2026: A Year in Gear (What You've Bought or Want to Buy in 2026)

[whyterabbyt]

And a Music Thing Workshop System kit. So Im clearly not going to be buying any more stuff this year.

is that the full little camera case thing?
played with one at bristol, so much fun in a tiny space!!!
been tempted by a prebuild for a while now....

yup that's the one.

[Seafire Mk2]

Keep looking at the M Vave SMC controller, for live techno sets...

[cryophonik]

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I knew it wouldn’t be long before I had more Elektron in my life. I’ve only had this for a day and I’ve already got a half dozen new ideas started.

[justin3am]

Nothing fun.
A year ago I got some replacement button caps for my Analog RYTM from Etsy, since the caps on my ATmk2 had gotten sticky. Well, those buttons weren't great quality either and they no longer snap onto the switches, so if I tap a button too quickly the button cap flies off!

I see that Elektron now sell "Smooth" button caps (without the soft-touch coating which breaks down into a sticky mess). https://www.elektron.se/product/button- ... th-surface

I'm frankly a bit frustrated with Elektron about this. Given that you can order a set of buttons for the Tonverk, I assume they are still using the soft-touch coated button caps on newer products. That's kinda bullshit.
Anyway, I ordered a set of button caps for OTmk2, ATmk2 and AH+FX, over $150 in parts. Whatever... they arrived, they fit well, and they feel nice.

At this point I've been telling perspective Elektron new comers that I prefer the mk1 units, since I never had to replace the buttons on those. I almost replaced my ARmk2 with a mk1 unit, just to get the button feel I like from the mk1 units. :facepalm:

[foosnark]

My K-Accumulator arrived yesterday and I spent all evening and some of this morning playing with it.

It's an absolute beast, the most complex of complex oscillators. it's going to take me a while to really get a solid feel for it, and I think it's going to have surprises for me forever. But no menus or button combos, and only one knob really changes its meaning under different modes. No cheat sheet required.

Someone could just get one of these and nothing else, and get quite a lot out of it. The UFG section and "Pulsar" knob can act like an internal envelope and VCA, if not using it for pulsar synthesis. The delta-sigma pattern generator can do random sequences, and the pitch controller does quantization. But of course as part of a more complete system it shines more.

Honestly this is going to make it easy not to invest in any other gear for a long while because I'll have my hands full exploring it

[justin3am]

Thanks for the report Foosnark! Can't wait to hear what you get up to.
Fancyyyy say that mine will ship when the Rung Divisions units are ready. Hopefully before March 30.
What do you find is a good supplement? I read your post on MW about needing attenuators for the the PM and FM inputs. I'm also interested to know more about your M/S processing experiments. I do a lot of m/s processing when mixing but haven't explored much using sum-diff networks in the modular.

I mentioned before that I plan to build a system around the K-Accumulator. I have a Mutable Stages and Bela Trails will ship in June. I'm hoping those will cover me in terms of modulation but now I'm thinking of signal processing and I'm just not sure if I'm looking for filters, DSP or just some more dynamics control. Does the perceived volume change a lot when harmonic content becomes more complex? It doesn't seem so from various demos I've heard but hard to tell if there is any compression going on in those recordings.

[foosnark]

What do you find is a good supplement? I read your post on MW about needing attenuators for the the PM and FM inputs.

I do think another VCO, a relatively simple one, can be beneficial even with the onboard mod osc and UFG. Maybe something that can do double duty as an LFO. But then, I like complex drones and textures with a lot going on. K-Acc doesn't seem to be super dependent on external audio rate modulation, but something else to sync to is always nice.

It does love a reverb, and/or short delay with lots of feedback and some filtering... like Mimeophon (or maybe FX Aid) if not plugins (I'm thinking FutureVerb or Raum). I haven't tried any other effects on it yet, or even filtering it. Given it can do bright timbres really well, an LPF or LPG won't go amiss I'm sure. A VCA if you want to do any external AM with it, since the Ext input is only for sync/tracking.

I'm also interested to know more about your M/S processing experiments. I do a lot of m/s processing when mixing but haven't explored much using sum-diff networks in the modular.

