The Best Music Gear I Found in 2025

Hey, it's Andrew Hang and in today's video I'm going to be sharing what I think were the best music hardware releases of 2025. And full disclosure, while there are pieces in here that were

sent to me or that are on loan to me, uh there's also lots that I bought myself.

And nobody's sponsoring this video. No

one asked to be in this video, no one's paying to be in this video. These are

just my personal picks. So, let's get right into it with the first category of groove boxes.

In third place, we got to talk about the AAI MPC Live 3.

If you're the kind of person who's been looking for the elusive DAW in a box, this is probably the closest we've ever come. So, you've got sampling, synths,

come. So, you've got sampling, synths, multitrack audio recording, MIDI sequencing, and editing. There's a lot of dedicated buttons and knobs for getting around, and it's also got a multi-touch screen. There's a built-in

multi-touch screen. There's a built-in speaker and a built-in microphone, and both sound pretty decent. But if you want to use your own mics, there are also mic preamps on board.

Performance-wise, you've got a lot of options because there's a touch strip.

There's four pages of Qlink, which are like their assignable knobs. A favorite

of mine is that you can use the touchcreen as an XY effects pad. And

they have a lot of effects available.

A really big step for MPCs and for pad controllers in general though is their new MPC pads. And the E stands for expressive. They can just be normal

expressive. They can just be normal pads, but each of them can also be used as an XY surface, fully assignable. You

can load a different sample in each quadrant of each pad. So, instead of 16 sounds available at your fingertips, you have 64. And that's on top of the fact

have 64. And that's on top of the fact that you can quickly switch between eight different banks of pads. So,

somebody do the math on how many samples that is. But then you can also configure

that is. But then you can also configure these four different quadrants of each pad to have different articulations. So

you can have different rhythms in each corner as you hold a pad or there are even oneshot articulations. You can just launch like rolls with different dynamics and pitch drops. So with

something this powerful, it is complex.

It'll take a bit of time to learn. Uh

you can do the basics pretty easily, but there's so much here. You can really configure it to be just the kind of MPC that you want it to be, just the kind of workflow that you want it to be. The

theme is options. Like you can create songs in the arranger view or you can just launch clips. You can play live or you can sequence. And when you're sequencing, you can use the buttons or the touchcreen. There are tons of

the touchcreen. There are tons of built-in sounds both in the form of samples and kits as well as plugins.

It's even got a live looper built into it. So, there are so many things that

it. So, there are so many things that you can do with it. I don't think anyone's going to like use every single thing that it does. It would be like the same as saying, "Do you use every single

sound and option in your DAW?" They've

just made a beast here and you can really make it your own. In second

place, this is going to be controversial. I really like the

controversial. I really like the Electron Tone V. I think it got an unfair reception because it was leaked a full year before it came out and that's

a long time for gear nerds to speculate about what it could be and kind of like project their desires onto this mystery box. So, of course, it's going to come

box. So, of course, it's going to come out and be very different from what most people were thinking it would be. From

my read on it, I think the broad criticism of it was that Electron already has so many samplers available and Tone Ver didn't add enough new. And

I think that that's just not true if you look at everything that's new in it. So,

it's the first Electron device with multi-sampling. So, instead of having

multi-sampling. So, instead of having just one sound on a track and pitching it all around, if you want to play like a melody or a baseline with it, you can actually load full multi-sample sets to get a much more realistic response. And

then, I don't think I've seen this in any other hardware. uh it does exist in software, but Tonever is a multi-sample auto recorder. So, you can set it up to

auto recorder. So, you can set it up to send MIDI to another instrument. You can

set the range of notes that you want.

You can set the amount of samples that you want to record, uh both in terms of the number of velocity layers that you want to record, as well as how spaced out your samples should be across the sampling range that you've set. And

it'll tell you how many samples there are going to be, how much file space it's going to take up, how long it will take to do it. So, that's really compelling if you're someone who makes libraries or just wants to sample one of your favorite synths or sample something

before you sell it. They did an update recently where they added a granular engine. This is a first for Electron. No

engine. This is a first for Electron. No

other Electron device has a granular engine. They created a ton of new

engine. They created a ton of new effects that we've never seen before on an Electron device. And then one huge thing is that all other Electron devices have somewhere between four and 16

tracks. And on Tonberg, you have 64. Um,

tracks. And on Tonberg, you have 64. Um,

these are grouped into eight groups of eight. And what the groups mean is that

eight. And what the groups mean is that they just share the same effects. But

you also get three send effects and you get four effects buses. So any of these eight groups can be routed to any of these four buses. And then each of these buses can have two additional effects.

