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

[justin3am]

I need a break from being inside so I'm going to take my 15% coupon go GC and see if I can break my streak of never using them because nothing that I want is from a manufacturer not on the exclusion list. Whether I come back with something new (or used) or not, I'll be buying a cheeseburger at in-n-out. Wish me luck consuming!

When my colleague and I would do demos at the GC or Sam Ash on Sunset in Hollywood, we'd always stop at the In-and-Out between La Brea and Highland afterward. It's a ritual I miss. Now, the line at that location is always ridiculous.

[McLilith]

I want to buy an Ensoniq synth, but... where to put it?

I'll confess, my TS-12 spent considerable time in my living room, waiting on me to make room for it.

And after acquiring a few additional pieces of gear, I need to rearrange my music room again.

The saga continues...

[McLilith]

I want to buy an Ensoniq synth, but... where to put it?

If you can do without the keyboard, Ensoniq did make rackmount versions of most of their synths. Though being rarer, they can sometimes take longer to find.

[ghettosynth]

I need a break from being inside so I'm going to take my 15% coupon go GC and see if I can break my streak of never using them because nothing that I want is from a manufacturer not on the exclusion list. Whether I come back with something new (or used) or not, I'll be buying a cheeseburger at in-n-out. Wish me luck consuming!

When my colleague and I would do demos at the GC or Sam Ash on Sunset in Hollywood, we'd always stop at the In-and-Out between La Brea and Highland afterward. It's a ritual I miss. Now, the line at that location is always ridiculous.

I have a very shortlist of fast food places that I'll eat at any more. The problem with lines at in-n-out is that it's one of the few corporate (small c) places that doesn't suck.

At any rate, lunch was great, I stopped at Costco for gas, but, alas, despite trying, I didn't spend a dime at GC.

[felis]

2025? I got a Moog Messenger last week. Took a chance on it because I wasn't really sure if I wanted it.
I'm a little embarrassed to say I'm having a severe honeymoon stage with it. Can't keep my hands off it.

It's so responsive to playing and so quick to get a great sound from it. I thought it might be too limiting,
but the new features open up so many areas. Probably a bad time to buy with the tariffs in effect in the US, but I think it's really worth it.

Background info - other hardware synths I currently have are a couple Kurzweils, Blofelds, a Behringer Kobol and an Oberheim TEO-5. I've been into synths for a long time and have gone though quite a few of them.
Time will tell what I think of it in a few years, but between this and Moog Mariana (which I also got in 2025), my Moog cravings are satisfied.

I had a Minitaur a while back, and while that was useful for bass, it was kind of limiting.
The Messenger is off the charts for exceeding my expectations though.

EDIT: Got the Moogerfooger fx bundle today, so I'll be using that with the Messenger which doesn't have built in fx (for most sounds, it doesn't really need them). But we'll see how I can sweeten or mangle them up further.

[Bombadil]

The Launchkey 61 mk4 is a lot of keyboard for 300€. I am seriously impressed. I like it better than my effed up Komplete Kontrol 61 mk2.
Just dunno how I'm gonna sell that.

[revvy]

Won’t buy it cos I’ve not got disposable income for synths over £50 but Bastl Softpop SP2 is on sale at a good price.

Man I love the sound and functionality of that synth.

[foosnark]

We bought my brother a window AC while we were up in Maine. It makes a huge difference.

Keeping this someone related to music gear (I didn't record the AC ), I somehow wound up watching videos on the OBNE Dark Star Stereo and thinking that's what I'll pick up next, to complement the Slöer.

[FranklyFlawless]

What do you hope to acquire in 2025?

Stage:

1. K&M 18806 Trolley for the K&M 18860 Spider Pro
2. Erica Synths Steampipe for the LinnStrument 200
3. L1 Pro32 Portable Line Array System with Sub2 Powered Bass Module (I already have one pair, so I need one more pair for stereo)
4. Mogami Overdrive Guitar R Cable - 12 Feet for the Steampipe (I already have one, so I need one more for stereo)

The first two are realistic acquisitions, but the last two require financial compromises from other competing interests in order to satisfy the entire list.

Mid-year update:

• K&M 18806 Trolley has been acquired.
• The rest of the list will likely be postponed until 2026.

