The Best Gear of the Year

2025 saw a lot of amazing tech hit the shelves. Here are our picks for the best gear of the year.

If there was a theme for 2025, it was probably the economy. From inflation to tariffs, we all felt the pinch in some way. That didn’t stop manufacturers from releasing some pretty amazing hardware, though. And while the trend of more affordable gear does continue (see Sequential’s and Moog’s entries on this list for examples), there were just as many aspirational instruments that had us pondering how much we really needed both kidneys.

Here are our choices for the best gear of the year, including synths, samplers, grooveboxes, effects, DJ equipment, and even a cheeky soft synth.

Think we got it wrong? Let us know what you’d include in the comments.

When Kevin Parker of indie rock heroes Tame Impala announced he was releasing a synthesizer, suddenly everyone became a synth nerd. Given Parker’s popularity, it’s not a surprise that Orchid from new outfit Telepathic Instruments was a hit. What no one expected, though, was just how good it would be.

Although it is also a synthesizer, Orchid is primarily a chord machine. And while that format has been rinsed to death on Kickstarter over the last few years, Orchid does it right, with a single octave keyboard for one-finger chords, buttons to change chord type, and two voicing dials for inversions. It’s got drum beats, speakers, and Kevin Parker’s own presets. It also sounds really good, with a virtual analog synth engine that sparkles with life.

The only problem? They keep selling out. Get on the waitlist and start your 2026 off right.

Find out more here.

Did hell somehow freeze over and we all missed it? Because Roland made a new analog drum machine. After decades of punters clogging up the comments section with demands for a new 808 or 909, the company that doesn’t chase ghosts finally turned into Pac-Man and unleashed the TR-1000, a killer drum machine with real analog voices in the style of its two most famous TRs.

It’s more than just an emulation, though, with virtual analog, FM and sampled drum sounds, plus an SP-404-style sampler built in, uniting both techno and boom bap worlds under one very slick metal chassis. Yes, it’s expensive, but it’s also very, very good. It’s the drum machine that we’ve all wanted for years, finally delivered.

So, the Jupiter-8 next?

Check it out at Roland’s website.

Ever since Massive made wavetables cool, developers have been finding newer and crazier ways to manipulate them. Groove Synthesis has gone in another direction, though. Launched by former Sequential employees, the California-based company looked back to the synth that started off the whole wavetable brouhaha in the first place, the PPG Wave, and recreated it—quirks and all—as the 3rd Wave, adding additional synthesis types like VA and sampling as well as a modern wavetable engine. The end result was a gorgeous synth that also happened to be out of the reach of most workaday musicians.

This year, Groove Synthesis sought to rectify that with the 8M, a desktop version with eight voices (down from 24) and a reduced knob count, but all of the power of its full-size brethren. It’s a beautiful machine with a beautiful sound and a must-have for synthpop, synthwave and ambient.

Find out more.

After the inMusic takeover of Moog, everyone wondered what would happen to the company. It appears we had nothing to worry about, as Messenger, the first release made entirely in the new era, keeps the Moog flame burning while adding some new features that you might not expect.

An analog monosynth, Messenger has the usual Moogy elements: two fat oscillators and a Moog Ladder filter. Look closer, though, and you’ll see some modern touches: those oscillators come loaded with Buchla-style wavefolders, and the filter offers resonance compensation so you don’t lose low-end when you crank it. The envelopes can loop! Even the look of the machine is new.

Messenger is also affordable—surprisingly so—which is great news for anyone who’s wanted that Moog sound but needed something more substantial than a single-oscillator Mother-32.

Get the message.

This year, Akai Professional ended the MPC Vs Maschine argument with the MPC Live III, perhaps the best MPC yet, and a serious contender for the best gear of the year.

What’s so special about the Live III? For starters, there are those fancy new pads. Not quite MPE (more like MPE-adjacent), the MPCe pads give you X/Y control over layers and note repeats in a way that is expressively natural. The device has also got clip launching borrowed from the Force, step sequencing, and an 8-core processor with 8GB of RAM, making it the ultimate standalone DAW-not-DAW.

