{"id":21092686,"date":"2026-08-26T14:44:18","date_gmt":"2026-08-26T18:44:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/altwire.net\/?p=21092686"},"modified":"2026-08-26T15:36:08","modified_gmt":"2026-08-26T19:36:08","slug":"melbourne-instruments-nina-2026-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/altwire.net\/ru\/melbourne-instruments-nina-2026-review\/","title":{"rendered":"Melbourne Instruments NINA 2026 Review: An Already Great Synth, Now Even Better"},"content":{"rendered":"

Within seconds of its first power-on, Melbourne Instruments’ NINA<\/strong><\/a> already looks unlike anything else on the desk. After a brief boot, every knob starts moving on its own, snapping into position to match the loaded preset, and even though I knew that was going to happen, I still think it is one of the trippiest things I have seen on a synth. Put this in front of a manufacturer from the 70s, 80s, or even the 90s, and it would look like science fiction; hell, I have had my hands on a lot of synthesizers, and I have never seen anything quite like it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The spectacle becomes practical almost immediately. Analog synths that combine preset memory with traditional knobs usually leave the physical controls wherever you last touched them, so loading a new sound can make the front panel lie to you; NINA’s contactless motorized controls instead move to the stored values, then keep following the instrument when you change layers, open a modulation assignment, morph between patches, or play back sequencer automation. Melbourne specifies roughly 15,000 steps of optical resolution, but what matters in use is simpler: the panel keeps telling the truth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That became especially obvious when I started exploring NINA’s factory presets because loading somebody else’s sound also loaded the oscillator balance, filter, envelopes, and modulation directly under my fingers. Reverse-engineering a patch became almost embarrassingly easy, and I missed the motors the moment I went back to synths where every stored value was hidden behind a knob pointing somewhere else.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Engine-wise, twelve voices form a shared pool, each layer gets its own preset, MIDI channel, note range, and allocation, and switching parts makes the entire panel physically become the newly selected sound, which meant I could move between bass, chords, a lead or texture, and another sequenced part without mentally translating a single set of controls across four different patches.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Vintage Flavor, Modern Control<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Of course, moving knobs and clever layers would be an expensive party trick if I didn’t want to hear the sounds underneath them. Fortunately, NINA sounds great, and the hybrid voice explains why: two discrete analog VCOs sit beside a digital oscillator section, and each voice then runs through a four-pole transistor ladder filter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That combination keeps pulling toward a strong vintage center even when the source material gets stranger. The lower registers have real warmth and weight; many factory patches sit somewhere around the lush, softer edges of a Juno or Prophet, and even sounds I built from scratch or kicked into existence with a CC randomizer often settled into that neighborhood. At the same time, metallic wavetables, formants, and harsher digital sources stayed recognizable enough through the ladder filter to keep the result from becoming generic analog mush.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Filter drive became one of my favorite ways to decide how much of each side survived. Early in the range, it adds density and harmonic pressure without turning the patch into obvious distortion, which is where I used it most. Harder drive settings, especially alongside the seperate XOR fuzz source or higher resonance, can drag NINA out of its natural darker softness into hostile digital edges, and properly ugly sounds when I want them. The two VCAs keep some motion alive before chorus or reverb, so wide pads can spread across the speakers instead of relying on effects to fake all of the space.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Digging through the library while building the video showed how far that basic character stretches: glassy PPG-style patches, huge 80s pads, metallic digital sounds, and unexpectedly great horror patches all felt related because the filter weight and stereo movement kept gluing them back together. Those darker patches became some of my favorites, and Melbourne’s later experimental and John Carpenter-inspired banks make sense because NINA already sounds at home in that territory before you start reaching for much processing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The effects then finish a sound that is already moving in stereo rather than creating all \u0434\u0432\u0438\u0436\u0435\u043d\u0438\u0435<\/a> themselves. Chorus, delay, and reverb can run in series or parallel at 96 kHz\/24-bit, and parallel routing is particularly nice when a patch has a strong analog center because the dry signal stays intact beside the processed one; compared with the motorized panel and hybrid engine, this is familiar territory, but it is polished enough that plenty of presets arrive close to track-ready.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Sequencer<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

What began as a modest 16-step polyphonic sequencer was transformed in the 2.0 beta, then refined with 2.1, into four tracks of up 64 steps, with independent lengths, parameter locks, microtiming, probability, pattern recall, and chains of up to 16 patterns. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The sequencer still shares the same twelve voices as the four layers, so a monophonic bass and percussion part leave plenty of room for chords, while stacked pads and long releases need more planning; still, four tracks are enough to sketch a surprisingly complete idea without leaving the synth. Different track lengths can keep bass, harmony, rhythm, and another moving element pulling against each other, which made the sequencer feel like another way to exploit the motorized panel.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"The
The back of Melbourne Instruments’ NINA (image source: Melbourne Instruments)<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Build and Feel<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

