Reviews
No Work On Monday Toolkit Review: A No-Brainer Ableton Rack Collection, That Shouldn’t Be Just $39
Derek Oswald
A significant part of my job involves scrolling Instagram’s explore tab to find products worth covering. A few months back, I kept seeing informative tutorials from the same account. These were short clips about ...
Death By Audio: The Destroyer Series – 3 Small But Mighty Pedals
Derek Oswald
Death By Audio has been hand-building noisy pedals in New York for over twenty years. The Fuzz War is standard-issue in noise rock. The Rooms is one of the most unhinged stereo reverbs you ...
Heavys H1H Review: Finally, Headphones That Respect Rock
Derek Oswald
Full disclosure, I am aware these have been out for several years. However, I kept seeing these pop up on my feed during the holidays, with Instagram videos of people listening at trade shows, ...
Audima Labs The Sway Review: An Entertaining New Take on DJing
Derek Oswald
The Birth of The Sway If you live in Australia, your first introduction to The Sway or Audima Labs may have been on Shark Tank Australia, where many startups get their first spotlight. However, ...
EDMProd Superknobs Ultimate Collection Review: 230+ One Knob Tweaks That Make Your Music Suck Less
Derek Oswald
We received this product from EDMProd complimentary after contacting them to do a review; however, we received no financial compensation for writing this piece. I wanted Superknobs Ultimate for the last stretch. I can ...
Think Like a Synth: 31 Lessons That Finally Made Synthesis Click
Derek Oswald
We received the Think Like a Synth course complimentary from Anthony Marinelli’s team after contacting them to inquire about a review. We have received no financial compensation for this review. I’ve spent years “using” ...
this.is.NOISE.inc Gamma Mini Synth: 90’s 8-Bit Nostaglia In An Always In Tune Synth
Derek Oswald
We received this review unit from this.is.NOISE.inc, however, we have received no financial compensation for this review. Having been a big fan of their MIDI controllers, and the team behind this.is.NOISE in general (they’re ...
The Runarounds Bring a New Sound To Emo’s Austin – January 17, 2026
Daniel Benavides
Austin, TX • Emo’s Austin (East) Walking into Emo’s Austin last Saturday, for The Runarounds show, the energy was unlike any I had seen for some time. While I have been in this game ...
Everclear Brings All Their Classic Hits to the Aztec Theatre
Daniel Benavides
Friday, January 16, 2026 San Antonio, TX • Historic Aztec Theatre Friday night at the Aztec Theatre felt like stepping into a portal into the 90s-2000’s. From the moment Everclear’s amp stacks lit up ...
Trap Door Electronics Active Acid: Prophet-5 Character In A Stomp Box
Derek Oswald
If recent reviews and demo videos on AltWire haven’t already made this clear, I’m a massive fan of acid-style music. Its sounds, its subgenres, and the numerous 303 hardware clones, tributes, and VSTs that ...
Strange Things: Subsocial Studios’ War on Boring Samples – Plus 25% Discount Code!
Derek Oswald
EEnjoy a Subsocial Studios Now & Forever discount code, courtesy of Altwire! Purchase a forever subscription here, and use code ALTWIRE at checkout for 25% off the full price! Picture this: somewhere in Vancouver, ...
Sim’n Tonic Nome II Review: Finally Making MIDI Timing Work The Way It Should Have Since 1983.
Derek Oswald
Here’s the thing about running hardware synths into a DAW: it should be simple. MIDI has been around since 1983. Your interface has MIDI ports, your DAW sends clock, and with significant advances in ...
The ESI XSynth Review: A Surprising Tiny Synth With Brilliant Depth
Derek Oswald
I first saw the XSynth on Instagram and had to get my hands on it. At 387×148×27 mm and 634 grams, this is the iPhone Air of the synth world, with a size that ...
Home Bake Instrument’s Acid Mint & FM Mint MK1: Our Latest Cool Reverb Finds
Derek Oswald
As with so many of my Reverb finds, this one started with a random Instagram account that the algorithm decided I needed to see: over and over again. My first encounter with Home Bake ...
Eternal Research Demon Box (2025) Review: Playing with Electromagnetic Fields
Derek Oswald
A unique instrument that turns invisible magnetic fields into playable sound. Everything hums, but most of us never hear it. The Demon Box, created by Eternal Research in Los Angeles, captures invisible electromagnetic fields ...
Waldorf Iridium Core Review (2025): A Greatest Hits Collection Disguised as a Desktop Synth
Derek Oswald
Waldorf has been around long enough that you can watch digital synthesis evolve simply by looking at their catalog. The early PPG influence shaped everything. Those bright, shifting wavetables became a signature of late-80s and early-90s electronic ...
Norand Mono MK2: A Delicious Sounding Acid Synth That’s Not A 303-Clone
Derek Oswald
Norand hasn’t been around as long as the big Japanese or American brands, but their path is already pretty clear. The company is based in France and started with its first release, the original ...
Board Review: Rebuilding Game Night for Our Distracted Brains in 2025
Derek Oswald
There is a quiet irony to modern social life. We have never been more connected, and we have never spent so much time sitting next to one another without actually interacting. Phones glow on ...
IK Multimedia ARC On-Ear: Better Monitoring, On The Go
Derek Oswald
Headphones are often the most practical monitoring option, but they rarely replicate a full-room sound. They isolate each ear, eliminate acoustic blending between channels, and remove the cues created by speakers interacting with a ...
Gibson x Loog SG Guitar Review: 2025’s Best Guitar For Children
Derek Oswald
When our tester, Jordan, first introduced the Gibson x Loog SG to their home, it wasn’t their first attempt to help their 11-year-old daughters, Adalynn and Autumn, get into guitar. Previous efforts with full-size ...
