms and a large blue AKS-style detuning control, running into an analogue resonant low-pass filter. Behringer says that both the VCOs and VCF are based on a "faithful reproduction" of the original EMS Synthi AKS' circuitry.

These are complemented by a dedicated LFO with sine, saw, square and random waveforms that can modulate both the pitch and filter, and a four-stage envelope inspired by the original synth's trapezoid-style controls.

Behringer's AKS Mini also features a two-axis joystick that can be assigned to any two parameters for hands-on control, and a 27-key touch-sensitive keyboard. Sequencing is available via the 16-step sequencer with 10 pattern slots and parameter automation, and there's a digital spring reverb emulation onboard.

On the connectivity front, Behringer's AKS Mini features a 5-pin DIN MIDI input on the front panel, along with 3.5mm headphone output and sync input. There's also a USB-C connection for power and MIDI.

The Behringer AKS Mini is priced at £99/€119 and now available for pre-order.

Find out more on Behringer's website.

A chord-generating synth that its creators describe as a “harmony machine”, Nopia is a unique instrument that caught the attention of millions with its harmony-centric workflow and pastel-coloured, minimalist design when it was first teased in 2023.

The synth went unexpectedly viral after creators Martin Grieco and Rocío Gal shared a video of a prototype produced for a design competition, picking up nearly three million views in the space of a week.

Three years on, and the small but passionate team behind Nopia has finally finished development, and is almost ready to share the finished product with the world: Nopia MK1.

Ahead of its release later this year, we invited the Nopia team to visit the MusicRadar Tech HQ and show our viewers what the instrument can do. Fortunately for us, they obliged, giving us an exclusive first look at a synth that, until now, has only appeared in a handful of short videos produced by its creators.

As Martin explains in the demo above, Nopia’s harmony-focused workflow is built around three core controls: the Chord Builder (a one-octave keyboard) the Tonal Selector (12 buttons laid out keyboard-style) and the Extensions Dial.

Between them, these can be used to play all diatonic chords from every key, with the Extensions Dial adding colour and character through chord extensions, the slider above the Tonal Selector allowing the player to explore different octaves and voicings, and a switch on the front selecting major or minor tonalities.

These feed into a multitimbral sound engine that draws on a combination of virtual analogue synthesis and samples across four distinct modules: Keys, Bass, Arp and Pad. Individual notes from the chosen chord can be played via the touch-sensitive strum plate in the top-right corner and the slider beneath the Tonal Selector can be used to perform polyphonic pitch-bend between chords.

Nopia is also equipped with a number of effects, including a filter, delay, reverb, saturation, tape emulation and beat repeat, and offers comprehensive connectivity that covers per-module MIDI output via TRS, MIDI input, clock in/out, stereo TRS audio outputs, USB MIDI and a sustain pedal jack.

While the team behind Nopia have yet to share an official release date, we’re told that the instrument is “basically finished” and that they’re aiming to launch within “a couple of months”. We also learned that Nopia will be priced at “around £550”, though this is subject to change.

Find out more on Nopia's website.

Korg turned up to Superbooth in a rather coquettish mood this year, teasing attendees with a new synth displayed proudly at the centre of its booth, albeit covered with a blue tarp to mask its identity.

This mystery forthcoming instrument wasn’t the company’s only surprise though, as the Korg also used the show to quietly soft-launch a new addition to its DIY Nu:Tekt range, the NTS-4 – which is now getting a proper release.

The NTS-4 is a six-channel analogue performance mixer. It ships in DIY kit form, like other products in Korg’s Nu:Tekt range, but building the device requires no soldering or electronics experience and according to Korg the build should only take a matter of minutes.

Its six channels are fed via four stereo and two mono minijack inputs. These latter two are equipped with attenuator switches that can flip the inputs between line and Eurorack level operation. There are also stereo send and return minijacks on the mixer’s top panel that can be used to integrate external effects.

The NTS-4 also has internal effects of its own though, in the form of both Send FX and master Total FX. The former can select between delay, ping pong delay, two types of hall reverb, two slap reverbs and chorus. The Total FX has low- and high-pass filters, along with isolator, flanger, phaser, decimator, drive, distortion, compressor and limiter modes.

Each of the six mixer channels is equipped with mute and cue buttons – the latter routed to the top panel headphone output – along with a send level control. The two mono channels also have pan position controls.

The NTS-4 has a pair of unbalanced ¼-inch main outputs on its rear panel. It can also act as an audio interface to stream to Mac, PC or mobile devices via its USB-C port, which is also used for power. The top panel also features a minijack MIDI output that can be used to route MIDI from a DAW or USB device to external hardware.

The NTS-4 isn’t Korg’s first attempt at a desktop mixer. Back in 2018 the brand released the Volca Mix, a mixer companion for its popular collection of compact synths and drum machiners. We were fairly underwhelmed by the Volca Mix, however, due to its fiddly controls and lack of MIDI or USB connectivity.

The NTS-4 looks like it fixes many of the Mix’s failings though, and as a result it has the potential to be a far more competent hub for a Volca setup – or any collection of mini synths you might have to hand.

The NTS-4 is available now priced at $249/€219/£189. Head to the Korg website for more information.

Stockhausen. Silver Apples. Forbidden Planet. Before the development of what we think of as synthesizers, there was test and measurement equipment. Raw oscillators, filters and amplifiers intended for not musical but industrial purposes. At some point, experimental musicians realised that if you amplified the electric signals they put out, you could generate, process, and control audio signals.

It was Bob Moog and Don Buchla who took these raw building blocks and added musical control, and the rest is history. But for a certain subset of musicians, this original equipment is very much not history; it still holds plenty of potential for sonic experimentation.

Curious about how to incorporate test equipment into your own studio and productions? Grab some ear protection, sign this waiver, and get ready to hear the most beautiful sine wave you’ve ever heard in your life.

“Test equipment has very little to do with traditional synthesizers in terms of workflow and signal chain,” says musician Andrea Taeggi, who often works with the gear. “With a standard synth, you typically think in terms of oscillators, filters, envelopes, VCAs and a defined signal path. With test and measurement gear, that structure often doesn’t really exist in the same way.”

Keyboard synthesizers - and even modular setups, to an extent - present a structured and interconnected whole, a finished product built upon components that started life as scientific equipment. Early pioneers in electronic music discovered that with a little coaxing, they could make sound with it, and by recording it and manipulating the tape, create music.

This equipment is generally referred to as test and measurement equipment. Rikkert Brok, the studio manager at Willem Twee Studios in the Netherlands, which has one of the world’s most sophisticated examples of such a setup, explains.

“Test equipment was used, for instance, in radio and telecommunication to measure signals, but also for acoustic measurements,” he says. “For instance, a sine wave oscillator could be used in radio to test a transmitter.”

Some gear didn’t make sound on its own but could still be used as part of a music production system, like lock-in amplifiers and boxcar integrators. “They don't make sounds themselves,” says Rikkert, “but you can more or less see them as really complex kinds of filters.”

Housed inside a 1960s nuclear bunker somewhere near the Welsh border is Cold War Synths. Run by producer and archaeologist Matt Thomas (King Unique), Cold War Synths is the culmination of Matt’s interests in a number of different facets of music production. “It is a decision to do something with a load of equipment and a load of interest, and bring it together in a physical place,” he explains.

Although you can find some pretty amazing synthesizers there, including a Yamaha CS-80, Roland Jupiter-4 and EMS VCS3, the special focus is on test and measurement equipment.

“The earliest piece I've got is [from] 1948, which is within a year of the phrase ‘Cold War’ being coined,” Matt explains as to why test equipment. “That's basically an LFO. It's a 0.1 Hertz to 1K sine oscillator. Looks like it's been taken out of a Lancaster bomber. (And the) sound of these things. There shouldn't be better sine waves because it's a sine wave. These are better sine waves. They just are. Tonally, they just sound lovely.”

Matt continues to list the appeal of this old and esoteric gear. Aside from the pure sonics, there’s the relative affordability. “Financially, while they're not cheap cheap, they are compared to the levels that synthesizer collecting has driven things to now,” he says. “It's a chance to get really unaffordable, unavailable ‘50s and ‘60s tones into the work I do. (With) 1960s Moog modules, there aren’t enough kidneys to even buy one.”

The gear also allows Matt to experiment in a way that traditional synthesizers no longer do. “I'm very familiar with making electronic music,” he says. “I know what's going to happen. Playing with this gear, I'm much more likely to do the wrong thing. Infinitely more likely.”

The gear itself encourages this, he stresses: “The interfaces are, by their very nature, going to deliver different outcomes. The impenetrability of some of this equipment, which was never meant to be used for sound in the majority of the cases, means you're going to bump into wrong outcomes for which you go, ‘God, that's amazing’.”

Willem Twee Studios is a four-room studio complex in The Netherlands. For fans of test and measurement equipment, however, it’s Studio One that is the real Mecca. Packed floor to ceiling with rare and unusual pieces, it’s the kind of place that experimental electronic musicians dream of visiting. Much of it was originally sourced by musician Hans Kulk, who started collecting it in the 1990s when institutions were letting it all go as part of a move towards digital technologies.

Uniquely, Studio One has been organised with a specific workflow inspired by the WDR studio in Cologne in the early 1950s, the place where Karlheinz Stockhausen made some of his most famous electronic works.

“Those instruments weren't used in the, let's say, more traditional electronic music studios, which started popping up in the mid-‘50s,” says manager Rikkert Brok. “We try to keep that intact, that workflow of setting up a certain patch with a certain technique, using the mixing desk as a part of your instruments, using some basic treatments like filtering, echo, reverb, ring modulation, and then creating a sound.”

Although it may look like a modular system from a distance, just with larger pieces, it is in fact quite different. There’s no MIDI or even CV control, for starters.