But on top of this, you can use Electron's great sequencing workflow to sequence the effects routings. I

absolutely love this. It's so great for happy accidents or weird sound design.

And then you can also play the effects routing live.

So that's so much fun. And again, never been seen before in an Electron device or like I can't think of another device that puts this at the forefront. So

yeah, I do think they're doing something different here. And you know, I will

different here. And you know, I will admit I'm an Electron fanboy. I have so much of their stuff. I use it more than any of my other hardware. So let that be known. But um I think tone work is

known. But um I think tone work is great. If I like it so much though, how

great. If I like it so much though, how is it not number one? Well, we had uh a surprise this year. Sonic wear side drums. This is my first Sonicware device. I've

seen their stuff around before, but never really felt compelled to pick it up because um for me it felt pretty narrowly focused. And honestly, that's

narrowly focused. And honestly, that's true of Drums 2. It is focused on doing drums with wavetables. That is just so up my alley. And now that I've seen how

their sequencing works and like how deep this device can go, how many effects there are, the range of sound possibilities, like I'm interested to check out more of their stuff now because this is one of the most fun and

versatile groove boxes I've ever used.

It looks a little more toylike than some of these like big metal boxes or whatever, but it's surprisingly robust.

Honestly, it feels better in person than it looks in videos or in pictures. It's

heavier duty than I thought it would be, but it's still super portable. It can

run off 6 AAS. It's got a built-in speaker.

So, it's eight tracks of wavetable synthesis optimized for drums, but you can do uh some melodic and baseline stuff with it. So, like this is no samples, all synthesis.

Same with this.

So you can do step sequencing or play patterns in live. Pads are also velocity sensitive and have after touch.

Sequencing wise, it's easy to get around. It reminds me a lot of electron

around. It reminds me a lot of electron and maybe that's why I gel with it so much. You can do parameter locking on

much. You can do parameter locking on it. There are a huge amount of effects.

it. There are a huge amount of effects.

I was really surprised considering both the size of this device and the fact that it's sort of framed as a drum machine even though it's it's very much a groove box. You can do full tracks on this.

There's also some really fun performance stuff like you can automate the probability of each track with the dice parameter. There's a great sequence

parameter. There's a great sequence randomizer which can be per track or global where basically you set a time division like a number of steps and then it'll just grab random chunks of that

size from throughout your sequence and put them in different orders.

Of course, you can always revert back to your normal sequence. So, I've been having a blast with this thing. It's so

fun. It's so inspiring. I've been making so much stuff with it.

Moving on to pedals. I don't have a top three this year. I only have a top two.

Uh it's been a bit of a crazy year, so some things had to go, and one of them was checking out pedals. I did though catch two things that I really love. Uh

the first is the Kernum Ellipse.

This is a pedal with just about every flavor of modulation style guitar effects that you could want. An

interesting thing here though is you're not making discrete choices with these.

You can actually blend from one to the next. So there are some interesting in

next. So there are some interesting in between worlds with this.

On the lefth hand side, you'll find the very familiar controls for the speed and shape and depth of the modulations. Mix

is obviously your dry wet. And then

swirl adds an additional secondary slow phaser.

And near the top of its range, it also adds a little bit of saturation and drive.

So, I've been really enjoying it as an all-in-one modulation pedal. Not only

does it save you some real estate in your pedal setup, the ability to blend between some of the different flavors, it's just a really nice approach to finding the tone that you want. And

number one in the category for two years in a row is Game Changer Audio with their motor pedal. I really like Game Changer stuff. I just appreciate that

Changer stuff. I just appreciate that their whole brand is built around every product changing the game, doing something very different that hasn't been seen before. And in this case, we

have a pedal that has a built-in motor.

This is borrowing a concept from their motor synth. So, the motor can spin and

motor synth. So, the motor can spin and make sounds, make different pitches, and in this case, it can track what you're playing on your guitar.

