ADPTR Utopia: what makes this spectral reverb one of the best effects of 2025

Move over, recycled ideas and emulations: it’s been a year of reimagining entire effects categories. And ADPTR Audio’s Utopia stands out in a 2025 class of reverbs that are more than just reverbs. Here’s a look at why it’s an effect I can’t put down, why it’s so much fun to tweak, and how the developers thought about it.

A new Bucket Brigade Delay chip just dropped, the first in decades

Wake up! A new BBD just dropped. It’s an analog delay circuit, but a new-generation design — the first such genuinely new chip design in decades. And that means you could argue the biggest announcement of this year in music technology is the smallest. Meet the SSI2100 from Sound Semiconductor, coming soon to music gear new you.

Peter Kirn - October 10, 2025

The making of Sequential’s all-analog, polyphonic, expressive Fourm

Sequential’s new Fourm is a 4-voice polysynth with an all-analog signal path and polyphonic aftertouch and a price under a grand. To pull it off, Sequential designed an all-new expressive keybed and adapted their signature analog circuitry from the Prophet-5 (and Prophet-10). I spoke to Sequential about their instrument and the engineering that made it all happen.

Peter Kirn - September 23, 2025

Roland’s Tadeo Kikumoto on 808, part by part: the ukiyo-e drum machine

Peter Kirn - August 8, 2025

The all-new Moog Messenger: a tour with synth legend Erik Norlander of Moog

Peter Kirn - June 4, 2025

Paul Schreiber (Tandy, Moog MG-1, Synthesis Technology) remembered

Peter Kirn - March 24, 2025

Analog Waveguide module uses 1971 theory to make a killer resonator

Peter Kirn - May 15, 2024

Super Synthesis is taking their excellent Eurorack modules open-source

Peter Kirn - April 12, 2024

Polyphonic patching, chords in cords: Tiptop Audio’s ART arrives

Peter Kirn - February 28, 2024

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