“We call it the manual studio,” says Rikkert. “All modulations you have to do by hand. There are some function generators that have voltage control, but they're from a later area. Really early stuff like the equipment from the ‘50s doesn't have any CV or input usually.”

There are also certain techniques when working with test and measurement equipment that don’t apply to modern modular systems - and that can be daunting for first-time visitors. “Studio One can be intimidating for people when you first get in,” notes Rikkert. To help visitors to the studio overcome this, there’s an engineer always on staff to make sure that you understand techniques and how to make a patch.

One of Willem Twee’s most unusual pieces of equipment - and possibly the ultimate example of this kind of music production - is its Hitachi 240 analog computer. Unlike digital computers, which process computations with ones and zeroes, analog computers use physical processes like electricity to solve mathematical equations. And when you amplify that electricity, you get - you guessed it - sound.

“It's a bit between a breadboard and a modular (system) of test and measurement equipment,” explains Rikkert of the Hitachi 240. “There are many more patch possibilities in an analog computer than in a regular modular system.”

One artist who has done extensive work at Willem Twee is Andrea Taeggi, a trained jazz pianist who has found inspiration in making music with this unusual gear. “In many cases, the flexibility you get from a dedicated studio with test equipment is actually greater than what you’d achieve with a self-built Eurorack or standalone modular setup,” Andrea says on why someone might want to take this approach, “because the tools are infinitely more flexible and designed for high-precision signal manipulation rather than strictly musical needs.”

Like Matt Thomas of Cold War Synths, Andrea also prizes this ancient equipment for its sound quality. “Signal generators in particular can be extremely raw and harmonically rich,” Andrea explains. “High-precision oscillators are capable of producing sine waves with a level of purity that is difficult to replicate with almost any other type of gear. Some units are designed specifically just to output a highly accurate sine tone, and that level of beauty, precision and clarity can be very inspiring.”

Although Andrea has worked with all manner of test equipment, he declares Willem Twee’s analog computer the most unique. “These machines were originally used as flight simulators, by NASA and even the military to model and predict complex systems, things like the stability or instability of a structure, for example. When translated into a musical context, this opens up the possibility of generating functions with extremely unusual shapes, as well as unusual control sources.”

Andrea also identifies the open-ended and experimental nature of the Hitachi 240 as a key creative aspect: “Unlike a conventional synthesizer, it doesn’t come with predefined functions. You can patch it to behave like a filter, an oscillator, or many other signal-processing blocks depending on your configuration.”

You can hear Andrea’s work on the analog computer in his albums Zimní Král and Nattdett.

“It does help to recognise that part of this journey is getting your head a bit around electricity,” answers Matt Thomas when asked if he has any advice for people wanting to try working with test equipment.

“Most gear has an output which is in volts. Try and keep it under one if you want to be absolutely within your mixer spec.” To make sure you’re not going to blow anything up, Matt recommends, “Always remember: it's not spitting out sound, it's spitting out voltage.” One way to make sure you don’t destroy any of your regular gear by running test equipment through it is to put it through a burner mixer first, or better yet, a passive (non-powered) mixer to act as a voltage attenuator.

Finding the gear probably won’t be difficult. Pieces are available on online auction sites like eBay, as well as at car boot sales. Also, try second-hand fairs for radio enthusiasts. If you’re really serious, you can try calling universities or government institutions to see if they have any old gear lying around that they don’t need anymore, like the filter that came off a nuclear submarine from the 1960s in the Cold War Synths studio.

As for pieces to start with, Rikkert at Willem Twee suggests function generators. “They’re basically oscillators with multiple waveforms,” he says. “They’re pretty versatile and depending on the brands, you can find them. They're still available for a reasonable price.”

When you’re ready for more, you can expand. “Definitely your oscillators, a filter, a noise generator, and some kind of pulse generator, which you already have inside your function generator,” continues Rikkert, listing other pieces that beginners should be on the look out for. “There you have the basic core elements, which in the ‘50s you would use to create electronic music. Of course, don't forget an analog mixing desk, which is a big part of your instrumentation.”

As for working with a vintage analog computer, your best bet is to contact Willem Twee Studios about using theirs.

“Another accessible entry point,” says Andrea Taeggi, “is hardware like Bernd Ullmann's THAT (The Analog Thing), which is an affordable and portable analog computer. It allows you to begin learning how these systems function and how they can be applied creatively in a musical context.” Andrea also recommends exploring Eurorack modules like Make Noise Music’s Maths module, which, “like analog computers, does not rely on traditional ADSR envelopes, but works through attenuators. It is a powerful control signal generator as well, definitely in line with what one can achieve with an analog computer.”

Lastly, there is also software that emulates test and measurement equipment available. Musician and YouTuber Hainbach has made a variety of plugins in collaboration with AudioThing that recreate devices like a passive bandpass filter, the Hewlett-Packard Word Generator 8006A, and much more.

What is it?

Modal Electronics has had a turbulent few years, running into financial difficulties in 2023 and consequently undergoing a fairly lengthy restructuring process. This delayed the release of the synth on test here, Carbon8X, first previewed at Superbooth in 2023 and now finally available in 37-, 61-key and module versions.

The company's range of synths has been varied to say the least, from high-end and very well-regarded synths like the 001 to the (much) more budget-friendly Skulpt and Craft Synth. In fact, all the synths have been pretty well received, so it was disappointing to see the company – a UK one at that – in trouble.

However, Modal appears to now be on less choppy waters (under the banner of Hong Kong-based WT Technology Development), and with a more streamlined set of products, which should help make the company's synth proposition much clearer and more attractive.

Argon8 is Modal's 8-voice wavetable synth, packing a lot of the company's 00 synth into a much cheaper unit, while Cobalt8 is the company's more virtual analogue offering.

Carbon8 boasts double the power of these (although the same eight voices of polyphony) and can, in some ways, be seen as a 'best of' Modal synth, packing a lot of sonic punch and clout into a very solid synth proposition.

Performance

One thing you can't ignore is Carbon8X's build quality. This thing feels like it's built to last, with a steel and aluminium body, and could take on any gigging/transport situation… should you have the muscles to carry it. It's not light, put it that way, and if you have to lug a keyboard around, this might be off-putting, but at least you can be sure it's not going to get easily damaged should you manage to venture out with it.

The screen, at less than 4cm wide, is a bit small, but functional, and displays many features, like the envelopes and filters, with graphics not unlike a 1970s amusement arcade, but it certainly does enough without adding too much in the way of frills.

Probably the most important buttons are on either side of it, used for stepping through presets – which we'll cover later – or adjusting any parameter you like. Here you can access the 58 cores for both oscillators, which gives you an idea of how Carbon8X sounds on a ground level.

There are 38 wavetables and 18 algorithms, which give this synth a lot more sonic flexibility than others in its price range. Extra parameters here include a Contour dial to change the timbre of the selected Core, plus the Xmod/XCore. This controls the amount and type of extra cross modulation for oscillator 2, either with Osc 1 as the source or a so-called 'hidden' oscillator.

You can adjust six oscillator modifiers like phase distortion, wave shaping, ring or amplitude modulation – great for extra real-time control and well worth exploring as a sound design option in their own right. It's very easy, for example, to completely rebuild a preset from scratch and create your own right here, and that's before taking advantage of other modulation features.

These are pretty good too, with three LFOs (one with direct controls, two switchable), each with 16 shapes, and three envelopes for Amp, Mod and Filter. You get 12 sources and 55 destinations, but only eight slots to set up, which could be seen as a bit tight, but we'll assume these can be added to with a software update.

Setting these up is easy with the left-hand screen button, although with all selections, you are only given a few seconds to make your changes before the synth reverts back to its previous setting. Not really a problem, just something you might need to get used to.

A Shift option accesses a second layer of parameters on most buttons, and a couple of other nice touches include a joystick which can be (and has been) assigned to popular parameters to adjust in real time (think filter frequency, modulation depth and so on), and a Vintage dial to introduce gnarl and tuning issues just like an old analogue, which this clearly isn't.

Sounds

That said, some of the sounds are surprisingly lush and 'vintage', with lots taking advantage of the up-to-32-step arpeggiator for some full-on, classic synth movement, and even more can be created by way of a 512-note sequencer. Both steal the LEDs from other parameters to show you 16 steps of whatever mode you're in.

Meanwhile, the filter section adds the most diversity, featuring 34 filter types – analogue, digital and hybrid – and large Filter and Resonance dials to make the most of them. Here you get typical HP/LP/BP options plus a huge range of static, ladder, and dual 2-pole filters with continuous morphing.

It's really simple to get a feel of these in action with the screen pulling its weight and enabling you to see the different filter shapes and home in on the resonating frequencies for extra bite, not to mention the Warp dial, which allows you to add extra grit and drive.

A small niggle again comes down to the screen workflow where, as you step through filter types and adjust their frequency, you then have to go back to selecting filter type to keep auditioning – essentially the screen doesn't always seem to return to (or stay at) the parameter you hoped. Again, it's not a deal breaker, just a workflow step or two that you'll need to get used to.

While Carbon8X is clearly a digital synth at heart, it doesn't come with too much in the way of sonic harshness that (if you were our age) you might associate with the medium. In fact, it's right up there with one of our current favourites, Arturia's MiniFreak, in terms of sheer variety of sounds, with impressively programmed presets that you can easily and cheekily make your own, and plenty of hands-on action to call up should you wish.

You'll be tempted by that joystick, for example, and wonder why your favourite keyboard doesn't come with one as standard – Carbon8X makes it such a natural tweaking process. And use it you will to turn some already superb sounds into more dynamic and evolving textures. These are here aplenty, along with other pads, sequences, evolving and pretty nondescript atmospheres, and imaginative key, pluck and bell sounds.

We should also finally mention the three effects engines, each with 26 options to choose from, which add even more to your already bristling list of design options.