I fully acknowledge that this could come across as some kind of gimmick, but it actually just sounds really good. And

they've also made the whole package a lot more flexible than I would have thought because there are five expression modes and five motor modes.

Now, there's also this pedal on the pedal that feels like a gas pedal, and this has expression modes.

And then the release knob is interesting because as you turn it left, it'll shorten the decay time compared to what you played. And as you turn it right,

you played. And as you turn it right, it'll increase it uh to the point where if you have it all the way turned up, it'll just be a drone and it'll track your pitch but not your playing volume.

You'll constantly hear the motor. So, as

you can see, Game Changer really explored a lot of different nooks and crannies of this concept. And uh it's just like gnarly, gnarly as hell.

We've got a controllers category this year. We didn't last year. Let's be

year. We didn't last year. Let's be

honest, they're usually just kind of boring. Hadn't seen a lot of innovation

boring. Hadn't seen a lot of innovation for a bit and now suddenly there's like some really cool stuff happening. So,

first let me show you Roto Control from Melbourne Instruments. This is a really

Melbourne Instruments. This is a really well-designed controller with highquality motorized knobs. It's got a few different modes. So, you can use it as a MIDI controller and like use these buttons and knobs to control things. And

in this mode, you can use the knobs for motion control. Like, you can record a

motion control. Like, you can record a gesture and have it loop and the knob will keep turning according to what you recorded because it's motorized. But I

haven't even messed with that. I've only

had this a couple months. I've been

mainly in plug-in mode, which I'll show you in a second. But I also just want to show you that mix mode exists. So, it

can detect what track is selected in your DAW, and you can adjust settings on it. Or you can also go here for

it. Or you can also go here for transport controls. You know, just quick

transport controls. You know, just quick access to the kind of stuff that you're pressing. A lot of the time I've been

pressing. A lot of the time I've been really loving the plug-in mode though because here you can map the road to control to plugins. The mapping process is super quick and easy and then whichever of those plugins you have

selected the parameters update in real time on the device. It detects the names of parameters automatically and the motorized knobs update to the right values. The main screen here shows your

values. The main screen here shows your device and your track name automatically. And then controlling your

automatically. And then controlling your assigned parameters feels super fluid and smooth. And there's also some clever

and smooth. And there's also some clever stuff with the motorized knobs, like they can create detents through haptics.

So if you have a parameter with a few fixed positions, you'll actually feel the knob click into position just using the resistance of the motor. Another

great thing is that your settings are stored in the roto control. So they're

not tied to your Ableton project or to your computer. Once you set something

your computer. Once you set something up, if you use roto control with a different Ableton Live project or on a different computer, your same settings will still be available. you won't have to reconfigure it. So, it's a really

well-designed device, a pleasure to use roto control.

Next up, we have the MonoLit from Light Raft. This is a beautiful compact MIDI

Raft. This is a beautiful compact MIDI controller, and it does a lot more than you might think. It's got these eight sliders that you can, of course, use as CC controllers, but there are also

different modes, so you can have them trigger notes as you slide them. And of

course, you can select what those notes are. There's a motion mode, so you can

are. There's a motion mode, so you can actually record the slider movements and have them loop. And also, what I use the most is the LFO mode, uh, which gives you all the classic controls, the

different LFO shapes and speeds. So, um,

basically being able to add eight LFOs to any device that accepts MIDI. Like

even with my beloved Electron boxes, I often find I'm short of LFOs. I like to make music with lots of modulation. So,

having something like this is amazing. I

don't really know of other solutions for something like that besides uh like computerenerated CC's that you could send out through a MIDI hub and all that which is not my preferred way to work.

And they also have a brand new sequencer mode. So you can use this to build

mode. So you can use this to build sequences of I think up to 64 steps. And

there's some fun options with that like probability. I don't have a lot of

probability. I don't have a lot of experience with the sequencer side of it because that is so new. And then you can save presets on it. So you can have different setups, you know, different combinations of slider functions that

you might want for different devices.

But within each preset, you can also have eight different banks of slider settings. And there's even the option

settings. And there's even the option where if you have the sliders set to the same parameters, when you change banks, you can have it glide to the new values.

