Molten Music Monthly January 2026

Molten Music Monthly
robinv

January brings the NAMM show and Buchla & Friends to delight us with new shiny things. Here are the highlights that twanged my triggers. Oh, and no live stream this Sunday – we’ll schedule it for the 8th of February if that’s ok.

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We’ve had NAMM and Buchla and Friends and so we have a load of stuff and some sketchy info.

Native Instruments go into preliminary insolvency – this means that NI Germany has appointed a geezer to sort out their financial situation. Someone who will make hard decisions, attract new investment and try to return them to an even keel. They haven’t immediately gone bankrupt, and none of the software servers have been turned off. Your products should continue to work. Obviously Kontakt and Reaktor are core engines for all sorts of products, instruments and sample libraries so the loss of these things would be devastating not just for users but for developers too. However, according to people who know things, like our friend Tim Exile who develops products with Reaktor and recently had to wind up his own company Endlesss, the process at this early stage is actually very hopeful that it will have a good outcome for users.

https://cdm.link/ni-insolvency/

Thonk modules – Thonk now has a full synths worth of DIY modules. It starts with a 4HP compact VCO with LFO capabilities, sync, PWM and FM. Next there’s the Dual VCA with lovely sliders, then the Double Bubble dual filter with cross modulation and feedback. And lastly there’s the Triple Mod three-AD envelope generator with looping and EOC outputs. It can also do a bit of Turing, LFO and Slew to boot. There’s also a little mixer, and offset attenuator. All together it’s about £500 for a complete modular synth voice. All you need is a case to put it in.

https://www.thonk.co.uk/brand/thonk-synth

Korg microAUDIO722 and Korg Filter Ark – Let’s stick a miniKORG722 filter in an audio interface! So they did. The microAUDIO 722 is a cool little 2 in/out audio interface with a built in analogue filter. It can be routed on the input or the USB output and looped through for recording back into the DAW. Sounds really good. It also comes with the Filter Ark plugin that has a whole bunch of modelled filters bound up in a 4-slot interface with other effects. It has lots of modulation and is all a bit fierce! Check out my full review.

Fender Studio Pro 8, Motion 16 and 32 – Fender has kicked PreSonus to the curb and transformed Studio One 7 into Studio Pro 8. It’s had a full redesign and actually looks rather fresh and cool. Fender have stuck in a bunch of guitar-type plugins and a new channel overview strip that cuts a scar right across your arrangement. It lets you set up custom controls for all your loaded plugins and is actually quite cool. Very few new things. My full review will be arriving in Sound On Sound very soon. Fender has also rebranded all the audio interfaces and released a couple of new hardware controllers, the Motion 16 and 32. The 16 is a pad affair for Impact with a bunch of knobs, the 32 is a bit more of a MIDI controller with all sorts of Studio Pro integration. Both could be useful.

https://uk.fender.com/pages/fender-studio

Korg Kaos Pad V – this is the first new Kaos Pad in a long long time. We’ve had iPad apps and the little NTS-3 but now we have an old school Kaos pad. It has that “naughties” vibe and very much looks and feels like they always have. It has a load of effects and can actually support two touches and so run two different effects at once.

ASM Leviasynth – This is a bit more like it. We were slightly baffled by the wind controller thing they released before Christmas and wondering why they haven’t released a new synth. Well now they have. This an 8 oscillator, 16 voice monster. The oscillators are arranged in algorithms… which sounds a lot like operator configurations in FM synthesis, and oh look, it’s all a bit green… so we have something along the lines of a DX7. But there’s more, you can do pulse width modulation, phase distortion and all sorts before plunging into the suite of digital and analogue filters. It has a touch screen where you can get down and dirty with the oscillators and get each one to do something different – masses of versatility and a frightening amount of complexity. But hopefully we can lean on the sound designers to come up with the presets and the interface to play with the accessible stuff.

