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. Telepathic Instruments Orchid 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. Roland TR-1000 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. Groove Synthesis 3rd Wave 8M 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. Moog Messenger 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. Akai Professional MPC Live III 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. Stylophone DF-8 If you haven’t been paying attention to Stylophone lately, it’s time to change that. The company best known for its toy stylus