NINA has enough I\/O to support any role without immediately asking for another box: stereo mains plus assignable outputs 3 and 4, headphones, three balanced TRS line\/CV inputs, a combo mic input, DIN MIDI in\/out\/thru, USB-C, and two USB-A host ports. With this being my first hands-on time with the NINA, my bigger hardware question before the unit arrived was whether all those moving knobs felt delicate, and that concern disappeared quickly; the chassis feels very substantial, the knobs never felt fragile, even under motor control, and although Melbourne rates the system at more than 50 million cycles, my few month loan obviously cannot verify a lifespan claim like that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If I had to voice any concern, it\u2019s temperature. After longer sessions, I noticed the chassis getting noticeably warm. I couldn\u2019t see any obvious venting to release heat, but thankfully it never got hot enough to be alarming or affect performance. Just know that, if you\u2019re planning to use the NINA for hours, I would give it some air rather than bury it in a tight enclosure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Firmware 3.0<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

The hardware stayed stable during my loan (which began in March), while the software kept growing around it. Firmware 3.0.0 arrived on April 30, 2026, with 45 synthesis models using code from Emilie Gillet’s Mutable Instruments Braids: formants, FM, modeled string and wind sounds, granular synthesis, percussion, and more. They run polyphonically across NINA’s 12 voices and through it’s dedicated analog filters. Type selects the model, while Timbre and Color provide the two main sound-shaping controls, with Level alongside them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This was a massive upgrade, and forty-five models sounds like the kind of update that could have made the instrument substantially more complicated, yet the limited control set for each is exactly what kept that from happening. Pick a model, turn Timbre and Color, move on; formant sources darken through the filter, physical-modeling voices pair well with the analog VCOs, percussion gets especially fun once parameter locks start moving it, and the motorized panel adapts without changing the basic way I already knew how to work. Firmware 3.1.0 followed in June as a minor bug-fix release and remains current.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Final Thoughts & The $3,299 Question<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

NINA current US price is $3,299. This is a premium synth, and if I had to wager, I\u2019d bet that a large part of that cost comes from the manufacturing that goes into the mechanized controls. Building this isn\u2019t cheap. Compared with other premium polysynths in this range, like Groove Synthesis’ 3rd Wave 24K\/24M, the Moog Muse, or Arturia PolyBrute 12, NINA doesn\u2019t always win on pure spec fights alone. \u00a0However, none of these have a motorized panel, which participates in patch recall, modulation, layer switching, morphing, and sequencer automation instead of merely looking impressive during boot.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As I\u2019ve said, sonically, NINA is a beautiful-sounding synth. But if you\u2019re buying the NINA, know that its UI is honestly the best part, and that you\u2019ll miss its motorized controls most when you go back to another synth and find it\u2019s just not as convenient or cool<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Because motorized knobs are badass<\/em><\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Check out more hardware reviews \u0437\u0434\u0435\u0441\u044c<\/a>!<\/em><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Within seconds of its first power-on, Melbourne Instruments’ NINA already looks unlike anything else on the desk. After a brief … \u0427\u0438\u0442\u0430\u0442\u044c \u0434\u0430\u043b\u0435\u0435<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":21092689,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"episode_type":"","audio_file":"","transcript_file":"","podmotor_file_id":"","podmotor_episode_id":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","itunes_episode_number":"","itunes_title":"","itunes_season_number":"","itunes_episode_type":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1790],"tags":[1842,1531,1843,1841,1844],"class_list":["post-21092686","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-hardware-reviews","tag-analog","tag-editors-picks","tag-motor","tag-synth","tag-synthesizer","generate-columns","tablet-grid-50","mobile-grid-100","grid-parent","grid-50"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/altwire.net\/ru\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21092686","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/altwire.net\/ru\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/altwire.net\/ru\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/altwire.net\/ru\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/altwire.net\/ru\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21092686"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/altwire.net\/ru\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21092686\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21092696,"href":"https:\/\/altwire.net\/ru\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21092686\/revisions\/21092696"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/altwire.net\/ru\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21092689"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/altwire.net\/ru\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21092686"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/altwire.net\/ru\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21092686"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/altwire.net\/ru\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21092686"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}