Hardware Reviews
Cheerful Electronic OPL Studio Review: A Full OPL3 MIDI Studio In The Palm of Your Hand
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The moment I pulled the OPL Studio by Cheerful Electronic out of its box, I was hit with a wave of nostalgia. It looks like a handheld toy straight out of the 1990s, a ...
Gamechanger Audio Motor Pedal Review: 2025’s Most Creative Pedal Release
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A glass window sits on top of the enclosure, revealing a brushed DC motor. Feed in a note, and the pedal’s pitch-tracking system uses that note to drive the motor oscillator. An A4 at ...
Death By Audio: The Destroyer Series – 3 Small But Mighty Pedals
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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
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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
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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, ...
Trap Door Electronics Active Acid: Prophet-5 Character In A Stomp Box
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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 ...
Sim’n Tonic Nome II Review: Finally Making MIDI Timing Work The Way It Should Have Since 1983.
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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
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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 ...
Synido TempoPad C16: A Capable 16-Pad Controller Built for Mobility
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Most pad controllers follow a familiar outline. They hand you a grid, offer a few knobs, and call it a day. The Synido TempoPad C16 takes a different route. Synido fits a sixteen-pad performance ...
Embodme Erae 2 Review: Exploring A Bold New Language of Touch
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I first saw the Embodme Erae series during the surprise livestream of Linkin Park’s From Zero secret concert. As a longtime fan of the band, I tuned in to the live stream, both nervous and excited about what ...
Fart Pedal 2.0 Review: A ‘Gas’-Powered Pedal That’s Pure Fun
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When the Studio Erupts The first time I stepped on The Fart Pedal: Number Two and hit a note to test it, the monitors let out such an aggressive blast that I glanced toward ...
Small Creator Spotlight: Shiela Dixon’s Retro MIDISID 4 Morpheus Revives the Legendary SID Sound
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Most musicians don’t look to Etsy for synthesizers. The site is better known for boutique pedals, handmade controllers, and other curiosities. Yet tucked between craft projects and circuit art lies a fun little nod ...
Woovebox Micro Music Workstation Review: A Compact Wonder Gets Even Better With Firmware 2.0
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The Woovebox Micro Music Workstation asks a simple question: Can something smaller than a smartphone replace a 1990s studio setup? Remarkable in both its size and functionality, the Woovebox combines a 16-part synthesizer, sequencer, ...