I don't use sum/diff in hardware either. I just split a signal and treat the two versions differently (like two detuned oscillators, two different LPGs, or grabbing a feedback loop at two different points in the chain), declare one of them mid and one side, and then in the DAW I use Voxengo MSED or Bitwig routing to convert M/S to L/R.

I'm a big fan of Voxengo Correlometer to keep an eye on things, and a mid/side capable EQ or RJ Studios Sideminder to fix things (if it's not 100% off and inverting a channel fixes it). But when doing M/S conversion like that, just making sure side is quieter than mid is enough (with compression or just plain gain).

Does the perceived volume change a lot when harmonic content becomes more complex? It doesn't seem so from various demos I've heard but hard to tell if there is any compression going on in those recordings.

Compression is probably a good idea -- I've found that using the UFG with the Pulsar knob and/or Shape can sometimes cause fairly strong dynamic changes.

[justin3am]

Thanks for your input! That gives me a lot to think about. I've got two more weeks to kinda ruminate on my plan with this one but I still want to build a kind of standalone system around K-A.

Thanks also for your thoughts about M/S processing. I never thought about sending signals to an M/S decoder more arbitrarily. It's a good idea. In hardware I use a IGS Bison, which has a send/return. Any dual channel processor can be used for M/S processing, which is super useful. I use that mostly with EQs but you've inspired me to pipe a pair of channels from the modular into it. In Bitwig, I use GHz's MidSide Matrix for turning M/S mic setups into a stereo image and I use DMG's Duality to keep an eye on mono compatibility/correlation, so I'm definitely picking up what you're putting down.

[Constructed Identity]

Sitting here surrounded by gear I don't think I need anything else but I might go to the local music store and buy a mallet. I want to do more field recordings because my next release will be ambient. I might buy a newer field recorder, one of the ones that records in 32bit and/or has its own compressor. But I still have something on preorder and I found out I'm 10th on the list and they only got 5 last shipment.

[vurt]

bought a cheap radio for the garden.
has 2 bands of sw as well as fm and mw, doesn't find a great deal on the sw with only an antenna, but there's a few interesting bits, so will be sampling some of that!

also bought a head torch as my lighting upstairs is shit, so i can barely read my keyboard let alone my modular labels. the light source is behind me, so everything us in my shadow.

[bmanic]

I just bought a second Kurzweil K2500XS. Now I've got two.

[kritikon]

So now you have a K5000!

[cryophonik]

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I knew it wouldn’t be long before I had more Elektron in my life. I’ve only had this for a day and I’ve already got a half dozen new ideas started.

Well, it only took a week for me to decide that the Digi 1 was lacking some of the features I really missed from my old Digitakt 2, so I bought another one and sold the mk1. Good news is, I made a nice little profit off the mk1, which offset the price of the mk2. Now, I just need to find a good deal on another RYTM mk2 and I’ll be whole again.

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[foosnark]

Yesterday I was thinking maybe I should get myself a 4ms SCM, for my one new module of the year (that wasn't preordered in 2025). Modules like Walk 4, Nibbler, and Clep Diaz -- and even sequencers -- all divide time, so it might be nice to counteract that by multiplying the clock rate coming into them. Especially with Walk 4, so it can generate subharmonics instead of sub-sub-sub-sub-sub-subharmonics Plus SCM has a couple extra tricks.

But I want to make sure I can't already do this well enough with Stages, Marbles or something else... I'm not sure what their rate limits are for syncing. (SCM is 3KHz.)

But then today Make Noise announced a cool new thing

[elxsound]

That GTE looks fun.

The new module announcement solved one issue for me and that was consideration of the NUSS skiff vs expanding out. NUSS skiff doesn’t look as interesting with space constraints to start.

I might have a 3D printed skiff later this year for some of the non-Make Noise favorites that got pushed out, but not sure if I can get it made without shelling out more than I want.

Later I’m still hoping to make a DIY wood framed rack that can be either in the wall, or in the shelf. Too much going on right now, but at some point I can start planning it all out.