Stylophone Voice and Sequencer – Bonkers sampler from Stylophone that keeps the stylus and keyboard and throws in a bunch of pads and a microphone. The pads are actually for effects and filters, but you do have four pads for 3 recordable loops and a drum track with integrated sounds. And of course, no power socket – just batteries. The Sequencer is called On-The-Fly and it’s a bit different looking and is part of the posher series of gear Stylophone has been doing lately. The idea is that you stick in 8 notes and then push them around in up to 64 steps. It’s very pattern based with some cool realtime controls to keep things interesting. I like the pattern reordering knob. You can link up multiples into a huge sequencing system. The design is a bit utility but it’s looking pretty great.

Akai MPC XL – The biggest baddest MPC is here and it’s an enormous chunk of beat-making hardware. You have the familiar 16 pads but you’ll also got 16 dynamic knobs, ribbon strips, level metering and a pocket calculator. It looks a bit like an ordering system at a busy pub or restaurant. It’s basically a computer built into a hardware controller running a DAW with 16 audio tracks, 32 virtual instruments, 256 voices, step sequencing and effects. You’ve got an impressive 8 channels of CV/Gate but only 2 mic inputs and 2 line inputs. As a standalone personal music making machine it’s pretty awesome but I think for people who have more than one synth or a band it lacks the inputs to do all the things the website marketing suggests. If you love the MPC workflow and have had it with laptops then this is the thing for you.

Emily Hopkins Parting – I adore Emily Hopkins and her harp-focused content. She has a unique take on music technology and creative tools that resonates with me. She’s just released her own pedal with Old Blood Noise called Parting and it’s a lovely, glitch filled ambient texturizer that is right up my alley. It’s like reverb, delay, modulation that then degrades, randomises and reinvents itself. I don’t use pedals a lot but in a moment of madness I decided to order one and see if it can bring something fabulous to my bleeps and bloops. I will let you know how that goes.

https://oldbloodnoise.com/parting

Behringer JT2, JN80 – Behringer returned to NAMM with a couple more synths. You have to take things with a pinch of salt because there are dozens of other synths Behringer has talked about that never seem to arrive. Anyway, what we had was a BMX drum machine and a teeny weeny Model D micro thing but what was more interesting was the JT2 and JN80. The JT2 is a two-voice version of the Jupiter-8 which feels a bit like defeating the object but hey let’s go with Jupiter oscillators and filter packed into an over-large box for desktop or Eurorack. Looks good, interesting looking arpeggiator. Is a two voice paraphonic version of a massively influential 8-voice polyphonic synth a good thing? Maybe – or why not just give us the Jupiter-8 which is what we saw last year…. But no news on its arrival. However, we did have the JN-80 which is based on the Juno 6/60 – it’s very affordable, looks very playable and might well do a good job of scratching your Roland itch. Apparently it’s available for preorder.

https://behringer.com

Bastl Citadel Alchemist – Super cool and complex hybrid synthesis module with 5 synth modes, morphing envelopes, dual effects, rhythms, scales and slides. It has 4 oscillators, FM, ring modulation, track and hold, noise, shapers, filter, flanger and all sorts of stuff. I’ve played with one for about 15 minutes and it’s fun, confusing and quite delightful. Lots to explore, lots of modulation. Review coming soon.

https://bastl-instruments.com/eurorack/modules/citadel-alchemist

Casio SX-C1 – Casio? No way! Yep, Casio is jumping on the handheld sampler bandwagon with the SX-C1. 16 pads, gamer controls, OLED display, built in mic/speaker, USB. It has sounds from the SK1 80’s sampler or just sample to a pad and then sequence yourself to bliss. You’ve got some sample editing and effects processing. Looks fun!

https://casio.com

Polyend Endless – Polyend have reinvented the blank pedal format with Endless. It’s an empty pedal onto which you can load a gazillion effects. We’ve been here before many many times. I have the digitech iStomp knocking around somewhere from over a decade ago. The USP of the Endless is that you can code your own effects using an AI prompt – just tell it what you want and it will code it for you…. Or just chose the effect you want. Sounds like a fabulous way to waste time experimenting with prompts rather than experimenting with effects (says the gruff old cynic). You get a few tokens thrown in to buy time with the LLM, after that you have to pay each time you render a new effect idea. You can always code your own for free.

https://polyend.com

Noise Engineering Multi Repetitor – Mad four-channel trigger generator with four sliders that pile on the percussive intensity. You select a basic Prime rhythm and then use the sliders to interpret it over the four channels. You also have four accent outputs to add occasional modulation to things. It uses all sorts of algorithms to generate the patterns and looks like the sort of thing you could easily manipulate live to give you the percussion or envelope firing of your dreams. I want one!