Visit Akai Professional for more details.

If you haven’t been paying attention to Stylophone lately, it’s time to change that. The company best known for its toy stylus synth has been doing some wild things lately, especially the CPM DF-8. A standalone filter effects unit that’s also Eurorack ready, the CPM DF-8 is probably the most surprising best gear of the year just because it’s so darn unexpected.

It’s got dual filter sections, each with two separate filter circuits: the GEN R-8 multimode filter from the now out-of-print stylus synth, and the 2045 lowpass filter made famous by the Mutronics Mutator, as used by Daft Punk. That alone is reason to pick up a DF-8, but it’s also got envelopes, noise generators, and even a lo-fi delay. You can get lost in it for days. Serious fun.

All the info here.

DJ gear is in a funny place right now. Most of the advancements are happening in the software, with AI functionality making it ever easier to be a DJ. That’s not to say there aren’t still DJs who want to manually mix, as evidenced by Rane’s One MK2, a refresh of its motorized DJ controller.

Made with Serato DJs in mind, it’s got two spinning 7.2-inch platters with adjustable torque settings, a Mag Four crossfader, and Precision Feel channel faders with Contour Knob and Reversal switches. It’s also got all the modern touches that you might expect, including channel effects and dedicated filter knobs, stems integration with Acapella/Instrumental buttons and stem level control, plus a sampler.

Put a spin on it here.

Meeting the needs of cash-strapped analog synth fans head on, Sequential this year released Fourm, a four-voice poly descended from the classic Prophet-5 but without its high price tag.

The look says classic Sequential, as does the sound, with two Prophet-5 lineage oscillators per voice with sync and simultaneously selectable waveforms, a 4-pole resonant filter pilfered from early revs of the Prophet-5 (and with bass compensation, no less), a Pro-One style modulation matrix, arpeggiator and polyphonic step sequencer, polyphonic aftertouch, and more. There’s even a vintage setting for taking it back to the old school. Still not sold on that name, though.

Both Fourm and function, here.

When Melbourne Instruments decided to modify drone motors and turn them into knobs with instant recall, they really did something special. It seems a shame to keep them confined to their Nina and Delia synthesizers, however. Wouldn’t it be great if you could access this technology with, say, a MIDI controller?

Say no more, fam. This year, Melbourne Instruments did just that with Roto-Control, a motorized MIDI controller with Ableton Live and Bitwig Studio integration. Mix Mode lets you adjust volume faders on your DAW mixer, while Plugin Mode will remember mapped parameters. Of course, it works with other DAWs and gear too, with a MIDI Mode with up to 64 savable setups. It’s even got motion recording so you can automate and loop MIDI parameters and watch those knobs fly.

Spin right round at the Melbourne Instruments site.

Few recent pieces of hardware have had as much of an effect on the world of music production as Expressive E’s Osmose, which we called a genuine game-changer. This year, the company finally dropped a 61-key version for those who need more room to play than what 49 keys will give you.

Osmose 61 has all the expressiveness of the original, just with an additional octave to work with, bringing the total to five. Of course, it’s also got that Haken Audio EaganMatrix sound engine, which is honestly breathtaking.

Express yourself here.

OK, we’re skirting the edge here. This list is all about the best gear of the year, and Xfer Records’ Serum 2 is decidedly not hardware. So why have we included a piece of software? Because it’s hard to imagine another application that’s had as much of an influence on modern electronic music as Serum, and this year saw the long-awaited follow-up finally land.

It used to be that hardware defined the sound of dance music. Think the 909, 303, and M1. But since its debut in 2014, Steve Duda’s wavetable-powered soft synth has been the weapon of choice for most producers. Serum 2 continues that trend, and the fact that it’s free for previous owners is just the icing on the cake. Lifetime free updates is a beautiful thing. How could we not include it?

Find out more here.