So it's a really unique and nicely designed MIDI controller.

Now we get to talk about the new Zite Drop. The best MIDI controller to come

Drop. The best MIDI controller to come out this year. And I'm just going to say it maybe of all time. It's not a keyboard controller obviously, but if you're looking for something to give you more hands-on control of your devices or

even expand their functionality, the Drop has so many things in it that are unique and creative and a whole bunch of things that I think should just be standard in MIDI controllers. Like there

are switches to choose between type A and type B on the outputs. The back

panel labels are upside down because that's how you're actually going to be looking at them. They've done a lot of things to make mapping as easy as possible, including importing a database

of all the most common devices out there where you can actually see the names of parameters and not just, you know, lists of CC numbers. But the real magic is that it allows you to capture snapshots.

You get 20 banks of 20 snapshots, so 400 per project. And you can instantly

per project. And you can instantly recall different states of the controls or you can morph between them or you can trigger them to happen on beat. So I've

got it paired up with side drums right now.

So, if I turn up this knob here, that means that when I press a new snapshot, it's going to take one full cycle here of my clock, which of course uh you can customize how you want to morph between

the two snapshots.

Now, let's look at drop mode. This is

where you can schedule a snapshot to change in the future. Uh probably by a few bars, but you can configure that how you want. So, it allows you to play with

you want. So, it allows you to play with stuff, really mess around and jam and always be able to come back to a safe spot and also always completely perfectly nail the transition.

I also really like how much you can configure the press action of the encoders. You can have the press be a

encoders. You can have the press be a toggle on or off. You can have it reset the value of that encoder and you can reset it to zero, to 100, or to noon if you're like doing a bipolar parameter.

And there's also a momentary mode. So,

I'll demonstrate that with Cyrum's snip loop effect. This grabs a tiny little

loop effect. This grabs a tiny little chunk of audio and stutters it. And I

want it to only happen while I'm turning the knob. So I just press the knob in

the knob. So I just press the knob in momentary mode, which is assigned to turn on the snip loop effect. And I have the encoders turn assigned to the length of the snip loop effect. So this allows

me to create these glitchy effects by holding the knob down while turning it.

Or I can also just change the value without the effect being active and then tap it on.

A couple other things to mention. You

can obviously color code these LEDs, making it easier to remember how you've assigned things. And then get this. If

assigned things. And then get this. If

you press the layer B button, you can access a second page and make a whole additional set of assignments within the same project. So, they really came up

same project. So, they really came up with so many great ideas in here. This

is gear that will make your other gear better and more fun.

Let's talk about Eurorack. In third

place, I've got Bastl Citadel. This is

actually two modules, but it's also only one module. It's two different firmwares

one module. It's two different firmwares on the same module. You can swap those out and you can also flip the face plate around if you want the labels to match the firmware that you've got loaded. Of

course, it's the most fun when you've got two units and you can use both firmwares at the same time. So, you got the WaveBard, which is a stereo sample player, and the effects wizard, which is a stereo multi effect. The concept with

both of these, though, is that they've got built-in modulators, and in addition to your usual LFOs, you've got a pattern generator, and this is for both rhythm and CV sequences. And this allows you to

do so much fun stuff without using any other modules. So, like, let me take a

other modules. So, like, let me take a pattern to the sample selection. And a

lot of samples come with this, by the way, but of course, you can also load your own. And also, while it has a bunch

your own. And also, while it has a bunch of these preset patterns, they're not really fixed because you can modulate the pattern as well. So, just treat them like musical building blocks that you could really have infinite variations on

depending on how you modulate them. So,

we're choosing between different samples in this bank, but there are multiple banks.

Get some fun controls over the sample, like how long it is, pitch up and down.

If you put length earlier than noon, it reverses.

And then if you change the sample knob, this is offsetting your sample selection now.

So you see how much variation is happening in our beat just by changing some of these parameters. I've touched

three knobs. This pattern hasn't changed. and and we're getting so much

changed. and and we're getting so much different fun stuff. Now, the concept is the same with the effects wizard. You've

got a bunch of different effects and you can instantly change between them and you can modulate the pattern that you're changing them with. Let's uh clock the second module from our first. So, let me show you what some of the effects sound

like.

