Boutique maker VAEMI has launched the Synterra, a standalone bio-interactive synthesizer that reads the shifting signals of a plant, a piece of fruit, ambient light or a simple touch and turns them into melodies. Nine synth engines, eight scales and a bargain price: this one is a genuine oddity.
Audio Damage drags the legendary 1983 Roland MC-202 into the plugin era. The AD-202 keeps the single oscillator and ladder filter of the little silver box, then bolts on polyphony, MPE and microtuning — a cult monosynth finally freed from its fiddly onboard sequencer.
Dawesome sets Abyss II for 20 August 2026: the second generation of its visual synth deepens the engine, adds a mono mode, sample import and full MPE support, without abandoning its founding idea — designing sound by colour rather than by calculation.
Just months after being acquired by inMusic, Native Instruments is going through a heavy restructuring: a reported UK office closure, roles on Maschine, Kontakt and Komplete at risk, and a reshuffled leadership. Here’s what’s really at stake for one of the pillars of music software — and for your plugins.
Pittsburgh Modular brings its flagship semi-modular workstation back to life. The Lifeforms SV-2 is no mere SV-1 facelift: it’s a complete rethink, with two thru-zero oscillators, a dual multimode filter section, saturation stages scattered across the signal path and, best of all, a built-in Eurorack bay. Available now at €1,599.
Fender rolls out its first two pad controllers, the Motion 16 and Motion 32. Each packs FATAR-built RGB pads with polyphonic aftertouch, built-in songwriting tools and tight integration with Fender’s own DAW. A quiet move that says a lot about the company’s software ambitions.
For 808 day, Berlin’s Tubbutec unveils a kit that swaps the Roland TR-808’s original processor for a new CPU. On the menu: velocity MIDI, eleven extra instruments, a rebuilt sequencer and performance effects — fully reversible, and compatible with the Din Sync RE-808 replica.
Behringer is bringing back the Korg Mini Pops 7, the 1966 analog rhythm box immortalized on Jean-Michel Jarre’s Oxygène. The modern take promises analog circuitry, a fully programmable step sequencer, a distortion unit and a tone control. Its appearance in Behringer’s Syntribe software points to a release that’s just around the corner.
discoDSP pushes its OPL FM synth to version 3.0, a ground-up rewrite that drops the old OPL2 emulation for Yamaha’s YMF262 chip, better known as OPL3. Eight waveforms per operator, up to 16x oversampling and a resolution-independent GUI: that unmistakable ’90s soundcard tone gets sharper without losing its bite.
Teenage Engineering turns its EP-133 platform into a machine built for reggae, dub and dancehall. The real story isn’t the King Jammy and Mad Professor sound library, it’s Supertone: the first onboard synth engine in the EP range.