2025: A Year in Gear (What You've Bought or Want to Buy in 2025)

[Korg Supporter]

I just bought a Xena (Ambika) from the MSW website this morning. It's the version with Roland 3109 filters. I am very excited to have it, and I haven't had anything with analog components since I bought a Minilogue XD in 2019.

[cryophonik]

I just bought a Xena (Ambika) from the MSW website this morning. It's the version with Roland 3109 filters. I am very excited to have it, and I haven't had anything with analog components since I bought a Minilogue XD in 2019.

I have the exact same model/filters and it's a great sounding synth! I've even considered buying a second one at that price with the SVFs. I owned a Shruthi for a few years with the SVF and loved that filter with the MI digital OSCs.

[cryophonik]

This is my third time owning a Digitone. I don’t know why I’m so fickle with this thing, but for the price I paid, meh whatever. I’ll make that back and then some if I decide to sell it again. Anyway, this time around I have a specific use for it so hopefully the third time’s a charm.

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[elxsound]

This is my third time owning a Digitone. I don’t know why I’m so fickle with this thing, but for the price I paid, meh whatever. I’ll make that back and then some if I decide to sell it again. Anyway, this time around I have a specific use for it so hopefully the third time’s a charm.



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Congrats!

I still want one of these boxes too, but because of Push 3, I don’t feel like I can justify it. Lots of silly used prices since Digitone II came out.

[cryophonik]

Lots of silly used prices since Digitone II came out.

Yup, but with tariffs kicking in on new items (Digitone 2 has already increased by $150 since its initial price and the TEO-5 street price just jumped $350!), I think it's probably not long before secondhand prices on synths start to creep up too, so that factored into my decision to jump on this one while it was dirt cheap.

[justin3am]

After a lot of hemming and hawing, I added a Sweet Sixteen mk2 to my controller case.


I wanted a controller with larger faders but I'm pretty happy over all. I'm not as annoyed by having all the jacks along the side, as I thought I would be. It really opens up the Zoia Euroburo!

[foosnark]

My Jumbler came today. I decided to rack it in place of Katowice, at least for now. First impression is, it's one of those things where all the theory I had about how I was going to use it was swept away by actually patching it.

It's surprisingly not going to replace Nearness. In less than half an hour of playing with it, I found a use for patching Jumbler into Nearness (... and then Mimeophon and then feedback into Jumbler...)

It's also not going to replace Silhouette -- the way it rotates stuff is entirely different, I like Sil's lo-fi reverb, and again, I quickly found that Silhouette/Jumbler feedback patches work really nicely.

Not sure if Katowice is going to be the one to depart in the long run though, because there's an argument for patching it into feedback loops...

[cryophonik]

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Yup

[Constructed Identity]

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Yup

I was looking at it and it has devoted quite a bit of real estate to the name at the top when it could have had a bigger screen or some switches. Almost as if marketing trumps features.

[cryophonik]

Yeah, they also could have made it twice as large, made it knob per function, doubled the voice count, and charged $3K for it. But they didn’t, and I can’t say that it feels like they made any arbitrary design decisions to cheat the user out of their money. It’s a very well thought out and intuitive design and I’d say that it competes quite favorably against my Trigon-6 desktop that costs $1K more.

[elxsound]

Superbooth rig, making the online rounds. I’m most curious about the top-right input and how it plays with Multimod’s Channel Index out.

Also looks like a prototype?

[vurt]

Superbooth rig, making the online rounds. I’m most curious about the top-right input and how it plays with Multimod’s Channel Index out.

Also looks like a prototype?

i suspected there'd be something else, thry wouldn't go to superbooth, for the two recently released. but polymaths, i did not suspect!

[WatchTheGuitar]

There’s a video

[vurt]

glad i didn't go now, as i can use the money i would have spent, on this!

[UltimateOutsider]

My ex and I sold our house in December and split the profits. I paid off my car and put a bunch aside for my kids' college. I have been spending the rest on hardware synths.

This year I've picked up the following (mostly used):

• Waldorf Iridium Core (bought as new, but was shipped a used one)
• Roland SH-4d (new)
• Roland Integra-7
• Roland JV-1080
• Roland XV-3080
• Roland U-110
• Roland U-220
• Yamaha FB-01
• Roland SE-02
• Roland SH-01A
• Roland VP-03

I've recorded a track with the Iridium, used the VP-03 in a couple, and am working on one for the SH-4d. (I get to take advantage of the new drawbar organ model Roland included with today's firmware update!) Planning to record tracks for the rest over the coming months.