It's a lot of uh timebased stuff, delays and flangers and choruses.

but also some like bit crushy stuff. Of

course though, it's even more fun when you modulate the effects selection.

Just going to bring back some of the dry. Now, here's what's interesting

dry. Now, here's what's interesting though. If I change the effects mode

though. If I change the effects mode now, we're already changing through effects based on this sequence. And so,

what's going to happen is I'm just offsetting the sequence. So, it's going to run the same pattern, but it's going to be selecting different effects at different times.

And then combine this with modulating some of the parameters or with changing what sample bank you're on.

It just gets so wild.

Obviously, I'm going extreme here. I am

a glitch lover, but I also just want to show you like a huge range of possibilities. These can be much more

possibilities. These can be much more tasteful. like it's just a really solid

tasteful. like it's just a really solid sample player and a really solid multi effect. You can use just one effect at a

effect. You can use just one effect at a time if you want, but they are really wellthoughtout modules that give you a lot of sonic fun.

Now, we're going to jump over to the Mega Synth to look at Intelligel's Multigrain. This is one of the best

Multigrain. This is one of the best implementations of granular synthesis I've ever seen, both in sound and features. So, you can record right onto

features. So, you can record right onto it or you can load sounds from an SD card. And you can load up to eight at a

card. And you can load up to eight at a time in these slots.

You get all the usual granular controls like where in the sample you're pulling grains from, and what are their shapes, sizes, pitches,

how sparse or dense they are.

It's a very deep module. Also, I just want to call out three things that I think they did really well here and that are pretty unique to multigrain. The

most fun is probably the morph slider.

Morphing is a theme this year. On one

side of the slider, you get one set of parameters. On the other side of the

parameters. On the other side of the slider, you get another set of parameters.

And these scenes are stored per sound slot. So all of your eight sample slots

slot. So all of your eight sample slots can have different settings twice and you morph between them. So if you find something you like, you can kind of keep that as a safe spot and then you can edit the other side and explore

different things or you can even next thing I want to show you randomize.

and then whatever you've done, you can just slide back to your original sound.

Also, I know it's going into your ears right now, but I just have to note how transformative it is on sounds. Um,

we're listening to like a soul sample that I got off of Splice. I'll play the original.

The great thing about the randomize button, though, is that it works exactly the way you'd want with the other things that you would want to randomize. So, I

was clicking random and a scene button to randomize a scene. I could also click randomize and a sound slot to randomize the whole sound, i.e. both scenes. Or,

perfect segue into the third item I want to talk about. I can randomize the modulation. So pressing random XYZ, I

modulation. So pressing random XYZ, I just randomized these three modulation inputs. Now how they've done modulation

inputs. Now how they've done modulation on multigrain is brilliant because as you can imagine with this many parameters, if you had a jack for every single one, the module would need to be a bunch bigger. So X, Y, and Z are

assignable slots and you can assign each one to an unlimited number of things.

And you can even assign more than one to the same thing. And I just randomized all of these, but if I want, I can easily edit them. If I have one selected, I can turn any parameter knob to adjust the amount of modulation. And

this is bipolar. So at noon, there's no modulation. Going clockwise, it's

modulation. Going clockwise, it's positive, indicated by a yellow LED. And

going counterclockwise, it's negative, indicated by a purple LED. Another thing

I almost forgot, Multigrain has a 32C always recording audio buffer. So if

anything cool happens going through it, you can just hit the button and you have captured it. It's a super powerful

captured it. It's a super powerful module. There's so much more to it, but

module. There's so much more to it, but I hope that gives you a taste. And I

just want to mention one more thing, which is that not only does it process samples, it can also process live input.

So, yeah, multigrain from Intelligel, huge home run.

For first place in Eurorack, it's not a module. It is a a way of life. It's it's

module. It is a a way of life. It's it's

a whole new thing. It's the Make Noise New Universal Synth System. They've

released a few modules in this line so far. Multimod, Jumbler, Polymats,

far. Multimod, Jumbler, Polymats, Multi-Wave, and QXG. They work great on their own, but they really shine as a system because uh Make Noise is exploring kind of a new way of

approaching patching, a new way of doing polifany within Modular.

