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

[WatchTheGuitar]

I got the Moog Messenger in my cart here at Anderton's but I'm a bit pissed (too many beers) should I pull the trigger lol? Could pair this up with one of my Source Audio pedals for instant Ambient bliss

Juno has a B-stock one for £579…
https://www.juno.co.uk/products/moog-me ... 102466-01/

[stoopicus]

I was just looking at one yesterday. Looks nice. Didn't play it though.

Meanwhile, I'm getting the good old GAS again. Might be swapping out MIDI Controllers; I need something smaller than my KeyLab 61 Mk2 (and in particular, in depth; height is fine and width is big but barely doable, but it's too big in depth for my setup). Plus some performance features would be nice.

So I naturally looked at a KeyStep Pro, which is fantastic, but goes a bit *too* far in that direction in that there's no convenient front panel toggle for it to disable local control and so the seq/arp are apparently always engaged, until you hit a DIP switch on the back (from what I have read). That's just annoying. Any owners please feel free to correct me if I am wrong there but thats what it looked like to me.

There's a few other options of course but at some point in looking at them all I realized I could just get a MiniFreak for not terribly much more - which I initially laughed at but realized they have a nice keybed for mini keys, a great arp and seq, plus of course a very cool and great sounding hybrid synth (my favorite kind; I have a real soft spot for digital osc into analog filters).

Plus I have two extra inputs on my audio interface just staring at me

[WatchTheGuitar]

When I was in the same boat as my Keystep 37 stopped working - have owned two Arturia keyboards that both developed issues - I picked up a second hand Hydrasynth Explorer to do the smaller footprint MIDI duties but yeah it’s deeper than I’d prefer. MiniFreak looks decent, just don’t think I’d trust Arturia again.

[stoopicus]

My KeyLab has been rock solid.

[WatchTheGuitar]

My KeyLab has been rock solid.

I don’t know why mine have been cursed.

[ghettosynth]

I have entered the obscure and weird only period of Eurorack purchasing. Nothing from the used sale at Perfect Circuit seemed interesting enough to pull the trigger.

Also, getting these, to hold some cables from time to time.

[gaf_thit]

My KeyLab has been rock solid.

I don’t know why mine have been cursed.

I liked your original post better, because I could relate. My mind feels cursed

[foosnark]

My Mesmeriser arrived. I immediately found that the foam wedge I was using as a makeshift desktop pedalboard, and the cables I've got, result in a tangled awkward mess so I've got a stand and some other cables on the way to deal with that.

Mine is unfortunately not quite working right -- the effect is 100% mono. (It's supposed to mix the L and R inputs to mono, and then apply different delay times and allpass frequencies to the L and R sides, but I'm getting identical, nullable outputs instead.) It still sounds drop-dead gorgeous but not as awesome as the YouTube videos, so Maneco is going to have me exchange it for a replacement.

[ghettosynth]

My Mesmeriser arrived.
...
Mine is unfortunately not quite working right -- the effect is 100% mono. (It's supposed to mix the L and R inputs to mono, and then apply different delay times and allpass frequencies to the L and R sides, but I'm getting identical, nullable outputs instead.)

Mono is seldom quite as mesmerizing as stereo.

[cryophonik]

Thinking about downsizing a bit by replacing 2 or 3 of my hardware synths with a Black Corporation ISE-NIN. Hmmmmm....

[ghettosynth]

Thinking about downsizing a bit by replacing 2 or 3 of my hardware synths with a Black Corporation ISE-NIN. Hmmmmm....

Hmmmm...

The pads sound great. I'm going to assume that they're going for a Jupiter 8-Quasi clone? I would buy UDO over this, just my 0.02 which, in today's economy, isn't worth much.

[cryophonik]

Thinking about downsizing a bit by replacing 2 or 3 of my hardware synths with a Black Corporation ISE-NIN. Hmmmmm....

Hmmmm...

The pads sound great. I'm going to assume that they're going for a Jupiter 8-Quasi clone? I would buy UDO over this, just my 0.02 which, in today's economy, isn't worth much.

Yeah, it's a modern-day J8. I have the UDO Super 6 (desktop) and it's pretty awesome, but the ISE-NIN sounds pretty different to me. I haven't made any decisions yet, just been thinking about it for the past week or so...

[ghettosynth]

Thinking about downsizing a bit by replacing 2 or 3 of my hardware synths with a Black Corporation ISE-NIN. Hmmmmm....

Hmmmm...

The pads sound great. I'm going to assume that they're going for a Jupiter 8-Quasi clone? I would buy UDO over this, just my 0.02 which, in today's economy, isn't worth much.

Yeah, it's a modern-day J8. I have the UDO Super 6 (desktop) and it's pretty awesome, but the ISE-NIN sounds pretty different to me. I haven't made any decisions yet, just been thinking about it for the past week or so...

Which 2 or 3 synths will it replace? I don't know, I'm one to talk. I was just thinking about what the best way was to store all of the modules that I'm not currently using. For some reason I find Eurorack more compelling than having an army of polysynths.

Then again, I have known to be wrong, and not every synth has that "crossmod" feature. Have you been able to listen to one in the flesh?

[justin3am]

I like the Black Corp synths. I’ve played all of them at Perfect Circuit. I like Kijimi and Ise-Nin the best. Their core sounds are similar but I particularly loved Kijimi for all its modulation routing. Ise-Nin is really expressive. I played it from a Linnstrument and it just sounded so lush.

Poly synths aren’t really my main focus, so my Prophet 6 fits most of my needs in that regard but if I were going to get another VCO based poly, it would be one of those.

[Moe Shinola]

Bought:

Volca FM 2(home run! - where has this miracle box been all my life?)

Stylophone DS-2 Drone Synth(same as above, this and my Behringer Edge were made for each other)

Behringer JT4000m Micro - Great after I got the LFOstore Synergy presets for it Pushes way above it's weight.

WTB:

Volca Bass(I keep getting this and selling it, need to re-acquire as nothing else does it's job quite as well for the price)

TD-3/TD3-Mo(dedicated analog 303 is the only bass the Volca Bass dosen't cover)

I have a lot of other bases covered, a dream synth would be an excellent condition Waldorf Blofeld.