If there was any doubt that KORG wants to be the Nintendo of music brands, here’s yet another partnership with the iconic game maker – but it’s sadly only skin deep. Yes, it’s true, you get insanely cute Pokémon metronomes and clip-on pitch tuners. But there’s a missed opportunity here – whereas Teenage Engineering recently […]

90s techno is back, 90s trance is back, 90s Roland is … back. With Roland releasing MC series grooveboxes again, let’s flash back to the oddly entertaining demo videos they produced for the 90s models. Whatever Roland did to differentiate the MC hardware models, they sure did differentiate the videos – using an oddball selection […]

The move back to hardware jams is in full force. And what better sign than Roland re-introducing the MC groovebox line – with the full-sized MC-707 and pint-sized MC-101. The reason you know it’s not the 1990s? They advertise them as replacing your laptop.

It doesn’t look like much. The latest Roland Boutique might even give you a sense of deja vu – because Roland did a tiny JUNO before. The difference: this time they got it right.

The Sega Genesis, aka Mega Drive, was more than just a beloved game console. It was also a powerful FM synth – seriously. And now you get an accurate, powerful version as a plug-in, in chipsynth MD from Plogue. If you’re a Sega fan, you know the sound of this instrument from the sunny, sparkling, […]

KORG is kicking off a new product line – the DIY-focused Nu:Tekt – with a $99 screw-together instrument. And it has the same programmable guts as you find in the prologue and minilogue xd, complete with SDK.

Native Instruments has responded to our request for more clarity on recent layoffs and how this impacts their future plans. Other sources tell us there have been deep cuts into teams managing products, marketing, and design.

Native Instruments last week cut 20% of their workforce, as part of a “One Native” strategy that is leaving some customers and media uncertain about the direction of the company and its products.

It calls itself a “dream synth” for sound designers and performers alike. It’s got polyphonic aftertouch. And it signals a return of the designer of the Arturia ‘Brutes and Akai APC40. Today is the first time I think most of us have heard of Ashun Sound Machines. Evidently, it’s a new synthesizer brand backed by […]

“You can’t just do another boring oscillator” is now a mantra in the Eurorack world. Well fine – here’s this. It looks cyperpunk futuristic, and shows how hardware and software might continue to merge.