If you don't know, polifany or multiple notes at once is a challenge to do in Modular. You need a lot of modules and a

Modular. You need a lot of modules and a lot of cables for each voice that you want to have in your patch. If you want lots of voices playing different notes and having independent modulation, modular is just not the best way to do

it. until now. I think Make Noise has

it. until now. I think Make Noise has come up with so many clever concepts that make Polifany in Eurorrack feel natural and feel modular, like not feel like something that you would just

rather do with a poly synth or in software, but something that feels like it fits with the ethos and the workflow of patching and exploration and experimentation.

So, what are these concepts? First of

all, there's spread. This is a control for the amount of a modulation at different destinations. So you can have

different destinations. So you can have the same modulation be more pronounced or less pronounced for different voices and just it's a macro control. As you

turn it one way or the other, more modulation is sent to some voices than others in kind of an increasing pattern.

Another concept is modulation dissemination, which is sort of like if you had tons and tons of sample and holds in your rack. So whatever

modulation you've got coming in, each voice will just take its current value when that voice is triggered.

So again, you don't need to patch a lot of different modulation to all your different voices. You can use one

different voices. You can use one modulation source but have lots of different variation within each voice because they're each pulling a value at a different time.

And then there's a span control which is like a single control for the activation of all the voices. And this has a few different modes. In channel index mode,

different modes. In channel index mode, channels will activate as soon as they're selected.

In round mode, the span control is sort of choosing between sequences. So you're

going to activate things in a certain order.

And the last span mode is called parallel. And this is where span sets

parallel. And this is where span sets different clock divisions for different channels.

And then all channels that are at the same clock division will fire at the same time.

And one final concept they've introduced in this system is accumulation. And so

if this is patched, then voices that are activated will quietly hold their values until a gate is received at accumulate.

and then all held voices will trigger at the same time.

So, in a video like this, I'm not going to be able to deep dive every module, but I want to call out a couple of the unique features that I really love.

Multiwave is this beautiful dual wave table oscillator. And one cool thing is

table oscillator. And one cool thing is that the oscillator on the left will track the oscillator on the right in different ways. And I like the ways that

different ways. And I like the ways that are pitch aware. So you can set it to like different scales or octaves and you'll get an offset of the note that the main oscillator is playing on the

other side.

I also love that they differentiate between sequencing of the individual voices and the module as a whole. So you

can do what I've been talking about with individual values to every voice, but you can also just transpose every single thing that is happening in the module as if all the voices are shifting at once.

And lastly, I want to call out multimod, which is a brilliant little modulation tool. You feed it one signal and it

tool. You feed it one signal and it spits out eight variations of that where it has either slowed down or somehow sped up what has come into it. I think

at a certain point it loops because uh we know that time travel only happens in fictional space operas.

>> It's a really fantastic modulation source, but it's also so good on audio.

>> I love feeding drums through it and then just making everything so weird by shifting the time around.

I guess I've done glitchy drums for every uh entry in the Euro Rack category this year. That's where I'm at with uh

this year. That's where I'm at with uh the stuff that I've been doing with my patching.

Okay, so I have a few more things that don't fit into any of my previous categories. The first one is a synth.

categories. The first one is a synth.

And uh I don't have a synth category this year. I did last year, but this

this year. I did last year, but this year, kind of like with the pedals, I didn't have a lot of time to be looking at stuff. However, I do want to just

at stuff. However, I do want to just quickly note that Expressive E came out with a 61key version of the Osmos. So,

if you're not familiar, this is an MP synthesizer and controller that has some extra dimensions of control that other keyboards just don't offer. The big one being that you can wiggle a key for

pitchbend, which is what every keyboard just wanted to have for all time anyway.

but also it actually detects the travel of each key down and up. It's not just like on and off switches and you can assign that to whatever you want to modulate. It comes with so many

modulate. It comes with so many beautiful patches and because of the way you play it, it's so much more expressive than the average synthesizer.

It's one of my favorite instruments of all time. I did a video on the original

all time. I did a video on the original version, the 49 key version, and a lot of my listeners say that it inspired what they say is my best song.

