Audio hardware is having a renaissance this decade. The 2010s were dominated by vapid, redundant ‘analogue vs digital’ debates, an unstoppable avalanche of iOS apps and innovative plugins, and countless new MIDI controllers.

In the 2020s, however — despite the furious noise around artificial intelligence — we’re seeing tactility and analogue circuitry back at the forefront. In the past five years alone, historic brands like Oberheim, Sequential and Moog reprised their leviathan synth roots, Behringer led the charge on affordable analogue hardware, boutique rotary mixers have become the centrepiece of many hi-fi DJ booths, and brands like Warm Audio have put valve mics firmly back on the market.

Still, plugins, apps and DAWs are, expectedly, better than ever; you could decide to never own any hardware instruments, and still drop a Grammy-winning record with the tools available. Hell, with the number of capable smartphone DAWs, you don’t even need a laptop anymore.

READ MORE: MusicTech’s favourite studio gear of 2025

MusicTech‘s writers have tested and tweaked hundreds of products already since 2020, and there are plenty of brands and products to celebrate at the decade’s halfway point.

In no particular order, here is MusicTech’s favourite gear from the 2020s.

MasterSounds Valve MK2

When I first hooked up the MasterSounds Valve MK2, it felt less like testing a new piece of DJ gear and more like reconnecting with an old friend. There’s a particular calm that descends when you put your hands on something this considered — the hand-built quality, the joyful tactility, and analogue glow that slows your pulse before cueing a track.

Emerging during a period where digital tools were accelerating at breakneck speed, the Valve MK2 offered a moment to breathe, to listen, and rediscover the nuance of mixing on instinct rather than screen. What struck me most was how instantly musical the mixer felt. The valve circuitry adds a richness nudging every blend into something warm, physical, almost intimate.

Since the collaboration with Union Audio, MasterSounds has ceased mixer production, meaning the Valve MK2 carries a bittersweet significance. Using it feels like holding a snapshot of boutique analogue craftsmanship at its peak.

— James Day

Oberheim OB-X8

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An outstanding return for one of the world’s most revered synth designers, the Oberheim OB-X8 is every bit the synth we knew it could be but didn’t dare hope it would be. It’s a mammoth eight-
voice instrument that benefited from substantial contributions from the late, great Dave Smith,

The OB-X8 is not just well-built; it’s beautifully built. It’s heavy, it’s spacious, it has a FATAR keybed, walnut sides…I could go on. Above all, it sounds astonishingly good, both forward-thinking and
steeped in tradition, with all-but-flawless (all-analogue) homages to previous Oberheim models.

It’s a phenomenal instrument in almost every way that will doubtless stand the test of time as well
as its predecessors.

— Vincent Joseph

Behringer 2600

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I wanted to get together a modest modular setup, but by the time I’d specced a system with sufficient modules to make a half-decent synth the bill started to look excessive for what was – I’ll admit – a GAS-powered whim. But then Behringer released its homage to (or, as some would have it, rip-off of) the legendary ARP 2600 and my dreams were answered.

There are ethical arguments surrounding Behringer’s cloning habit, but it’s not like they’ve stolen a sale from anyone else: I can’t afford $12k-ish for the real thing, nor $4k+ for Korg’s “official” rerelease. I’ll also take synth YouTuber Ralph Baumgartl’s word for it that the Behringer isn’t as “brutal, untamed and raw” as the ARP (he should know — he owns an original ARP and all three Behringer variants). But I don’t care – my Behringer 2600 scratches my modular itch nicely, didn’t break the bank, and has proved to be the perfect base from which to grow a modular rig.

In his detailed review video, Tim Shoebridge opines that the Behringer 2600 is “the most modular or any semi-modular synth”, whilst Baumgartl points out that the instrument packs “all the essential synthesiser modules in one single box”. As such, the very affordable Behringer 2600 is the ideal starting point for anyone wishing to explore modular synthesis.

— Adam Crute

Positive Grid BIAS X

Positive Grid has long been a front-runner in the space of in-the-box guitar tones. Its BIAS FX 2 software has long been a core part of my home guitar setup, and honestly, with its massive range of authentic and solid-sounding emulations of classic gear, began  to replace my dependency on real-world amplifiers.

And this year brought a massive overhaul for BIAS with the introduction of BIAS X, an all-encompassing guitar tone suite with a twist: the ability to harness AI with text-to-tone and audio-to-tone prompts.

We guitarists are often very quick to land on the guitar tone we’re looking to create for a project – but making it a reality is another matter entirely. But with BIAS X, you can take so much of the painstaking knob-turning out of the equation, describe the exact tone you’re looking for and stay in your creative flow. You can even upload an audio file and it’ll match the track’s guitar tone. This is a game-changer for the guitar gear industry.