Verdict

Carbon8X has some features and workflow niggles, small ones if we're honest, and which might be sorted with system updates. But really, its sound blows these away and we were surprised by how much we were drawn in by what's here sonically, and what you can do with it.

The synth certainly wears its digital credentials proudly and has a character of its own which can really be appreciated by stepping through those presets – few synths boast quite as good a set of sonic adverts as this, and if you do nothing else, audition these sounds in your local dealer if you can.

This character is its clear raison d'etre and big draw, and a necessary one as hardware synths have really got to work for their lodgings in your studio over your plugins. However, it's joining a fairly crowded line-up of digital hardware synths – think Korg and that Arturia (see our alternatives for more) – which all offer a great deal of sonic mayhem for similar or less cash.

However, Carbon8X is pretty unique, even compared to some of the more unruly and 'trying to be out there' contenders, all within a (very solid) package. Of the three Carbon8Xs on offer, we'd probably opt for one of the keyboard versions over the module, simply for the extra controls that make using them much more intuitive, and for not much extra cash, but whatever you opt for, you'll wrestle some fantastic new textures out of it and create some inspiring and cutting-edge sounds.

Alternatives

Specifications

PLUGIN WEEK 2026: The ferocious big beat sound of The Prodigy's 1997 album Fat of the Land has been hailed as a classic of the electronic genre. But, in our view, it’s not just an excellent dance record, but one of the decade’s most significant releases.

The album that birthed the multimillion selling Firestarter and the controversial Smack My Bitch Up, were key strikes in rave culture's invasion of the mainstream.

The Prodigy had a long-established reputation as a superb, invigorating live act, but wider exposure led to their expressive frontman Keith Flint terrifying middle England, and besieging the homes of everyday folk via Top of the Pops.

Preceding the album by 8 months, the single Breathe became the band's most successful single (at least before Firestarter was released) but its development took quite a while.

“It was an instrumental for ages,” The Prodigy’s chief musical director Liam Howlett recalled in an interview with Addicted to Noise. “We were playing it on stage and the guys were just dancing to it and stuff. It was just like an instrumental track. And I thought that it was so obvious to put a vocal on it.”

It's Breathe's distinctive opening and recurring 2-bar, guitar-sampled riff which we are going to examine and try and re-build here.

As we will discover, we can create an interesting facsimile using our own software, using many of the identifiers from the original track, but without the initial samples, it's difficult to re-create note for note.

Therefore, think of this as an opportunity to take the spirit of the track in a different direction, using a slightly mutated sound of your own choosing.

Though some speculated that Liam Howlett had in fact sampled the theme from the iconic James Bond music cue (undoubtedly because of the twangy guitar sound), in reality, it stemmed from a recording of the Prodigy live-band member, guitarist and contributor, Jim Davies. His processed and mono guitar sound was tracked to DAT, leaving Howlett to extract a couple of notes and re-mould them.

“I just got him into the studio and he played a couple of notes,” Howlett told Addicted to Noise. “I just took those single notes and basically put them through the sampler. I constructed the riff, in other words. Everything you hear on the track is basically from my head. All the riffs are mine. I've never sampled a whole riff of someone else's stuff. A lot of people get confused 'cause when they hear ‘sampler,’ all they can think about is sampling other people's tracks, you know. It's not like it used to be, like with Pump Up The Volume, when it was just built around someone else's track. This is actually rock music written on electronic equipment, you know? With Breathe, I made the riff.”

Breathe is, therefore, a very sample-heavy production, reliant upon sampled material at just about every turn. Thin Lizzy’s Johnny the Fox Meets Jimmy the Weed supplies the drum break, while Wu-Tang Clan’s Da Mystery of Chessboxin’ provides the identifiable whiplash effect, used throughout.

Rather than get caught up in the wormhole of samples, we're going to examine how we can recreate the opening riff ourselves, with workarounds that might provide an simple alternative for achieving a similar sound in a different context.

How to get the sound of Breathe in your DAW

You may be limited by the tools at your disposal, but the good news is, you can create something similar with a basic soft synth or sampler, a DAW, some distortion effects and EQ.

The preferable choice for your synth or sampler will be anything that has a band-pass filter. Don't worry if this isn't something you have, as you can adopt EQ to acquire similar results. It’s preferable to be able to control your filter cutoff using velocity, although once again, there an alternative solution, which we’ll come to later.

If using a synth, we are looking to create a fairly sharp wave upfront, so while you can use conventional subtractive-style synths, try using a modulated pulse wave, or better still, some form of sync, bright digital or FM tone.

Alternatively, use a sampler (which is what we are choosing to use here). We are using the EXS24, which is the stock sampler from Logic Pro.

The beauty of this approach is that we can select a sound source which will pave much of the way for a similar sound.

Step 1: As a starting point, we have selected the ‘Clean Electric Guitar 1’ patch, from the default EXS24 library. It's a clean sound, which is played/sampled by using a pick or plectrum.

Step 2: In order to easily work with this sound, create a simple 2-bar loop or cycle, which will make it easy to audition the sound.

For reasons of copyright, we have used a loop which is slightly different from the original, but we have kept this rhythmically the same. Also note that all of the notes have been entered in step time, and are set to the same velocity value of 70. We will return to this later to make further adjustments.

Step 3: Returning to our sound, we’ll start by making some filter settings. One of the luxuries of working with the EXS24 sampler, is that we can employ two filters, which on this occasion we’ll assign in series.

We are setting filter one to ‘HP 24db Edgy’, which is a 4-pole high pass filter, and selecting filter two ‘BP 12dB Edgy’, which is a band-pass filter.

Between the two filters, you can see the ‘Series’ icon, which needs to be highlighted in yellow.

Turning to the Cutoff and Resonance settings, these will differ from one synth or sampler to another, but as a general guide, aim to set the high-pass filter cutoff to around 30% and resonance to 45%, with the band-pass filter cutoff set to around 25% and resonance set to 50%. Be sure to listen and audition your sound, and don't overly indulge the resonance.

If you have drive or distortion available within the filter circuit, you could certainly apply this at this stage, although it’s not essential, as we will add distortion to our signal chain at the end of the process.

Step 4: Ideally, we want to use two envelope generators, with one applied to amplitude/volume, and the other applied to filter cutoff. If you only have one available, you can use the same envelope for both elements.

Beginning with the amplitude envelope, engineer a small amount of sustain, preceded by a quick attack and snappy decay. If you have a second envelope, for filter cutoff modulation, apply settings for a quick attack and decay with zero sustain.

Step 5: Returning to our note editor, we now need to implement two different levels of velocity value.

If we refer to the original track, this begins with the on-beats being a higher velocity than the off-beats, although there is nothing to stop you altering this to suit your own track. The velocity value pattern in the original also changes, once it reaches the second bar.

We are going to start by changing some notes to a velocity of 100, leaving the opposite notes set to the previous velocity of 70. The differences in velocity value will allow us to control the degree of filter modulation, which we’ll route in the next step.

Step 6: Using your synth’s mod matrix or modulation routings, assign velocity to both filter section’s cutoff controls. Once you have a assigned the source and target, you may need to experiment with the amount of modulation. In our case, we have assigned a modulation value of around 25-27% but again, this will differ from one synth to another. You may also note that there is an indication of modulation, within the filter section, as seen in our example by the appearance of an ‘orange curve’ above the cutoff control.

When you now audition your 2-bar loop, the changes in velocity value should instigate a change in the cutoff of each filter, replicating a similar sound to the original track.

Step 7: To further enhance this effect, try applying a small degree of filter cutoff modulation, using the filter envelope as a modulation source. A small amount of modulation should enhance the effect even further.

Step 8: If the synth or sampler that you are using allows the application of distortion within the filter section, you may already have convincing results. However, the application of overdrive or distortion on the backend of the signal chain, will likely add another useful element.

If you listen very carefully to the original, you can hear a slight grainy-ness in the original sound. This may be down to the original sampling process, and a reduced sample rate, or merely noise from distortion. Either way, try experimenting with a bitcrusher, as this will allow the introduction of a similar texture.

Alternatively, add a healthy dose of distortion; something aggressive, such as Soundtoys' Decapitator would be ideal for this and can be cranked quite hard, to achieve impressive results.

As with the programming of any synth sound in a contemporary DAW, there are a number of ways of approaching sound design in order to achieve similar results.

If working with a conventional subtractive-style synth, armed with more usual waveforms, experiment with different combinations. A sync tone, or reedy PWM pulse would be ideal starting points for this sound. Many modern synths provide metallic or glassy sources, which may prove to be worthy fodder in this context.

You can also experiment with different filter types. While high-pass and band-pass filters are the ideal option, you can also explore formant filters, which can provide wonderful colours.

Be aware that each filter and synth will require its own specific set of values. You can also use heavy EQ curves, to limit the sonic bandwidth, much like a band-pass filter.

One issue that may present itself, particularly with less capable soft-synths, is the lack of ability to route velocity to the cutoff control of the filter. Another method for achieving the same result, would be to automate the cutoff within your DAW. But be sure to create steps for each note, rather than a slope between values, as the cutoff changes.

Learning how to create impressive sounds from the past masters is a valuable route to understanding how to get the most out of your synthesis. However, it is also a superb springboard for individual creativity, and while it can be highly rewarding to try and recreate an existing track, try to take your sound exploration in a new direction which will be entirely unique to you. Then you can release your track without stepping on any copyright-toes.

Take a deep breath… now get creative!

PLUGIN WEEK 2026: Whispers, rumours, leaks. Like the crescendo of a filter sweep, the return of Absynth – the iconic software instrument that helped define the sound of early 00’s electronic music – reached fever pitch in the lead-up to its unexpected rebirth at the end of 2025. Behind the scenes at Native Instruments, the energy was no less frenetic.

“Maximum crunch, constant panic” is how Brian Clevinger, Absynth’s creator and founder of Rhizomatic described the final pre-release push.

