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 Roland JSQ-60 is a slice of early-80s sequencing history: a digital keyboard recorder that captures your performances and plays them back to compatible Roland synths via DCB and MIDI....
The MPC60 is where the modern MPC story begins. Designed by Roger Linn, it married 12-bit sampling with the swing and feel that defined boom-bap and built half of hip-hop...
Roland's first stab at semi-modular synthesis, from 1975, and quietly one of the best-sounding things the company ever built. This is a three-module rig: the 101 keyboard synth at the...
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,...
History lives in this one. In early 1983 the Prophet-600 became the first synthesizer on earth to ship with MIDI, the protocol Dave Smith gave the world for free, and...
The Roland TR-707 is the 707: a clean, punchy digital rhythm composer with that unmistakable 80s click and snap, the classic step-sequencer grid, and a sound that built house, techno...
The Ensoniq SD-1 is the workstation that perfected the VFX-SD formula: gorgeous transwave synthesis, a built-in sequencer and that unmistakable lush, slightly dreamy Ensoniq character beloved by 90s producers and...
There is no overstating this one. The TR-808 is the most influential drum machine ever made: the booming kick, the ticking hats, the cowbell, the snap, the sound of hip-hop,...
The MPC4000 is the biggest, most powerful MPC Akai ever built, and the one the heavyweights reached for. Under the hood sits the 24-bit/96kHz Z96 sampling engine borrowed from Akai's...
The Korg minilogue is the little analog polysynth that reignited the whole craze: four voices of genuine analog warmth, a brilliant oscilloscope display, a proper step sequencer and a hands-on...
In 2011, Teenage Engineering looked at the bloated, menu-diving world of digital workstations and built the exact opposite: a slab of aluminium the size of a TV remote that somehow...
One of the very few synthesizers ever built on true additive synthesis, and Kawai's top-of-the-line workstation when it landed in 1996. Instead of starting from samples, the K5000W builds every...
The RZ-1 is Casio's 1986 oddball masterpiece: a 12-bit PCM drum machine with a built-in sampler, and one of the cheapest ways into that crunchy, grainy 80s sampling sound. You...
Cheap when it launched, legendary ever since. The Roland SH-101 was the synth "for the rest of us", a 32-key monosynth in red, grey or blue that you could sling...
The Maschine MK3 is Native Instruments' flagship groove production system: 16 velocity-sensitive pads, two crisp colour screens, a big browse-and-tweak encoder and deep integration with a massive sound library. Finger-drum,...
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...
Roger Linn's LinnDrum (often miscalled the LM-2) is the sound of an entire decade: the sampled-drum machine that put real kicks, snares and hats into pop, R&B and new wave...
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...
The E-MU Proteus 2500 is a powerhouse rack sound module and command station: over a thousand ready-to-go sounds, a deep synthesis engine, real-time knobs and an onboard 16-track sequencer. From...
The Roland MCR-8 is a tidy hands-on control surface: eight channel faders, assignable knobs, function buttons and full transport, all sending MIDI to your sequencer, DAW or modules. A simple,...
The EPS 16 Plus is Ensoniq's 1990 sampling workstation and a low-key legend of golden-era hip-hop. It samples at 16-bit with that warm, slightly gritty Ensoniq character, and its killer...
