Once I’d heard ‘Are Friends’ Electric?” by Tubeway Army, I knew synthesizers would be a huge part of my life. Despite drums becoming my main instrument for many years, I dabbled and lusted after countless pieces of gear and started using computers to help me make my own music with a Commodore 64 and a copy of Electrosound.
Over the years, I eventually progressed to more professional tools and began to truly indulge my love of electronic music making, slowly building a collection of gear that covered most synthesis methods, from sampling to physical modelling and beyond. However, my love of the gear that soundtracked my formative years was strong and I was fortunate enough to be asked to work with the inventor of the Fairlight CMI on their more recent projects. This then led to me restoring Fairlight CMI’s, something I still do to this day.
My home studio is now filled with classic vintage gear of the 80s and 90s, as well as modern classics. In recent years, I have been producing podcasts for Sound On Sound, as well as writing articles for them and I also present a weekly live stream for the Pro Synth Network. I still drum, albeit now on e-Drum kits, which are far easier to move around and a lot quieter when practising! You can often find me delivering seminars & lectures and at various synth shows around the world, talking about and demonstrating iconic synths.
ASYX is Isla Electronics first foray into the world of synth plugins, and they've chosen something special to get the ball rolling.
Did you just drop some cash on the Arturia MiniFreak 49? Here are some of my favourite sound banks to help you fill it up!
Arturia's deliciously good MiniFreak has had a growth spurt, but is the MiniFreak 49 what we were hoping for?
Available now!
Nearly two and a half years after it debuted at Superbooth 24, the First LOVE FM is ready to order in two delicious colours!
The surge in vibe-coded instrument plugins has been overwhelming, but do we risk losing the most important feature, humanity?
An old friend returns in the form of SQ8L Revival, plus other non-firmware-related synth updates!
This week, we're treated to Robin Rimbaud's tape archive in Scanner: Library, and sounds for Pentaphonic, a Hurdy-Gurdy & the Kawai K5!
1010music's Bento just received a new firmware update (v1.6) with even more new features and workflow enhancements!
Falcon 2027, UVI's flagship software instrument, gets set for the new year with more of everything and UI improvements.
The M-VAVE FM-1 is truly the synth of the moment right now, so it's no surprise that sound designers are making hay while the sun shines!
Cherry Audio's latest synth recreation continues its trend of exploring the quirkier synths of history with the Pentaphonic, a rare synth from the Gleeman brothers!
Arturia’s groundbreaking AstroLab series of synths gets synth parameter tweaking, new sampled instruments and more!
We hunt down the deals of the week so you don't have to, and we've found some pretty awesome savings for you from 3 big-name brands!
After a quiet few months, it seems we're beginning to see what the Arturia boffins in Grenoble have been up to, and it seems sound designers are picking up on this too!
We're partying like it's 1984, making tracker music with a brand new Commodore 64, the C64U, and Heartbeat Soundtracker, with Kelly Clarksynth for company!
We explore the bottom end with Kinetic Rituals, a bank for Arturia's latest plugin, Pure Sub, a woofer-wobbling bass synth, plus sounds for Roland's SH-4d.
We take a look at 5 presets that dominated pop music and shaped what we heard during the golden age of synth pop. Did your favourite make the list?
A broad collection of sounds for you this week, featuring Panorama Whitekirk, a delightful sampled guitar, plus sounds for classic, quirky analogue synths and the Moog Muse!
Four years on, the remarkable Arturia MiniFreak get a new update with the long-awaited addition of user sample and wavetable uploads. plus new presets to show them off!
This week sees WrongTools do fantastic things with a Marxophone in Marxos, plus a new SDX for Superior Drummer 3, patches for Leviasynth and more!
The Usual Suspects continue their winning streak of recreating the digital legends of the 90s/00s with Blue Giant, a recreation of the classic Novation SuperNova II.
This week, we have a spectacular new synth, Traveler, from an industry stalwart, new CS-80 chips to keep those old beasts going and a clone of the Moog Prodigy.
Nothing borrowed or blue here, but a cracking collection of sounds for synths old and new from some of the best sound designers out there!
Full-size eDrum kits are increasingly common these days, eschewing the small rubber pads of yesteryear, but such things come at a price. The Millenium MPS-1500 Hybrid-X kit has other ideas!