Speaking to MusicRadar mere days before the launch of Absynth 6 - and prior of course, to the recent news that Native Instruments would be acquired by InMusic - Clevinger seemed keenly aware of the high expectations he and the development team were expected to meet.

You see, Absynth isn’t just any soft synth. Its sea-green colour scheme and idiosyncratic architecture is something that a generation of sound designers and synthesists have grown up with.

This relaunch wasn't just a new version: it’s a full-blown resurrection.

Arriving two years after the product was discontinued by Native Instruments, and 16 long, long years since the release of Absynth 5.

Now sporting MPE capabilities, newly designed filters, a slickly upgraded UI, a trippy new spatial method of navigating presets, and all the sonic firepower long-time fans could ask for, this 2025 iteration of Absynth was, thankfully, worth the wait.

Back in the year 2000, when Clevinger released version 1 as ‘shareware’ (what we might now describe as a freebie) he had no idea how large the impact would be.

“I didn't think anybody would be into it,” he admits. “But I was just inundated with responses. People were really excited about it, it was kind of an instant hit.”

Looking back, it’s easy to see why. VSTs were still toddlers, having only been invented four years previously. The very premise that you could work with computer-generated sound, rather than triggered audio samples, was still fresh, and the available instruments were mostly rudimentary emulations of pianos and Minimoogs.

“The whole concept of a software synth hadn't sunk in yet,” Clevinger says of that time. “The idea that you play a note on your keyboard and the sound comes out of your computer was a weird idea for most people.”

In that context, Absynth, much like the potent beverage from which it takes its name, was a mind-melting experience. Its three-channel lanes and swappable modules could combine multiple types of synthesis and audio processing simultaneously.

Equipped with a waveform editor, it allowed users to draw custom shapes before applying additional algorithmic transformations, including the now-iconic ‘Fractalize’ function which added new harmonics by recursively pushing a waveform back into itself.

Its approach to modulation, which put user-defined, multi-stage envelopes front and centre, was, and still is, a remarkable contrast to the dominant paradigm of LFOs.

Perhaps most importantly of all, it took all of those powerful sound–shaping tools and made them comparatively easy to experiment and play with. It’s little wonder that Absynth was snapped up by Native Instruments a year later, becoming one of the company’s flagship products from 2001 all the way up to 2023.

All that innovation is made even more impressive by the fact that Clevinger’s skills as a software developer were entirely self-taught. Rather than a formal study of computer science, his pathway to Absynth was guided by a life-long fascination with the inner workings of audio.

“I was just always really interested in sound,” he recalls. “With certain sounds, it was kind of an emotional thing. When I was a little kid there was this big drain pipe with three smaller pipes at the back, we'd go in there, clap our hands, and it would make this just incredible comb-filter kind of sound. I wish I could hear it today.”

That ear for the unusual eventually led Clevinger to study music composition at university, where he first got his hands on classic hardware like the ARP 2500.

“This was in the early ‘80s,” he recalls. “It was just before MIDI and I was still working on analogue systems, but, at the same time, I was hearing examples of the computer-generated music that was happening at IRCAM. They were doing stuff I really wanted to do myself, but it was just completely inaccessible.”

Early musical programming environments like Max/MSP and Supercollider offered Clevinger the experimental sonics he was interested in, but lacked the intuitive accessibility of a musical instrument.

That tension stayed with him and, as computer power increased and real-time digital synthesis became possible in the mid-90’s, he began teaching himself DSP programming with aspirations to bridge the divide.

“The soft synths that were available were pretty limited,” he says. “It was either really simplistic things that didn't sound great or super complex modular environments. So I thought Absynth could be a sweet spot in-between.”

While he knew where he was aiming, Clevinger makes clear that Absynth was definitely not the result of some master plan.

What began as 'crappy little oscillators and really crappy little low-pass filters' were steadily refined and linked together, eventually coalescing into the foundations of Absynth’s first version.

“It just came out of whatever experiments I was doing at the time,” Clevinger says simply. “I mean the whole setup with three channels happened pretty early and I was originally thinking of it as a temporary solution till I figured out how to make it more modular, but after working with it I really liked it. Things just evolved until they got to the point where it felt right.”

Absynth broke new ground upon its release, and continued to do so over the following years: V2 introduced sample playback and granular synthesis; Absynth 3 added surround sound output, even though, as Clevinger laughingly admits, almost no one had multi-channel setups at the time; the fourth iteration brought vastly improved preset browsing and assignable macros, and the fifth instalment introduced Mutation.

It’s worth pausing to appreciate the genius of Absynth’s Mutation feature. Using tags for instrument type, articulation, genre, and more, users could define a narrow list of presets before hitting the Mutate button. This would then pull random parameters from those presets and combine them with whatever sound you were currently working on.

Not only that, but you could define how much randomisation should occur, how far from the original sound you wanted to deviate, and even lock down specific modules to exclude them from the mutation process.

A dedicated Mutation History window would save each new variation, allowing you to build up a library of related sounds at lightning-fast speed. It’s a feature that is still impressive all these years later, but at the time of its release in 2009, it was inspired.

“People kept asking for a randomiser,” Clevinger says of Mutation’s origin. “But if you just start randomising the parameters it gets very complicated because each preset can have a completely different set of modules. I wanted to do it in a meaningful way, where the musician could guide that random process somehow.

“I was looking at the preset list,” he continues. “And thinking about how you can select just bass sounds, and it'll only show you bass. I thought if you could pick one of those related presets, grab little bits from it, insert it into the preset you're working on, and then add some randomisation, that would be the key. I wanted it to be like going on a journey, instead of just jumping around between random sounds.”

Version 5 was a triumph, but it was also the point at which Absynth began to languish. Development slowed, and after growing increasingly long in the tooth the instrument was eventually discontinued in 2023, much to the dismay of longtime users.

For just about any other soft synth, that would have been the end of the story. But the remarkable longevity of this instrument, its sheer uniqueness and its undeniable musical prowess ensured that, even once it was gone, it was not forgotten.

“I had no idea that so many people were still using it, to tell you the truth,” admits Clevinger when asked about the community response to news of Absynth’s demise. “But I just got tons, and tons, and tons of messages from people begging me to bring it back somehow.”

Those pleas have now been answered. Working closely with the Native Instruments' team, a process that Clevinger unreservedly describes as 'fantastic', Absynth is back for a sixth outing and is looking better than ever.

“We have really been focusing on the user interface,” emphasises Clevinger. “Because nobody's ever been happy with Absynth's UI. It’s a super complex thing to get right, and involves endless discussions to try and work out the problems, but I'm really thrilled with what we've got now; it's so much better than what we had before and the design team's been great.”

For Clevinger, the top priorities during the development process were ensuring backward compatibility with legacy presets (presets from versions 4 and 5 are compatible with Absynth 6) and that the original audio engine was retained - a section of code that Clevinger says he touches 'as little as possible.'

But it wasn't all about preservation: significant improvements were made to Absynth's granular synthesis chops.

“All of that stuff is much denser than it was previously,” Clevinger told us. “We added a high density mode, and the Aetherizer and the Cloud filters sound much closer to what I originally wanted.”

One of the most striking new UI elements is the Preset Explorer that greets you when you first load up Absynth 6. A dizzying array of presets, dating back over two decades, are rendered as a multi-coloured point-cloud that you can click through and navigate as you might a geographical map.

Native Instruments tasked a number of artists with designing custom presets for Absynth 6, including none other than synthesis pioneer Brian Eno himself.

Working with Eno was something of a full-circle moment for Clevinger, who was inspired by Eno’s looping techniques when designing the envelopes for the original Absynth plugin.

That’s not all. Using deep learning techniques, Native Instruments’ Applied AI team trained a model on Absynth’s entire back catalogue of presets, allowing them to be spatially grouped by sonic characteristics. The goal is to help users break past the preset-paralysis that so often arises when scrolling through endless walls of text.

“I don't think there's anything musical about a list of presets,” says Andy Sarroff, head of Applied AI at Native Instruments, and himself a former mix and mastering engineer. “There’s something inherently uninspiring about staring down thousands of names and tags when you're trying to create. So, how do we solve that problem? There's never gonna be any perfect solution, but being able to visualise and explore this huge universe of sounds in a spatial way will hopefully either help you find what you want quickly, or be inspired by adjacent sounds.”

Of course, Absynth still has a more traditional preset browser system that you can switch to if you prefer, and Sarroff makes clear that accommodating different working styles is a top priority. “It's always a balancing act for us,” he points out. “We’re trying to figure out how to do this in a way that helps people feel like they're having fun, and not that they're being talked down to in any kind of way.”

Alongside all of that there was alos the inclusion of MPE and polyphonic aftertouch, enabling those performers who want to feel the maximum amount of nuance and expression from the instrument the ability to go deeper.

However, for Clevinger, it wasn’t this that caught his finely-tuned ear; his favourite new addition was the humble ladder notch filter.

“I really like the new ladder notch filter,” he says, confiding that he unconsciously drew some inspiration from one the first synths he ever used, the ARP 2500, during its design.

“My favourite thing on the ARP 2500 was this multi-mode filter that had a notch mode - and I certainly did not try to emulate it or anything, but that was the sound I had in my head. The notch filter mode, that's my favourite.”

It’s an attitude that seems emblematic of Absynth’s quarter-century run: bedrock features and idiosyncratic innovation, a workhorse and a dream machine, the essentials and the esoteric, all blended together to serve up a truly intoxicating sonic concoction.

As fans look ahead to the next 25 years, they can feel assured that Absynth has lost none of its potency, or its relevance, least of all to Clevinger himself.

“It's been a real emotional thing bringing this back,” he reflects. “This is the best project I've ever worked on.”

What is it?

Mastering the Mix has built a reputation for plugins that focus on helping anyone making music on computer, to engineer smarter mixing decisions, rather than just constantly adding processing.