So, I'll just say check out that video if you're interested to learn more because it is just the the bigger version of that. It's 61 keys instead of 49. Let's talk about the Sub6 from

49. Let's talk about the Sub6 from Submarine Pickups. This little thing is

Submarine Pickups. This little thing is great. Firstly, unlike a lot of pickups,

great. Firstly, unlike a lot of pickups, uh it's not a crazy installation. You

can just stick it on your guitar. But

what really sets it apart from other pickups is that it's hexoponic. So, it's

actually one pickup per string. These

all output separately to this six-way breakout cable. And then you got an

breakout cable. And then you got an individual signal for each of your guitar strings, which means, you know, you can pan them.

You can put different effects on different combinations of strings or a different effects chain on every single string.

It's super cool. It just absolutely multiplies the kind of fun that you can have with an electric guitar.

Now we have to talk about the Telepathic Orchid.

This is also portable, has built-in speakers, and runs off of batteries. In

this case, you charge it with USBC, but it's not a regular synth. It's really a chord progression generator and kind of an idea generator and a vibe generator.

It could seem like a onetrick pony, you know, a chord generating synth. Um,

obviously there's a little bit of extra hype to it because Tamman Pala is somehow involved, but it actually is just really enjoyable to play with, really inspiring to use. The thing that

put me over the edge to including it in this video is that I realized that I create something I like every time I sit down with it. And there's not a lot of gear that I can say that about.

If you set a key on the Orchid, then all the keys will play chords from that key.

But you can also with or without a key set use these keys in conjunction with these buttons to trigger different chord types.

There's also an option to add a bass note. And the chords and the bass both

note. And the chords and the bass both have voicing knobs. So these kind of change the ranges of the notes making up your chord. And they're kind of really

your chord. And they're kind of really fun just as a performance element, too.

There are also some built-in features that affect how the chords are played, and this is found in the perform menu, so you can strum, arpeggiate. There are

some patterns built in. They have a whole bunch of onboard sounds and effects, but uh tweaking them is pretty limited. However, they all sound pretty

limited. However, they all sound pretty cool. It's really easy to find a vibe. I

cool. It's really easy to find a vibe. I

mean, really, it's meant for songwriting.

So you can make cool sounding stuff on it and record the audio, but you could also send its MIDI out to any other instrument that accepts MIDI. And you

can even send the chord MIDI and the bass MIDI separately. You could of course also just pull all that MIDI into your DAW. So even if you really know

your DAW. So even if you really know your music theory and chords and you're experienced with songwriting, it's still a different paradigm for creating and you'll probably do something you wouldn't have otherwise because you're

not thinking about technique. You're not

thinking about what notes are in key.

you can just explore in a way that's unfamiliar to you. One of my favorite things to do with it is to dial it to a random bass sound and a random chord sound and just see what kind of vibe I create as I play some chords kind of at

random.

It's even got a basic looper built in.

So, if you are doing songwriting with it, you don't have to keep playing the same thing over and over. You can let something loop while you go and, you know, write your lyrics or try other instruments out. So, yeah, that's the

instruments out. So, yeah, that's the Orchid. Really cool songwriting tool.

Orchid. Really cool songwriting tool.

Actually, uh I was going to do a transition, but we're still just going to be right here for the last thing I'm talking about, the TR1000 from Roland. I

don't actually have a unit, but I got to spend some time with one when we made the last 1st of October album. And I

mean, it's just the ultimate drum machine. It's huge and sturdy, lots of

machine. It's huge and sturdy, lots of hands-on controls, and it has both analog and digital approaches to all the classic drum machine sounds. And you can also have samples in it. Basically,

Roland did what everybody wanted them to do in a drum machine other than the price. I can't dive too much into it cuz

price. I can't dive too much into it cuz I just played with it on 1st of October and one other day, but I had a great time with it. And I do want to call out one feature, the morph fader. I love

being able to morph between different sets of parameter values. I think it's cool that they incorporated a feature like this because it's really not part of that classic drum machine paradigm and makes it a whole different kind of machine. So, I don't know if it makes

machine. So, I don't know if it makes sense for me personally to ever pick one up, but I just felt like seeing what this machine was, I couldn't not tip my cap to it uh in this year-end video. So,

those are the picks for this year. Let

me know of anything you think I missed in the comments, and I'll see you in the next one.