The Monster 2 is exactly what it sounds like: a boutique Polish dual-channel beast that bolts a fast FET compressor to a NOS-tube saturation stage and a parallel mix knob,...

Before Dave Smith gave the world MIDI itself, Sequential's first drum machine landed in 1984 with a sound all its own. The DrumTraks packs thirteen crunchy 8-bit sampled voices (bass,...

The Ensoniq DP/4+ is really four effects processors in a single rack, units A, B, C and D, each a complete 24-bit stereo multi-FX in its own right, with four...

The S3000XL's clever sibling: the same beloved 16-bit Akai sampling engine with a CD-ROM drive built into the front, so you drop in a sample disc and load straight off...

The TEAC AN-300 is the noise reduction companion to TEAC's 1970s multitrack system, and this one comes from the same set as our TEAC AX-300 mixers. Built to tame tape...

The Joemeek SC4 brings the cult British photo-optical compression sound to the stereo bus: smooth, vibey gain reduction that flatters mixes, drums and vocals with character rather than clinical control.The...

Korg's Volca Keys proves you don't need a mortgage to own a real analog synth. Three genuine analog voices, a squelchy resonant filter, and a delay that smears everything into...

If you could own one stereo bus compressor for the rest of your life, a frightening number of top engineers would name the Neve 33609. Derived from the legendary 2254...

In the early 1980s Oberheim took aim at the Linn LM-1 and built a drum machine that quietly ended up on more classic records than almost anything else of its...

Don't let the modest price fool you, the 18Xs MkII is a seriously good single-channel front end. A transformer-coupled, Class-A microphone preamp with up to 65dB of gain, a high-impedance...

Ask a roomful of mix engineers about a do-anything stereo compressor and Elysia's Xpressor keeps coming up. This is a discrete Class-A stereo compressor built in Germany to mastering-grade standards,...

Hand-built in California by Speck Electronics, the Model ASC is a boutique four-band parametric EQ with a cult following: clean, musical and surgical, yet never thin or harsh. This is...

In 1976 David Blackmer built the first solid-state VCA compressor and changed recording forever. The 160 is brutally simple, three knobs and a big switchable VU, but it does one...

The rackmount Tube Driver, and the one to have. This is the TDR-101 from the era when B.K. Butler and Chandler built them in partnership, widely held to be the...

Steinberg and Yamaha's UR28M is a do-it-all desktop audio interface that quietly punches above its weight: pristine D-PRE mic preamps, rock-solid drivers, and, crucially, a proper hardware monitor controller with...