In the latest part of their mix-chain, it turns its attention to one of the most difficult elements to control, relating to stereo width and panorama.

Stereovault is a plugin which is available as a single purchase, although it will be easily integrated with other Mastering the Mix plugins.

If there is one company which wears its branding on its sleeve, it has to be Mastering the Mix, although it's important to note that, as this is a single plugin, it can be used in channel, sub-mix (bus) or master fader situations, as well as forming part of the final mastering process.

Performance

Upon loading Stereovault for the first time, its visual guise makes it incredibly easy to see exactly what's going on. The display adopts an X/Y format, with frequency response being displayed from bottom to top. Lower frequencies unsurprisingly populate the lower portion of the display, so you can guess where the upper frequencies reside - up top.

The frequency plot is then divided into four sections, which can also be altered to suit your frequency band preferences. Within each band, you simply adjust the width parameters by clicking and dragging to hear the immediate effect of the broadening or narrowing of each particular band. It's a surprisingly simple process, with even more surprising results.

Don’t overcook it!

As is the case for any new plugin, we quickly found ourselves pushing things to an extreme, to establish the overall effect, and whilst there are considerable benefits to be had, it is also possible to completely undermine a mix.

A case in point: overextending the bottom-end of a mix too broadly can completely destabilise the foundation of a track, but adopting a similar technique with upper frequencies can really make a track shine.

If you feel that you need a little bit of help in this regard, Stereovault is on hand. Thanks to its included analytical tools, Stereovault can listen to your track and make some sensible suggestions. The plugin does ask for some input along the way, such as whether or not Stereovault is being used on specific instrumentation or a wider mix, and also suggestions for the style of music.

At this stage, it does present a minor challenge, as there are only five styles of music presented initially. Some of the tracks that we used as audition mixes could be described as jazz or cinematic, neither of which is represented in this situation, leaving us to make a best guess. It's not a huge problem, as you can select the next best genre and tweak-as-you-go, but it underlines the need to listen at all stages, because it is conceivably very easy to click a few buttons and find your mix in a state of flux.

Talking of flux, the Creative section pushes things further into sound-design territory. The included modes can dramatically reshape material, adding movement and cinematic depth to otherwise static sounds. Used subtly, they provide excellent dimensional enhancement.

Level matching

One familiar problem relates to monitoring levels, and the temptation to increase your listening volume while working. This will almost always result in your ears telling your brain that your mix sounds much better than it is. As any mix engineer will tell you, it's very much a false economy.

Stereovault provides a level-matching setting, meaning that once you have applied any processing, there is no discernible change in volume. Perfect!

Verdict

Stereovault really does have something for everyone. You can engineer a considerable degree of control, or take advice from the plugin. Either way, listening is fairly essential, but it is also packed with some useful presets, which can offer some good starting points.

It is also capable of taking mono signals and making them sound mightily wide and impressive, which can be particularly useful for clean guitar or monosynth signals.

Stereovault could easily become an indispensable plugin, although our view is that it will feel more at home on the backend of most signal chains, which isn't entirely surprising, given its position in Mastering the Mix’s portfolio.

Hands-on demos

Mastering The mix

Alternatives

Specifications

Californian emulation specialist Cherry Audio has released its latest plugin, a digital recreation of the Ensoniq ESQ-1, one of the most influential and popular polysynths of the 1980s.

The original ESQ-1 launched in 1986 and blended analogue elements with early digital synthesis technology. Its sound engine featured a trio of digital oscillators for each of its eight voices, each of which made use of sampled single-cycle waveforms capable of producing both traditional analogue-style waveshapes and tones sampled from real world sources such as pianos, voices or woodwinds.

The synth combined these oscillators with analogue multimode filters, complimented by multiple LFOs and envelope generators, and an eight-track sequencer.

Released to mark the original’s 40th anniversary, Cherry Audio’s Ensoniq ESQ-1 is launched in official collaboration with current Ensoniq owner Creative Technology.

According to the developer: “Through official licensing, Cherry Audio built the instrument around the original 32 ESQ-1 waveforms, faithfully reproducing the complex, evolving, and richly textured sounds that defined the hardware.”

That reproduction has involved modelling the Curtis CEM3379 analogue filter chips, along with the four DCAs, four multistage envelopes, three LFOs, amplitude modulation, and oscillator sync.

Because the plugin faithfully recreates the architecture of the original synth, it allows for drag-and-drop import of patches and banks from original ESQ-1 as SysEx files or directly from the hardware via MIDI. SysEx patches can also be exported for use with the original instrument.

Whereas the original synth was notoriously fiddly to program, with edits made numerically via its display screen, Cherry Audio’s version opens up the full sound engine with each parameter accessible across five UI screens.

As with the original synth, Cherry Audio’s ESQ-1 is equipped with a multitrack sequencer. This is one of several elements upgraded from the original design though. Here, the sequencer is a 16x4 polyphonic design that is capable of controlling both notes and modulation. It’s also equipped with tools for humanising patterns.

Other expansions on the original design include additional polyphony – up to 32 voices – along with an expanded modulation system, plus the ability to control the synth with aftertouch and MPE messages. Cherry Audio’s version also adds an effects section with 20 different processing modules.

"Partnering with Cherry Audio to revive the original sound of the ESQ-1 has been a truly rewarding collaboration," said Koh Zi Kai, Head of Licensing at Creative Technology Ltd. "Ensoniq represents a significant chapter in Creative Technology's history, and we are proud to see the authentic sound of the ESQ-1 preserved and made accessible to a new generation of musicians on the 40th anniversary of its release. Creative Technology stands behind its mission of bringing audio technology and people together, helping them to elevate their audio experience and connect on a deeper level with their music."

"The ESQ-1 is an important part of synthesizer history, and we aimed to honour that legacy with the depth and accuracy it deserves," said Dan Goldstein, CTO at Cherry Audio. "From the original waveforms to the precise modelling of the filter, we have carefully crafted every detail to capture what made the hardware iconic, while also providing today's musicians with the modern tools and expressiveness they expect."

Cherry Audio ESQ-1 comes with over 400 presets, including the sound banks from the original. The plugin is out now priced at $69. Head to the Cherry Audio site for more information.

In what feels like it could have been a scene from the movie itself, a piano-playing audience member at an orchestral showing of the 2016 musical La La Land has just stepped in for the on-stage keyboard player after they fell ill during the interval.

The Hollywood-worthy incident took place in Sydney, Australia on Saturday at the ICC’s Darling Harbour theatre. The first half of the show had proceeded without incident, but as the scheduled interval stretched out to 40 minutes, audience members started to wonder what was going on.

It was at this point that Justin Hurwitz, the La La Land score composer who was conducting on the night, stepped out onto the stage and asked if there happened to be a pianist in the audience who was also a top-notch sight-reader. It turns out that no one else in the orchestra was capable of filling in, and attempts to recruit a replacement player who could get to the theatre quick enough had failed.

“I figured nobody’s as close as they say they are … so I just thought, well, we have 2,500 people in here,” Hurwitz told Guardian Australia. “Yes, it was a gamble.”

Enter the suitably heroically named Sterling Nasa, a 21-year-old politics and international studies student at the University of Sydney, who was attending the show with his friend.

Knowing his skills on the piano and organ – and indeed the bagpipes, it turns out – she encouraged Nasa to boldly go where no audience member had gone before and put his hand up.

After Hurwitz had asked a few follow-up questions – “Are you sure? Can you really sight-read? Can you play key signatures you’ve never played before?” – Nasa took his place on the stage. However, having seen La La Land before, he must have known that he was soon to be faced with one of the toughest challenges in the score – the synth solo that Ryan Gosling’s character plays (on a ROLI Seaboard, funnily enough) when he’s on stage with John Legend during the song Start A Fire.

“The synth solo is really technical, and I thought, even a really high-level professional sight-reader would probably not be able to do it,” says Hurwitz. “As it was coming up, I was thinking, ‘Oh no, how’s he going to be able to handle the solo?’”

Nasa was equally concerned – “I saw it on the score and I thought, ‘Oh, I don’t know if I’m going to be able to sight-read that in one go,’” – so decided to do what most musicians have done from time to time during a performance: wing it.

“I took a little bit of a creative liberty and just decided to improvise, which I think ended up being a good choice,” said Nasa.

Hurwitz agrees: “To be able to play a really cool solo in the right key, in the right scale, on the fly with no rehearsal – it was remarkable,” he said.

Cue Nasa’s 15 minutes of well-deserved fame – he’s been doing the media rounds since his performance. However, having lived his La La Land dream, he will now return to his university studies.

To quote Mia, Emma Stone’s character from the film, though: "Here's to the fools who dream, crazy as they may seem."

As he prepares to release a new album as part of Doublespeak – a synth-pop super-covers-band that also includes Benge and Blancmange’s Neil Arthur – electronic music legend Vince Clarke has been talking to MusicRadar about some of the classic analogue instruments that have defined his career.

“I just like that sound,” he says. “The beauty for me of using a lot of the analogue stuff is the fact that it's very hands-on, it's very kind of tactile. You're not just using a mouse, and I really get a lot of pleasure out of that whole process. The best bit of making music is the process, absolutely. It's not listening to the record afterwards, it's actually the craft of building something from nothing.”

When it comes down to it, though, what would be Vince’s favourite synth of all time.

“The [Sequential] Pro 1,” he replies quickly. “I bought one in 1984 – I'm looking at it now, still the same one. I mean, it's been, you know, in lots of different cities around the world, and I plugged it in in my little setup the other day, bracing myself, and the bloody thing was in tune! I couldn't believe it. Amazing! I mean, it's nothing like as complex as modern synthesizers, but it's got knobs, you know? And I can actually carry it, as opposed to the [Roland] JP-4.”

Asked whether he’s kept all of his favourite synths, Clarke says that he still has “the stuff I use,” but has got rid of some things.