— Sam Roche

Teenage Engineering PO-133

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I vividly remember disliking the PO-133 and PO-128 when they first arrived at my house for review in 2021. I saw them as a lazy reskin and resell of the PO-33 and PO-28 from 2017, which I also thought were limiting and toy-like. Affordable? Sure. Actually useful for music makers? Surely not.

A few days with the PO-133 sampler, and I was drastically converted. Yes, the Capcom series Pocket Operators from Teenage Engineering are a reskin and re-release, but the included sounds are nostalgic and fun, and the Capcom logo makes it feel like some collector’s item. Better yet, the features that I once viewed as limiting became liberating. I was enjoying flipping samples on the PO-133 much more than on Ableton Live. I even looked into the world of Pocket Operator power users, who were producing albums with little more than the PO-133.

Sadly, I was careless with the PO-133 while moving house, and it’s been temperamental ever since. I’ve added one to my Christmas list this year in hopes I can revive my lo-fi sampling journey.

— Sam Willings

Teenage Engineering EP-133

To that end — despite ‘fadergate’ — the EP-133 K.O.II was an admirable success on Teenage Engineering’s part. I’m a sucker for old-school sampling, and was curious, sceptical even, when this drop, especially with its very reasonable price tag of £300. Like the Pocket Operators, this calculator-looking instrument comes with plenty of limitations, but therein lies its appeal. A fun, flashy display provides real-time visualiation on your effects, sample editing, and layers, and the hardware itself is a delight to tinker with. But it isn’t capable of deep sample editing, it doesn’t have a lot of memory, and you can’t make entire tracks on it. That hasn’t stopped thousands of creators picking one up and conjuring interesting ideas.

Ricky Tinez put it best when he spoke with me about the EP-133: “It’s refreshing for a company to be like, ‘This is the product. And if you’re not vibing with it, it might not be for you. And that’s okay.’”

Evidently, Teenage Engineering plans to further develop the EP-133 with new themes, with the Medieval version arriving to mixed reviews, and the new EP-40 Riddim launching with a bespoke microphone. This may not be the ‘best’ sampler released this decade, but it’s certainly among the most interesting.

— Sam Willings

Arturia Pigments

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Although Pigments started out before the 2020s, I didn’t come to it until its third version, released in 2021, and have only seen it go from strength to strength since then.

The synth’s ability to load different oscillator, filter and effect models isn’t unique, but what makes Pigments’ approach so compelling is that those models have grown from Arturia’s extensive R&D of accurate models of classic synths and processors. Indeed, it includes many models lifted directly from Arturia’s V-Collection instruments and FX-Collection processors. So whether I’m looking for vintage analogue, early digital, or thoroughly contemporary tones, I know I can rely on Pigments to deliver.

Pigments packs the history of sound and synthesis technology into a single, attractive and easy-to-use instrument whose deep sonic versatility ensures it blends perfectly with whatever music you’re working on.

— Adam Crute

Elektron Digitakt II

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It’s telling that the first Elektron Digitakt was, in the wake of its successor’s release, the best-selling piece of gear on second-hand marketplace site Reverb. The Digitakt II is not only an astonishingly good piece of gear in its own right with capacious room for sample storage, immense effects and sequencing power and stereo functionality across the board; its release also set a precedent for a significant levelling-up of Elektron’s more compact boxes in general, with a second iteration of the Digitone following not long after and the ambitious Tonverk after that.

The only groovebox I’ll ever need? Quite possibly.

— Vincent Joseph

Music Thing Modular Workshop System

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I spent the past year on the fence about diving into modular, keenly aware of both its learning curve and potential to bankrupt me. When I saw this starter system from Music Thing Modular, my brain lit up as it checked all the boxes: small, compact, affordable, deep enough to grow my skills but not overwhelming.

It’s returned a playful element to my musical practice that was in short supply for a long time. There’s no agenda and no expectations when I switch it on, and I find crafting patches almost meditative; it’s creating for creating’s sake. And when I do find myself back in Ableton, it often feels like it’s with more inspiration and direction.

— James Langley

Logic Pro for iPad

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We don’t love the subscription model either, but Apple’s rewriting of Logic Pro to work on iPad with its touch-based interface was a revolution in mobile music-making.

Facing criticism for touting the iPad as a Mac replacement but not creating pro apps for it, Apple crammed the best of Logic’s workflow into a stunning, slick app that feels familiar to Logic users but translates perfectly to the mobile platform.

In our review, we noted that iPadOS was a bit limiting, but since then, iPadOS 26 has massively improved multitasking, windowing, mouse and keyboard support and inter-app working on the platform, as well as external monitor support. More recent models like the M4 or M5-based iPad Pros are very powerful, with USB-C for connecting external drives and some audio interfaces.

