After 20+ years in professional audio: live sound engineering, studio technical direction (Deep Forest, Pierre Jacquot), head of digital marketing at Playback.fr. A first-hand witness to the analog-to-digital shift, I track the whole audio landscape and break it down here — no fluff.
Warm Audio delivers a vintage-looking vocal dynamic with a capsule built for front-of-house: humbucking structure, upper-mid presence and controlled highs to push back feedback. A serious contender against the stage staples, around $149.
Cloud Microphones teams up with True Systems for its first 500-series module: the True Blue 520 chases transparency with 76 dB of clean gain, a relay-based touch interface and a FET instrument input. A clean preamp with intent, around $799.
Teenage Engineering delivers a handheld performance mic with four voice effects, four triggerable samples and a modulation lever. Unashamedly lo-fi, JSON-configurable and tied into the EP ecosystem, it sells for 59 euros.
Hollyland packs a condenser mic, a 55 g dual-DSP mixer and monitoring earphones into a fully wireless system. 32-bit capture, four sources mixed in real time and up to 60 m of range: a mobile capture chain built for podcasting and streaming, from $249 to $449.
Reason Studios throws its ecosystem wide open: fifteen of its signature devices are now free, forever, as a plug-in that runs in any DAW. A major strategic turn for a brand that spent years behind a walled garden.
Polyend has shown a hybrid few makers dared to build: a full mechanical computer keyboard whose number and function rows turn into a three-octave piano. Called Keys, it works for both typing and playing, without adding a second box to a crowded desk.
Three VCOs, a ladder filter and a sequencer in a pocket box for €99: the D Mini, long teased as the D Soul, is finally shipping in Europe. A budget Model D distilled down to size.
The O-Series V2.0 update gives the Oracle console automation driven from Pro Tools and Logic, channel presets that travel between rooms, and session compatibility with the new Odyssey. SSL’s Future Analogue promise gets sharper.
Six voices, six bucket-brigade resonators and an analog architecture no one else had dared to build: the Echon 6 is leaving prototype status and heading out the door. A close look at a synth that actually invents something.
The CEDAR Voxis promises a clean voice at front of house, under 10 ms of latency. Here are seven tools, free and paid, that do the same voice-isolation job live and in post, with their real limits.