“I've got a bit of that collector's mindset, but then I realised it would be much better in the hands of someone who used it, as opposed to someone that just showed off and said, 'well, I've got an ARP 2600,'” he reckons.

And finally, Eurorack, does he have a million modules? No, it turns out.

“Martin [Gore, Depeche Mode] did say something actually, when we were talking about it [Eurorack] like, 'you know it's addictive', but at the end of the day I didn't find that,” he explains. “I mean, he's got like 17 million modules or something crazy, you know. I've got maybe 30 or 40 and that's enough!”

Look out for MusicRadar’s full Doublespeak interview soon. Their eponymous debut album is out on 29 May.

Arturia has launched its latest synth plugin, Memory V, an emulation of Moog’s lauded Memorymoog polysynth.

Released in 1982, the Memorymoog had six voices, each with the same three-VCO architecture as its mono predecessor the Minimoog. It also packed a 24db low-pass ladder filter per-voice.

As well as generating poly patches, the Memorymoog could operate in mono mode too, where its 18 oscillators could be used to create huge-sounding unison effects.

Arturia’s plugin recreation replicates this original architecture in full, while introducing some modern touches and updated features. Memory V can expand the polyphony from six to 12 voices, also adding modernised modulation, effects and arp sections.

According to Arturia: “Memory V resurrects the analogue majesty of the Memorymoog with breathtaking authenticity. Build towering brass, dense basses, evolving leads, and cinematic pads with the living instability and triple-oscillator depth of a polyphonic classic, augmented for modern production.”

While the Memorymoog boasted an undeniably powerful sound engine, it was not a synth without flaws. The instrument was the last to be released during Moog’s original incarnation before the company fell into bankruptcy. As a result, its MIDI implementation was left somewhat unfinished. The tuning was notoriously unstable too, and the machine is known for being difficult to maintain.

Arturia has included some of these imperfections in its recreation. The plugin includes a ‘vintage dispersion’ parameter, for dialling in what Arturia refers to as “subtle, breathing detuning that sounds alive, not perfect.”

The virtual analogue filters can also be overdriven in a characteristic manner using the per-voice Drive control. According to Arturia: “At low settings it adds subtle harmonic richness; past halfway it introduces the raw, crunchy analogue grit the Memorymoog was notorious for. Combine with a slow filter opening and you have a signature ‘angry Moog’ moment that cuts through any dense mix.”

As with other plugins in Arturia’s V Collection, Memory V’s main UI closely mimics the look and layout of its inspiration, but an assortment of modern extras can be found within the interface’s drop down Advanced tab.

Here, users can access a four-track arpeggiator that allows for multi-layered patterns to be honed and routed to different octaves of the synth keyboard. There’s also a flexible drag-and-drop modulation setup with multiple envelopes, LFOs, randomisation tools and a step-sequenced Voice Modulator.

Memory V also has a three-slot effect engine that can be loaded with a variety of vintage and modern-style processors drawn from Arturia’s existing software suite.

As with other V Collection plugins, the synth also makes use of a top-level Macro system that allows users to modulate and control multiple parameters at once using four editable controls.

Memory V is MPE compatible, and comes loaded with over 300 presets covering basses, pads, leads and a variety of more esoteric sounds.

The synth is available now priced at €/$149. Owners of existing Arturia products can unlock introductory discounts by logging into their accounts.

Head to the Arturia site for more information.

A leak on Behringer’s website has revealed 14 unreleased products, many of which have yet to be officially announced or even teased by the German manufacturer.

The ever-observant gearheads on the Behringer subreddit spotted the leak last week while the company’s website was undergoing a redesign, when listings for forthcoming products briefly appeared before being taken down.

Screenshots were swiftly taken, of course, and from these we’ve learned that several previously unannounced products are in the pipeline, and some upcoming instruments we already knew about may be closer to an official release than many of us expected.

Behringer’s leak revealed that the company is preparing to release a drum machine and sampler inspired by the E-mu SP-1200, a much-loved 1987 instrument that heavily influenced the sound of early hip-hop. Listed under the product name SP-1200, the listing featured no image and only a short description that confirmed the instrument will offer both modern 24-bit and classic 12-bit sampling – the latter imitating the original SP-1200’s famously gritty lo-fi character – and feature an analogue filter.

Considering that Behringer has released instruments based on the LinnDrum and Oberheim DMX in recent years, it’s no surprise that an SP-1200 remake is in the works, adding to a stable of clones that’s getting close to encompassing almost every notable classic drum machine in music tech history.

Another unreleased drum machine that surfaced in Behringer’s leak is the RD-765, but details are even scarcer on this one: described as a “classic hybrid sampling drum machine” with a 64-step sequencer and sample recording capabilities, the description details “XX drum sounds”, suggesting that product copy had yet to be finalised before the listing was unintentionally published.

One imaginative Redditor speculated that the RD-765 could be a hybrid of a trio of Roland instruments that Behringer has yet to imitate (the TR-707, TR-626 and TR-505) but at this point, it’s anyone’s guess.

The leak included three more as-yet-unannounced products. AQ64 is described as a USB/MIDI controller and clip launcher that looks like it could be based on a similar concept to Akai’s Ableton-focused APC40. QT32 is a 32-key, eight-pad MIDI controller keyboard with shades of the Akai MPK Mini, and JAM is another MIDI keyboard that drops the pads and adds 64-step polyphonic sequencing capabilities.

The JAM looks like it could be a successor to the Swing, a controversial controller Behringer released in 2021 that shared an uncanny resemblance with the Arturia KeyStep, before backlash prompted a cosmetic rework.

That’s all the gear we hadn’t yet heard about, but the leak also featured several products that have already been teased by Behringer, stoking flames of anticipation among fans eager to get their hands on the company’s affordable clones of iconic instruments like the Roland Jupiter-8 and Yamaha CS-80.

It’s Behringer’s take on the latter that’s likely to have stirred up the most excitement, but the screenshots taken provide frustratingly little detail – with no image or description visible, all we have is a product name: VS-80. What this does suggest, though, is that Behringer’s long-awaited CS-80 clone (which was originally named DS-80) could be much closer to an official release than previously expected.

Another noteworthy instrument spied in the leak is the VCX 3, Behringer's clone of the EMS VCS 3, a product first teased in 2019 before entering beta testing in 2023, then seeming to vanish completely. (We even speculated that development of the sought-after remake had been discontinued completely after several customers reported that preorders made via gear retailer Sweetwater were cancelled in October last year.)

Well, it seems that Behringer’s clone of the historic synth is close to an official release: leaked screenshots show a product listing detailing a “legendary analogue synthesizer with 3 VCOs, VCF, routing matrix, ring modulator” and more.

There are many more notable mentions in the Behringer leak, including the BCR32, a MIDI controller and desktop sequencer that’s a redesign of the popular BCR2000, an original Behringer design released 20 years prior.

Also visible in the screenshots is the Mini Pops 7, a modernized take on Korg’s ‘60s analogue drum machine favoured by artists like Aphex Twin and Jean-Michel Jarre, and Polykeys PK61, a 61-key MIDI keyboard controller with polyphonic aftertouch and a ribbon controller.

While Behringer’s JT-16 – a souped-up 16-voice clone of the Roland Jupiter-8 that’s become one of the most keenly-awaited products in its ever-expanding list of upcoming releases – didn’t appear in the leak, Behringer has since published a product page for JT-16 VST, a plugin version of that synth.

The company promises that JT-16 VST authentically captures the Jupiter-8’s sound via the “meticulous recreation of all the original oscillators, filters, and envelopes” and features all the original factory patches and presets.

Was Behringer’s leak truly accidental or simply a shrewd marketing stunt? We’ll never know, but whether or not the big reveal was an honest mistake – and whether or not these products will actually make it to shelves in the near future – it’s certainly given music-makers plenty to talk about. All we can do now is wait, and as ever with Behringer, that may be for quite some time.

The drum fill in Phil Collins’ 1981 hit In The Air Tonight is deservedly iconic, but it’s not the only notable rhythmic element in the song. In fact, the beat is driven not by any live playing, but a pattern from the Roland CR-78 drum machine which plays throughout.

It’s fair to say, then, that without the CR-78, In The Air Tonight might never have existed, but in a new interview with Eddie Trunk’s Trunk Nation podcast, Collins says that, when he first brought his unit home from Japan, he thought he wouldn’t need it and so gave it away.

“We'd come back from Japan with Genesis with these drum machines, and being a drummer and thinking like a drummer I didn't think I needed a drum machine, so I gave mine to one of the road crew,” Collins confirms. He says that he realised that he’d make a mistake when he got back to his home studio and started making music on his own.

“I asked the road manager if I could get my drum machine back and he said ‘sure,’” Collins remembers. “So I got it back and I started to learn how to use it, how to program it. I mean, it was nothing like what you get today if you buy a drum machine – it was very basic. It was really a cocktail drum machine, you know, for people that play piano in bars, and I wrote this nice pattern which was kind of moody.”

Said pattern was a slowed-down, adapted version of the CR-78’s Disco 2 preset, and provided the perfect bed for Collins’ synth pad chords, which he played on a Sequential Circuits Prophet-5.

“I had a keyboard which had a couple of really nice sounds on it, and one of them was number 36, which was the In The Air sound,” says Collins. “That became the pad sound if you like, for the song. I went for some chords and the chords sounded great with the drum machine pattern. And then that was it, you know? I mean, it just went round and round.”

There was a little more to it than that, of course. The haunted vocal, for example… but even that was recorded spontaneously.

“I set up a microphone and I sang improvised lyrics,” says Collins. “That first verse is all improvised. It just came to me – I sang it and then I wrote it down. I didn't write it then sing it, you know? It was the other way round. So I felt something was going on, but I didn't really know what to do with it.”

