The top of Akai's classic S3000 line: 16-bit/44.1 sampling, that unmistakable Akai filter, and a build that simply keeps running. This one is fully wired on the back, eight individual...

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 S1100 took the industry-standard S1000 and added onboard effects, SCSI, and a hard-disk option, the sampler that defined pro 16-bit sound at the turn of the 90s. This one...

Don't let the cartoon fat man fool you: the HHB Radius 3 is a genuine valve stereo compressor with a glowing VU and a brilliantly simple program-based front end. Pick...

Akai's late-90s reinvention of the sampler: a big graphical screen, a computer-style workflow, and that clean 16-bit Akai character. This particular unit is loaded to the gills, RAM maxed at...

When Access dropped the Virus C in 2002, it didn't so much join the synth world as colonise it. This is the desktop module that turned up on countless trance...

Lexicon built their name on reverbs that cost more than your car, then put a huge slice of that magic into the MX400: a dual-stereo effects processor with proper Lexicon...

Korg's 1981 game-changer: real six-voice analog polyphony at roughly a third the price of a Prophet-5 or OB-X, which is exactly why it ended up under so many 80s hands....

The Source is the most unusual Moog ever built: a 1981 monosynth controlled by a Z80 microprocessor, with no knobs or sliders at all, just a sleek flat membrane panel...

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...

When the S1000 landed in 1988, it did to the studio what the S900 had only hinted at: proper 16-bit, 44.1kHz stereo sampling that instantly became the professional benchmark. For...

Here is a properly special rig. The Akai AX60 is a fat six-voice analog polysynth built around the legendary Curtis CEM 3394 chip, with sliders, a real resonant filter, an...

Akai's answer to the Juno. The AX60 is a six-voice analog polysynth from 1986, built around the same Curtis CEM3394 voice chip you will find in a clutch of classic...

The Alesis MultiMix 12R folds a full twelve-channel mixer into a rack: mic preamps, EQ, aux sends and a metered master section, all standing upright to save your desk space....

A step sequencer that feels like an instrument. Eight tracks, 32 steps, 256 patterns, all wrapped in a gorgeous oak-and-aluminium body with a big illuminated button grid you actually want...

The Xpander is, quite simply, one of the most revered analog synthesizers ever built: a six-voice, keyboardless powerhouse that is essentially half a Matrix-12. Each of its six voices is...

The Polivoks is the legendary Soviet duophonic analog synth, built in the USSR and beloved for its aggressive, slightly unhinged character. That famous resonant filter snarls and screams like nothing...

The Novation Supernova is the analog-modelling rack synth that put Novation on the map: three oscillators and a proper resonant filter per voice, run through seven simultaneous effects, for a...

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...

The 160S is dbx founder David Blackmer's high-end reimagining of his own legendary 160 VCA compressor, hand-built in the boutique Blue Series. A true-stereo (or dual-mono) VCA compressor with that...

Released when most synth makers were still scared of giving you too much power, the Arturia Origin was an ambitious, misunderstood beast. Imagine stuffing a Moog Modular, ARP 2600, Jupiter-8...

The Auratone 5C is the legendary little mixcube that engineers from Motown onward used to check that a mix translates: full-range, single-driver, brutally honest. If it sounds good on an...

The Komplete Kontrol keyboard puts Native Instruments' huge sound world at your fingertips: touch-sensitive knobs, light-guided key zones and tight integration with Komplete and your DAW. A compact, clever controller...