All this makes Logic Pro on iPad an excellent way to make music on the go, and of course it can exchange projects with the desktop version too.

— Hollin Jones

Steven Slate Audio – VSX Headphones

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It’s hard to overstate the impact that VSX has had on my mixing, and if you read the comments of other users around the world, it seems like I’m not the only one. I have a decent room and speaker set-up, but after four years of use, I’m now mixing through VSX around 90% of the time. It provides a complete system with decent headphones, finely calibrated to work with excellent software, offering you the ability to mix in some fantastic-sounding studio and speaker setups. With the recent version 5, there’s even a calibration system that helps tailor the sound to your ear canal.

Overcoming the issues of a bad-sounding room is a difficult and expensive endeavour, but VSX provides an affordable system that can help you make better mixes with more consistent results.

— Alex Holmes

Sequential Fourm

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In more ways than one, I see the Fourm as a gateway. This is Sequential’s most affordable synthesizer to date, placing it within the grasp of many people who have coveted the legendary brand but been priced out of the market. Then there’s the polyphonic aftertouch keybed, which is so beautifully crafted that it convinced me of how musical, playable, and fun this feature can be. Each individual key is pressure sensitive and assignable to different controls, and, while feeling a little odd at first, you can ‘massage’ the keys to create wonderfully evolving sounds.

This is an atypical synth from a time-honoured maker — one that shouldn’t be overlooked!

— Garling Wu

Traktor Pro 4

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The battle for DJ software supremacy has become hotter than hardware rivalries with Serato, Rekordbox, and more in the mix. But when Traktor Pro 4 broke cover in summer 2024, it quickly became clear the blueprint for Berlin’s Native Instruments was to push performers further… far further. Stem separation is arguably the most significant development in DJing this decade. Coupled with flexible beatgrids, virtually flawless beat detection, a suite of live effects, and growing hardware integration — including the new Traktor MX2 controller — Traktor Pro 4 remains the most comprehensive, creative, and adventurous DJ platform available today.

No wonder it landed a MusicTech Choice Award with Hollin Jones’ review noting: “Native Instruments has built on an already stellar performance tool that’s as approachable for new performers as it is powerful for experienced ones…Stem separation will revolutionise the way you think about mixing and layering, the beat detection is near-flawless and the integration with NI’s hardware for live performance control makes for an outstanding all-round DJ experience. You’ll have no trouble at all getting the party well and truly started.”

— James Day

Ableton Move

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This pint-size idea-starter impressed me when I first got my hands on it, and my appreciation for Move has only grown over time. The sound banks are excellent, the build quality is travel-worthy, and the workflow is uber-accessible. Sure, my initial caveats remain – pricey, four-track limit, the near-mandatory use of Ableton Live – but outweighing all of that is the simple, unadulterated fun of using Move. I missed it once it was gone. I borrowed one from a friend. I eventually bought my own. This playful, colourful, portable slab of beats and grooves nails the quintessential function of every great instrument: it inspires you to create.

Fast, fun, and addictive – Move is everything I want in a portable groove box

— Clovis McEvoy

Cableguys – ShaperBox 3

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ShaperBox is probably my favourite, most used plug-in out of a long list of plug-ins. It’s one of those bits of software that provides an incredible amount of flexibility and power, but makes you feel in total control. The list of Shaper effects has steadily grown, and now includes Volume, Pan, Width, Filter, Drive, Noise, Crush, Reverb, Liquid, Time, and the newly released Pitch, plus an added compressor and oscilloscope.

The combination of multi-band, plus an LFO/curve, MIDI or audio-triggered workflow gives ShaperBox the unique ability to create original sounds and target hard-to-reach areas of audio. It’s incredibly useful for both wild sound design and everyday mixing tasks, and I couldn’t live without it.

— Alex Holmes

Thermionic Culture Snow Petrel Microphone Preamplifier

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This 2-channel all-valve microphone preamplifier is simply one of the best I’ve ever used. It’s not a feature-packed ‘channel strip’ type of unit; however, it offers an abundance of super-clean tube power to drive even the most insensitive microphones, including the Coles 4038 ribbon mic. The ‘Air’ control is superb, elevating lead vocals and just about anything else.

Back in 2020, I said, “Unlike regular EQ controls where less is often more, the Air control can be used quite liberally to great effect, so don’t be afraid to crank it up. Dialling in the Air control creates a halo of space around the kit, highlighting harmonics from cymbals and bringing out the snap of the snare drum.”

— John Pickford

Denon PerL Pro

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After almost three years, I still use these earbuds every day. The Denon PerL Pro are deeply slept on by the mainstream, with many opting for Apple AirPods Pro or whatever the latest Sony variant is called. Nay, I say — try the Denon PerL Pro, previously known as the NuraTrue Pro, and I doubt you’ll ever go back.