In exchange, I am primarily focusing towards studio equipment, with limited stage equipment:

1. Neumann MT 48 U (USB class-compliant audio interface for Linux)
2. Sennheiser MD 441-U
3. AtlasIED DS7
4. Mogami Platinum Studio Cable - 3 Feet
5. sE Electronics RF SPACE
6. Auralex SubDude-HT Subwoofer Isolation Pad (for the Bose Sub2 Powered Bass Module)

It is still realistically possible to acquire the Erica Synths Steampipe this year.

[elxsound]

Just ordered a replacement OLED display for the Korg Opsix from Pixel Pro Audio. Price: $59.99.

I think these are exempt from tariffs, but decided buying from a US seller is likely the easiest option. Some of the ebay listings looked sketchy (using an image posted by a reddit user as their product photo).

Hopefully this will get the Opsix working again! I bought the software plugin version just in case I manage to break it.

[elxsound]

After digging around, I stumbled on the a gearspace thread where these have been on their way to market for a very long time. To me that means that if they’re sold out, they’ll be sold out for a long time too.

So $125 for the pair of mounts with the 3 different softness levels and different clips for each mic. When combined with the pair ordered from LOM (but also Radius) I should be covered for a long while.

Still need to buy the wookie condoms from Rode, but for any other clips/mounts, I’ll look to get something 3D printed. I understand some people have turned their backpacks into mic rigs and that sound fun.

[justin3am]

I understand some people have turned their backpacks into mic rigs and that sound fun.

I'm having trouble finding the post but Nathan Moody had some great thoughts about putting together a backpack for a field recording kit. Here is a link to his blog if you want to take a look: https://noisejockey.net/blog/

I have a small Jansport backpack but it's a mess, since I haven't been doing any field recording lately. Mostly just the blimp, my shotgun mic and it's various mounts, a few different accessories for my Zoom H5 and a power bank. I'd like to get back into field recording but I was planning to get a MixPre first and sort out a better power bank solution. The battery I have is great for the H5 but I'll need something with more juice if I want to be able to use more stuff.

[justin3am]

I have had a plan to streamline my main eurorack case for a while. The idea for stage one was to reduce the footprint of utility modules. I got rid of some things that weren't being used and replaced them with a Toppobrillo Mulitfilter, Mini Mix and a Plum Audio Arba. This is the biggest change I've made to this case since 2020!

While at Perfect Circuit, I had a chance to try out the AnalogFX SER-2020 (a semi-modular clone of the Synton Syrinx) and VCX-2220 (a modular clone of the Synton Syntovox 222) and just fell in love with them. I've been looking for a decently flexible analog vocoder for a while. An upcoming sound design project which calls for synthetic vocal sounds was the perfect excuse to get both. The SER-2020's formant mode is a whole lot of fun to play with!

[elxsound]

I understand some people have turned their backpacks into mic rigs and that sound fun.

I'm having trouble finding the post but Nathan Moody had some great thoughts about putting together a backpack for a field recording kit. Here is a link to his blog if you want to take a look: https://noisejockey.net/blog/

I have a small Jansport backpack but it's a mess, since I haven't been doing any field recording lately. Mostly just the blimp, my shotgun mic and it's various mounts, a few different accessories for my Zoom H5 and a power bank. I'd like to get back into field recording but I was planning to get a MixPre first and sort out a better power bank solution. The battery I have is great for the H5 but I'll need something with more juice if I want to be able to use more stuff.

Great resource. Thank you! I hadn’t really considered power consumption when providing phantom power and recording from multiple mics. I do have some decent bricks that should work for any day trips, but I better start checking to see quickly that can deplete.

MixPre would be a nice step-up. I briefly thought about getting something from Sound Devices because they were on the wishlist from a while back, but there are so many other basics to cover. Thankfully most of what I’ve purchased from more than 10 years ago still works, so that part is nice.

I’m getting interested again after seeing one of the Make Noise videos where they started recreating nature sounds around Asheville. Plus on the Spotychak discord, they were talking about field recording and a couple future sound offs, that could be fun.

[machinesworking]

So far this year I've greatly expanded my smaller hardware setup.
First up I bought The Metal Fetishist. Super fun percussion rhythm synth.

Found a Dreadbox Hades used for $200.

Next up arriving tomorrow is the Landscape Noon.


Right now coupling all these with a Metasonix Wretch Machine, Beatstep Pro and Push 3 Standalone. Should keep me busy for a long time. I ight end up switching out the Push 3 with the MPC Live II, just for the extra CV outs, but if I can get the Beatstep and Push3 to behave it's not a bad combo at all.