Collins says that his attempts to get a good sound for the live drum overdubs at home were unsuccessful, so in the end, his demo multitracks were copied over to the 24-track system in the Townhouse studio in London.

It was here that Collins worked with producer Hugh Padgham to record that famous gated reverbed drum fill, but once again, this was something that just happened in the moment. “That was the fill I played on that particular take on that particular day,” Collins confirms.

In The Air Tonight may never have got to that point, though, if it hadn’t been for Collins re-acquiring and tinkering with that CR-78, a creative moment that kickstarted several others and resulted in a career-defining debut single.

“It wasn't thought out or choreographed, you know?” Collins insists. “Everything fell into place gradually, and it became the record that people think of when they think of me.”

Berlin’s Superbooth is probably the most significant date in the modular synth calendar. Seemingly every Eurorack developer and their CV-toting mother had some sort of presence at the Fez Centre this past weekend, most of whom had something new and exciting to show.

There was so much modular action, in fact, that it’s hard to cover it in any way that even comes close to being comprehensive. So in lieu of a definitive list, here is a loose collection of our modular highlights – a few of the new releases that turned our heads and had our patch cables twitching on the Superbooth show floor…

Befaco / Tesseract ARK

Modular systems are a great environment for experimenting with chance-based sequencing and generative systems. This new 16-track instrument looks like an excellent tool for precisely those kinds of sonic adventures.

Created by Befaco in collaboration with Tesseract Modular, ARK is described as “a compositional system where algorithms, chance, and signal share the same space.”

Each of ARK’s tracks can make use of deterministic, stochastic & Euclidean sequencing tools, with 16 internal modulation sources for adding movement.

ARK can be used as a fairly self-contained instrument, with per-track internal sound engines and samplers. It also looks handy for driving other sound sources though. ARK can output CV and audio as well as MIDI. It also features internal harmonic tools based around scales and chord progressions.

Oh, and there are onboard effects too. Basically, it looks like an all-in-one experimental powerhouse.

More info>>

4ms / Valley Audio Mesa

4ms’s new reverb module began life in the digital realm. Mesa is based on Valley Audio’s Plateau, a popular third-party add-on for the virtual Eurorack environment VCV Rack, itself based on a renowned plate reverb algorithm developed in the ‘90s by Jon Dattorro.

According to 4ms: “Mesa brings the Plateau sound into hardware with no compromises on quality. Running at 96 kHz with 64-bit double-precision processing, Mesa is among the finest-sounding reverbs available at any price point.”

Aside from the reverb algorithm itself, Mesa is equipped with four LFOs for modulation, a pre-delay buffer, a freeze function and dual filters.

More info>>

Make Noise / Soundhack Plexiphon

We can always rely on Make Noise to turn up to Superbooth with something interesting to show, and this year saw the debut of Plexiphon, a creative spatial effect that once again sees the US brand teaming up with developer Tom Erbe of Soundhack.

Described as a “spatial texturizer”, Plexiphon’s big selling point is the fact it is ‘modeless’, allowing for continuous morphing between different forms of spatial effect. This means to can seamlessly go from, say, washed out reverb to multi-tap delay lines,

This is controlled by a combination of the Plexus parameter, which alters the algorithm’s the routing and entanglement of the feedback loops, and the Size control, which changes the temporal relationship between the feedback paths, acting like a delay time or room size control. Both parameters can be controlled by both front panel knobs or an associated CV input.

More info>>

Befaco / Mylar Melodies Random8

Another Befaco collaboration, this time with musician/podcaster/YouTuber and all-round modular fiend Mylar Melodies.

Befitting of its name, Random8 features eight random voltage generators packed into just 8HP of space. Each generator has a trigger input, per-track loop button and attenuator.

According to Mylar Melodies: “Random8 is designed to provide a huge level of animation for its size, yet remain interactive and jammable, by tapping dedicated buttons to loop or 'evolve'. Using stepped randomness, it makes every step of your sequence sound different, alive and interesting – so you can play live more easily and for longer.

“It also has scale quantisation built in so it can drive VCOs, making it a pitch sequencer (where you let chance determine the steps) too - In fact, it's eight! And it has slide, making stepped looping voltages into complex looping LFOs.”

More info>>

WMD Cosmic Debris

Launched just ahead of this year’s show, Cosmic Debris is a stereo delay and reverb processor with 16 interacting delay lines. What makes Cosmic Debris interesting is that it’s designed specifically as a live performance effect, meaning that it’s particularly well-suited to manipulating sounds on the fly.

The module has three modes of operation, designed to create tight rhythmically synced delays, washes of ambience or pitch-shifted shimmer.

A Slew function allows users to create slowly morphing effect sweeps with a single turn of a control, while the Snapshot function can save and recall parameter configurations.

WMD Cosmic Debris>>

Doepfer 1U modules

Dieter Doepfer is the developer that first introduced the Eurorack format, so it's always interesting to see what Doepfer is up to.

New for this year’s Superbooth is a range of modules in horizontal 1U format (ie, arranged to be long, rather than tall) with a new 1U-compatible case to fit them in.

There are six 1U modules in this first batch, with more adaptations to follow. The initial run includes a dual VCA, dual LFO, AD/LFO, 6-in-2 mixer, MIDI-to-CV converter and Doepfer’s Miniature Ratcheting Sequencer.

The new P7 case, meanwhile, takes the same form as Doepfer’s existing P6 powered case, with an additional 1U row along the centre, giving a total of three module rows of 84HP.

More info>>

Knobula Drum Farm

Knobula has made some of our favourite modules of recent years, including the Poly Cinematic and Monumatic synth voices, which bring a welcome touch of polyphony to your modular rig.

Drum Farm is said to be “inspired by Knobula Technical Director Jason Mayo’s background in computer animation, where vast ‘render farms’ generated thousands of realistic images with minimal human input.”

That has resulted in a 16-sound percussion generator that combines elements of virtual analogue and physical modelling synthesis, sampling and real-time effects. These elements are designed to interact with one another, so that users can shape drum sounds in synthesis, process them with effects and then resample the results for further manipulation and layering.

Designed to be fast and intuitive, Drum Farm is said to be capable of quickly generating adventurous drum sounds through experimentation or generative programming. From the demos we’ve seen it looks like a whole lot of fun.

More info>>

Ferry Island Modular Undertow

Ferry Island is a relatively new brand from Helsinki. Following the release of its debut Four Seas oscillator last year, the company came to Superbooth with a pair of new modules, a VCA/LPG named Beacon and Undertow, a powerful-looking wavetable VCO-come-LFO.

Undertow is described as a ‘two dimensional’ wavetable generator. According to Ferry Island: “instead of one VCO/LFO waveform, it gives you fifteen simultaneous outputs, each a unique position between two wavetable LFOs.”

Users can morph the output across two axes, with the horizontal axis altering the wave and frequency and the vertical axis shifting from clean to turbulent modulation.

According to Ferry Island “there's no such thing as too much modulation” – which is a statement we’re happy to endorse.

More info>>

SUPERBOOTH 2026: Erica Synths’ big launch at this year’s Superbooth is Resonant Filterbank - an analogue/digital performance and production-friendly effects unit which sports ten bandpass filters to squeeze and maximise your input sounds, cutting and boosting specific frequencies at will.

But this sleek aluminium-housed box is more than just a simple 10-band filterbank, you can also use it as both an unconventional multimode filter or as an instrument in its own right, particularly when you play with the box's various resonance controls.

It can become a standalone instrument via configurable feedback loops. “[It can be used] even as an experimental sound generator for no-input mixer-like setups,” state Erica Synths.

You can use the Filterbank's Clocked Modulation Mode to program specific band positions in a set sequence and build oscillating stereo effects. This is done via 20 independent LFOs and envelope followers which can be assigned to any control parameter. It also features a spectral analyser and a dynamic EQ, making it a lot deeper than you might think upon initial inspection.

The small display screen gives detailed visual feedback as to what’s happening, with a helpful Macro view that can guide you when setting the sliders to access and control specific features and, orienting the machine to be used as a performance instrument.

Its user snapshot preset memory has 128 slots which you’re also able to morph between on the fly.

In terms of ins/outs, there’s 6.3mm balanced stereo inputs and outputs, a customisable footswitch input, and five-pin DIN MIDI in and USB for firmware updates and patch loading. There’s an analogue Gain Stage which boosts incoming signals up to +24dB.

Going back to the surface level filtering abilities, and its frequency range stretches across: 29 Hz, 61 Hz, 115 Hz, 218 Hz, 411 Hz, 777Hz, 1.5 kHz, 2.8 kHz, 5.2 kHz and 11 kHz.

So, however you use it - whether it's applied to drum machines, synths, modular setups or even guitars, Resonant Filterbank sounds like it will expand the sonic scope and then some.

Resonant Filterbank is available to preorder for €660 at Erica Synths website, the product ships on May 18

SUPERBOOTH 2026: After three long years of development, Bastl Instruments today launched Kalimba - a typically quirky hybrid synth/instrument that resembles - you guessed it - a kalmiba, complete with playable tines

To operate, Kalimba relies on tiny microphones, touch sensors and an accelerometer to yield all manner of expressive sounds. All of which are housed within a physical design that is inspired by the traditional kalimba, tines and all.

There seems to be a theme emerging at this year’s show, of prioritised expression and more traditional-instrument based-routes into exploring sound, and the handheld Kalimba is no exception. “Treat it like an acoustic instrument, it will answer like one” Bastl say.

Playing the tines at varying intensities excite the internal physical modelling and FM engines, thanks to the instrument’s internal microphones. The internal accelerometer acts as both an exciter for the physical modelling engine and also filters the left and right channels of the FM engine, as the device is physically rotated.

Six knobs sit atop the front panel, which adjust rates of timbre, excite, blend, detune, body and decay respectively.