ALM Busy Circuits were teasing a couple of new modules and a vertical case, which actually makes a lot of sense to me rather than having it all wide all the time taking up desk space. They had an FM Co module and mentioned a digital mixer expander for the Stem recorder – very interesting.

https://busycircuits.com

Terraphones Nymira – chord machine based on a circle of fifths. It allows for all sorts of jazzy chord combinations. It has a synth inside and speakers although the whole walnut case is used as a speaker through transduction. You have a strummer and overtone controls – nice.

https://terraphones.com

Modulaire Maritime Phosgène – Ridiculously sized FM and wavetable oscillator. 60 wavetables, separate wave and FM outputs, minimal controls and lots of full-on industrial sounds.

https://www.modulaire-maritime.com/product-page/phosg%C3%A8ne

DecadeBridge/Lumatic Visual Devices Rorschach – Patchable video synth. It produces a lot of fascinatingly lo-fi visualisations. It can self-generate patterns through randomisation or responding to an audio input. It has a old school composite output which might present some challenges. Lumatic Visual Devices will be at Synth East.

https://lumaticvisual.com

Weston Precision Audio Trivium – made in collaboration with Trovarsi it’s all the parts of a synth voice without the oscillator. 2 envelopes, VCA a discrete OTA multimode filter and lots of modulation options. Just add a VCO. Love it.

https://westonaudio.com

Mega Modular Corporation – nice idea of a bunch of boutique modular manufactures getting together to collaborate on a separate line of modules. The manufacturers include Crey Space, Hive Mind, Setonix Synth, Robots are Red, and Tidbit Audio. The latest module is the Bathymeter 4-channel gesture recorder for looping envelopes and LFOs.

https://megamodular.co

Scoopy Scoop labs Rune-1 – Fascinating wire based expressive synthesizer with haptic feedback for which there is very little information. No Instagram posts, no youtube content on their accounts. But there was a revealing video from CatSynth Amanda at KnobCon but it was difficult to hear what it was doing.

https://scoopyscooplabs.com/products/rune-1/

Trilling Passaggio – Fascinating digital VCO that gives you continuously varying waveshapes and variations. The sound is rich and nicely modulating without getting into the harshness or wavetably glassiness usually associated with digital oscillators. I love the look and some of the other modules too like the Dual Voice Quantizer – very cool.

https://www.trillingsynths.com/products/passaggio

Alan Instruments Space Drum – realtime responsive generative drum jamming built into a 70’s science project. 8 voices, sliders and full control. It’s enormous!

https://www.alaninstruments.com

Celemony Tonalic – Interesting idea from the makers of Melodyne that flies in the face of AI generated music. They’ve taken recordings from a bunch of session guitarists, bassists and drummers and then use their Melodyne algorithms to shape the performance to your song. Changing chords, rearranging notes, reinterpreting patterns but always having been played by a human. It works by giving you visual pattern icons called Tonalics that you drag into your song. It’s cool because you can see the pattern, see what the notes are going to do and how they change with your chord progressions. The results are real and seemingly stunning. A “Studio” version adds drum mixing, tonal effects and individual note editing. There’s lots of clever musicality going on in here to keep the performances nuanced and right regardless of how you are trying to mangle them into your music. It’s very slick, certainly a leap above loops or sample pattern generators. The bad news is that it’s a subscription – $15 regular, $25 for studio.

https://tonalic.com

Synth East – https://syntheast.com/

Synth Picnic – https://synthpicnic.com/