Personalised sound, a flat circle design that’s easy for gestures, and a comfortable fit make these buds a daily essential. I think my AirPods Pro are in a drawer somewhere…I’m not sure; I haven’t looked for them in a long time.

In my review, I said: “Denon’s PerL Pro, an exact recreation of the NuraTrue Pro, are a pair of earbuds that you simply must consider buying. With Nura’s trademark extraordinary sound personalisation (now called Masimo Adaptive Acoustic Technology), easy operation, lossless audio and an intuitive companion app, these are still some of the best earbuds out there.”

— Sam Willings

Zoom H6essential

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My most used piece of studio gear fits in the palm of my hand, can run on four double AA batteries and has toured all over the world in the back of my beat-up suitcase — I’m talking about the Zoom H6essential.

The unbeatable shift to a 32-bit recording format means you never have to set the gain levels again, or worry about audio clipping – seriously. This makes it perfect for on-location recording, sampling, or just capturing an impromptu jam session. It’s portable, functional, and a wonderfully creative tool that will allow more people to take their studio on the road.

— Garling Wu

Moog Muse

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After a few troubled years, Moog came roaring back with the release of the mighty Muse. It’s not just that it has world-class circuitry, or that its rock-solid build quality puts to bed worries about offshore manufacturing. What makes Muse a triumph is how it balances legacy with what professional musicians are looking for right now. A deeply featured arpeggiator and sequencer, a set of innovative probabilistic functions, a highly accessible modulation system – it’s this deft combination of analogue authenticity with digital convenience that captures the zeitgeist of modern synthesis.

Effortlessly reaffirming what Moog stands for, Muse helps define our current era of synthesis.

— Clovis McEvoy

Warm Audio WA-CX12 Tube Condenser Microphone

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Based on one of the most sought-after and expensive valve microphones of all time, the WA-CX12 is probably my favourite of all Warm Audio’s fabulous mics. Designed to emulate the most desirable versions of the AKG C12, built between 1953 and 1963, it is supremely versatile, offering 9 polar patterns. Sounding superb with most vocalists, it’s also fabulous on acoustic guitar, piano, orchestral instruments and even loud electric bass cabs.

At the time of the review, I said, “The CX12 is a gorgeous-sounding microphone. Its character is warm, rich and sweet, with excellent extension at both frequency extremes.” If I had to choose one Warm Audio microphone to record absolutely everything, this would be it.

— John Pickford

Sony MDR-MV1 open-backed headphones

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In a crowded field, Sony’s lightweight open-backs blew us away with their stunning accuracy and detail. At £420, they’re not cheap, still cost less than many competitors, which in my opinion, they outclass. Our review noted, “the first thing that strikes you about the sound of the MDR-MV1s is just how balanced it is. Years of wearing closed-back headphones or earbuds can condition us to get used to a more boomy, boxy sound. These cans are quite the opposite; their open-backed design means there’s no colouration of playback at all”.

They’re wired only – no fancy electronics here, just drivers that go from 5Hz to 80kHz, far outside the range of human hearing. They’re also tuned to accurately reproduce Atmos and other surround formats, which are a revelation to listen to. At the same time, they’re superb workhorse cans too – maybe not for tracking as the open backs leak sound, but for any kind of mixing or mastering, they’ll give you an uncompromising picture of your audio. To top it off, they are comfortable to wear for long sessions, which isn’t always the case with audiophile headphones.

If you spend any serious amount of time mixing on headphones, these are well worth your money.

— Hollin Jones

Arturia MiniFreak

There was already so much to love about Arturia’s petite MicroFreak, even with its touch-capacitive keyboard. The MiniFreak elevated this waveform wrangling beast, however, with an expanded mini keybed with aftertouch, more voices, and a powerful effects section.

I got lost many times in the MiniFreak’s sequencer mode, blending the multiple advanced synth engines with delays and reverbs; not to mention the analogue filters. With its accompanying plugin and attractive price, I’ve since recommended the MiniFreak to any friends looking for a portable synth powerhouse.

As Adam Crute said in his review: “The MiniFreak is a small instrument whose unassuming exterior hides a behemoth of a synthesiser. It’s tough to believe the richness and character you can coax from such a compact, almost cute, instrument.”

— Sam Willings

Polyend MESS

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When I reviewed MESS, Polyend’s multi-track modulating effects box, it didn’t truly click with me until I fed in a drum machine. I love the way it transforms unremarkable percussion loops into captivating grooves that can almost stand on their own as a discrete piece of music, and, to me, it feels like a bit of a secret weapon.

I’m also excited to see how Polyend might update it. I’m impressed at just how much creative potential lies within the unit, but at times it feels difficult to unearth. With a few workflow tweaks, it’s easy to imagine using MESS on anything and everything to great reward.

— James Langley

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