Beyond that, the Kalimba also has a slew of further options on its front panel, with function-based touch points (for, as Bastl say, creating pads, pitch slides and timbral modulation) as well as 2 function-assignable ones on the back of the device.

There’s a heap of control options, with an arpeggiator, an internal layering looper, octave shifting, tempo/metronome and a palette of built-in effects (reverb, delay, bit-crush, overdrive, filtering, modulation).

Bastl states that the Kalimba’s three-year creation has been one of the most ‘challenging development projects’ that the company has ever undertook. “We have spent more than three years developing this instrument, exploring different casing shapes, tine lengths, materials, internal designs, features, and visual directions. We couldn’t be more grateful and proud of the entire Bastl team for what they have accomplished and how much heart they’ve put into this project.”

Artists such as Oliver Torr and Never Sol were also on-hand to stress and road-test Kalimba.

Bastl will be launching Kalimba on Kickstarter first (to help fund wider production) and is available from today until till 6th of June.

The ‘super early bird’ price starts at €389 which goes up to €500 Eur without tax and shipping. There’s also a range of backer awards and extra goodies (including a custom strap, a shirt and USB-C wrist strap amongst other trinkets) so check out the company’s Kickstarter page for more info.

Post-Kickstarter, the Kalimba is expected to ship in December 2026. If demand exceeds 1,500, Bastl plan to ship a second batch in early 2027.

SUPERBOOTH 2026: We knew that Modal Electronics, the maker of the extraordinary Argon and Cobalt workstations, had something new for us… and today, launching simultaneously with the first day of Berlin’s Superbooth 2026 show comes the Element One, a diminutive 37-key synth designed for musicians who, in Modal’s words, ‘want to play with sound’ albeit without requiring any deep technical knowledge.

Developed in collaboration with the world-renowned Axel Hartmann Design team, the 4.5kg minimalist steel and polycarbonate-enclosed Element One’s ultra-reactive USP is spotlighted by expressive aftertouch and a versatile 4-axis joystick.

Then, there’s 17 direct-access control knobs for instantaneous sound shaping. It looks like the perfect antidote to tedious menu-scrolling…

The Element One is being posited as more of a responsive instrument, then - an instrument that attendees of this year’s Superbooth can test out with their own hands over at Modal’s booth (H101).

"Element One is for musicians and producers who want more sound and more expression without turning into full-time programmers," says the Modal team. "It doesn’t ask you to learn the rules; it dares you to play."

But that simplicity belies the fact that, under the hood, the Element One sports some impressive specs: 64 high-resolution oscillators (up to 8 per voice) can provide textured warmth right through to more modern-leaning sounds. Then there’s 30 resonant filter types including morphable and static options.

Then, there’s what Modal describes as ‘studio-grade FX’ - consisting of three independent stereo engines which can conjure reverb, delay, chorus and much more - arrangeable in any order you see fit.

But, if you’d rather leave all the exploring and just dive straight into some staple sonics, Modal has kindly provided 300 factory presets (categorised by character) will undoubtedly serve you right. There’s also the option to import thousands of additional patches for the company’s Cobalt8 synth.

Modal states that the Element One has been designed to fit into any musical ecosystem, spanning a guitarist’s pedalboard to a DJ’s live rig, or the standard DAW-based producer’s home setup.

In terms of ins and outs, the Element One sports USB-C MIDI, MIDI In/Out, Sync I/O, and a stereo audio input that allows external sources to be processed through its internal FX engines. For deeper editing, Modal provide a free app - aka, the ‘MODALapp’ which provides a visual interface (available for macOS, Windows, iOS, and Android).

Element One is available through authorised retailers for MSRP 649 €/ or MAP $599 . For more information, visit the MODAL Electronics website. We'll hopefully be getting hands-on with the Element One at the show - so watch this space!

SUPERBOOTH 2026: Japanese synth brand Sonicware has announced Deconstruct Minimal, a new hardware groovebox said to be “built on the rhythmic and pitch drift of legendary drum machines”.

Sonicware is perhaps best known for its Liven series, a range of compact digital synths that specialise in lo-fi sounds and ambient textures. According to the company, Minimal marks the first entry in a new range designed to sit alongside the Liven instruments.

“While the Liven series focuses on sound itself — making it easy to create music tailored to each sound engine — the deconstruct series focuses on musical structure, analyzing and reconstructing it to enable deeper musical expression.”

Described as being ‘designed to create hypnotic minimal grooves’, Deconstruct Minimal is a 10-track groovebox featuring a drum machine accompanied by a virtual analogue bass synth and sampler capabilities.

The sequencer tracks are designed for creative drum programming, equipped with per-track accents, sub-steps, randomised velocity, swing and phrase rotation. Rather than channeling the sound of vintage drum machines, Minimal instead aims to recapture the ‘groove DNA’ of classic hardware by replicating the grooves of vintage machines, along with their subtle drifts in rhythm and pitch drift.

The drum sounds themselves are mostly sample-based, but Minimal uses synthesis for its BD1 and SD tracks. The instrument comes stocked with 16 drum kits, divided into 10 banks, totalling 130 sounds.

Alongside the drum tracks Minimal also features a ‘Sonic Expansion Sampler’, which is described as a ‘drum machine–integrated 4-track sampler with a 4-bar loop track’.

Tracks 7-9 are one-shot sampler tracks that can load 2 or 4 second mono samples (48kHz/16-bit) with repitch to tempo functionality. Track 10 is a dedicated loop sampler, supporting stereo samples of up-to 8 seconds (48kHz/16-bit) with added time stretching.

Minimal’s Elastic Bass Synth is a newly-developed analogue-modelled engine with front panel controls for filter cutoff, resonance, envelope and decay – giving it a distinctly 303-style flavour.

According to Sonicware, the bass synth also offers “extensive sound shaping possibilities” via additional waveforms, a sub-bass and dedicated overdrive, plus real-time control over glide time and curve, decay curve, and gate time.

The groovebox also packs in a range of effects including a sweepable filter, phaser, distortion, reverb and more.

Minimal has a built-in speaker and can be powered by batteries or a 9v power supply, although the latter needs to be purchased separately.

Minimal is available to order now, priced at £359/$399/€399. The first 1000 units are available for a specially discounted price of £269/$299/€299.

Head to the Sonicware site to find out more.

What is it?

The announcement of Telepathic Instruments Orchid heralded a flurry of chat that one might associate with a boutique fashion or limited-run IPA drop. This was in no small part due to the involvement of Tame Impala’s Kevin Parker.

According to TI, the Orchid is a “chord-generating digital synthesizer built on a revolutionary chord logic algorithm and industry-leading, voice-leading technology.”

While the concept of a chord-focused synth isn't entirely new – having its roots in the Omnichord and auto-accompaniment capabilities of ’80s era ‘home-keyboards’ – the Orchid attempts to drag that accessibility into the modern production era.

At its core, it is a 16-voice polyphonic synthesizer and keyboard that promises to translate musical intuition into immediate sonic results, with the intention of bypassing the learning curve of traditional music theory, subverting a user's hard-wired ‘chord memory’, or just as fun a bit of kit for finding new ideas. The idea being that rather than hunting for a major 9th on a standard keyboard, you simply hold a root note and tap a button, and all in a portable, battery-powered ‘ideas machine’ format.

In the flesh, apart from the small OLED screen, it looks like a child’s toy from the ’70s. In use, it perhaps feels like one as well, but more on that shortly.

Performance

The primary draw of the Orchid is its workflow, which, despite some initial cynicism on our part, is fun and genuinely transformative, offering an engaging way to escape a creative rut.

The standout feature is undoubtedly the Voicing Dial. This allows you to cycle through inversions and octave spreads with a simple flick of the wrist, creating harmonic shifts and variations that would usually require greater keyboard and chord proficiency to achieve. If actually deciding on a chord type is too much for you, then it’s easy to select a specific major or minor key and allow the Orchid to choose chords for you by mapping different, but appropriate ones, to each key of the keyboard.

It’s easy to be sniffy about some of this, especially if you are of the more judgmental ‘muso’ persuasion, but we really enjoyed this mode, and there’s nothing stopping you from tweaking chord types as you go.

You can also use the unit as a song-drafting tool to sketch out sophisticated harmonic progressions, and then split the chord, bass, and 'performance' data onto separate MIDI channels to trigger different hardware (or software) instruments. The aforementioned performance elements reflect the Orchid’s ability to turn block chords into something more engaging by allowing it to play them in different ways, with variations that take in ‘strumming’, arpeggiation, harp glissandi and 11 different trigger patterns.

The synth engine features 16-note polyphony and uses Virtual Analogue, FM, and Reed Piano models. The sounds themselves are good, with a solid array of presets, but editing is limited to overall filtering and effects. However, given that this is not intended as a standalone in-depth synth system, the lack of options here allows you to focus on other things and not be distracted by an endless menu of synth-engine parameters.

However, if you do wish to delve further, TI has released Pistil, a synth plugin featuring the Orchid synth engine, with full access to all its under-the-hood parameters – and it allows you to save patches to the hardware. Currently, Mac-only and in Beta, but a promising development, nonetheless.

It’s good to see that there have been some significant firmware updates over the course of Orchid’s development, which expand its features and flexibility. This includes the provision of additional time signatures and more expansive beat and looping options. The loop recorder included here is simple and effective but is only really intended as a notepad for generating one-off ideas. You won’t be creating complex multi-section music pieces here, and there’s no way to access or save anything other than what is in the loop recorder at that moment. Again, the focus clearly is on working in the moment.

Despite its boutique branding, it is disappointing to report that the physical chassis feels surprisingly lightweight and plastic, lacking the structural integrity of some other pro gear. The keyboard feels cheap and lightweight, and the encoders feel a little flimsy.

It is also worth pointing out that we have experienced some occasional glitches in use, and there have been some reported hardware issues on early units – though Telepathic Instruments itself does seem responsive in terms of support on this front.