Highlights of the Year: My Favorite Gear of 2025
Happy Holidays, everyone! Before we get ready for the new year, it’s time to look back at my personal gear highlights of 2025. Spoiler alert: no synths this time!
I mostly write about synths at GEARNEWS. But I don’t want to waste your time with yet another list of the best synths of the year (apart from a pair of stunning groove machines that no recap of 2025 can do without). So here’s my list of the other things I found exciting or interesting this year, outside of my main area of focus.
Table of Contents
Highlights of the Year: Desktop Performance Effects
Let’s begin with a trend that has gained significant momentum this year: more and more companies are releasing desktop effects units tailored to the needs of DAWless producers and performers. As always, the best ideas usually come from indie developers. But some big brands have also discovered this niche, and I think they’re onto something. Because let’s be honest: while effects pedals are cool, most guitar effects aren’t really designed to be used on a desk, not to mention the annoying level and impedance issues that can arise.
DAWless live performers with synths and drum machines want great hardware effects, too! However, they usually set different priorities: Line inputs and outputs (in stereo!), MIDI sync, and, of course, lots of knobs for tweaking—you can never have enough of those. Oh, and preset memory wouldn’t hurt, either.
Erica Synths Echolocator and Xenodrive: Desktop Performance Effects
Erica Synths is one of the bigger brands that has recognized this trend. Following up on the awesome Zen Delay (now also available as a plugin) and Nightverb, the manufacturer released not one, but two new desktop effects units this year, both developed in collaboration with 112 dB.
Echolocator is a highly tweakable performance delay with filter, pitch shifting, and reverb. And Xenodrive specializes in destroying your signal in every way imaginable with distortion, overdrive, and waveshaping.
All four of Erica Synth’s desktop effects units are very well thought-out and look like loads of fun. Unfortunately, though, they aren’t exactly what I’d call a bargain. If you wanted to get all four from Thomann*, you’d have to shell out nearly two and a half grand – that’s almost a TR-1000. Phew!
Endorphin.es Evil Pet: Delightfully Wacky Granular Effect and Sampler with an FM Radio
Endorphin.es also started out with Eurorack modules and gradually ventured into effects. The Ghost FX module developed in collaboration with Andrew Huang later became a pedal, although I have a feeling that it mostly lives on tables rather than pedalboards. When Endorphin.es unleashed the Evil Pet this year, they omitted the annoying footswitches altogether, replacing them with chunky keys. Excellent choice!
This mind-bending (and slightly terrifying) cross between a granular effect, sampler, reel-to-reel recorder, and FM radio was definitely one of the highlights of the year for me. You can run any external audio signal through it in real time (including guitars, for that matter), or import samples via an SD card. Or use the built-in microphone or FM radio as a sound source and inspiration. No matter where the signal comes from, once you unleash the granular engine, it’ll turn into something completely unrecognizable, and, in many cases, highly inspiring. And because you can play the resulting sounds via MIDI with eight voices of polyphony and even MPE, Evil Pet isn’t just an effect, but a granular performance sampler like no other. It’s available from Thomann*.
ginTronic Transparentsea: No-Nonsense Desktop Effects for Live Performers
Another exciting desktop unit came from newcomer ginTronic this year. Transparentsea is a stereo multi-effect that does so many things right, it’s almost scary. No menus, no unnecessary bells and whistles, just a bunch of color-coded effects that you can mix, match, and tweak on the fly. In addition to reverb, dual delays, chorus, tremolo, distortion, and a DJ filter, Transparentsea includes a very cool stutter effect that syncs to an incoming MIDI clock. Everything is instantly tweakable, without any risk of getting lost or distracted. And because Transparentsea doesn’t just offer full MIDI control of all parameters, but also outputs MIDI, it can double as a controller if needed. It isn’t shipping yet, but it’s already shaping up to be one of the highlights of 2026. You can join the waitlist on the developer’s website.
Instant Highlights: TR-1000 and MPC Live III
What had felt like a bit of a slow year for synths and groove boxes took a sharp turn in the fall: on October 1, Roland stunned everyone with the release of the TR-1000, followed by the AKAI MPC Live III just a day later. And it goes without saying that no recap of the highlights of the year can be complete without these two.
I was lucky enough to be given the opportunity to try out the new MPC for GEARNEWS ahead of its launch. AKAI tried their best to keep it a secret: the package that showed up on my doorstep was completely wrapped in black foil, with no indication whatsoever of the hot goods hidden inside. Needless to say, I got right to work. And boy did I have a blast. The Live III is by far the most capable and complete standalone music-making machine I’ve ever used, from the new 3D pads to the TR-style step sequencer to Force-style clip launching. Having to hold off until the official release date was the hardest thing, especially since it had been all over the internet for at least a week by the time I was finally allowed to publish my review on October 2 – black foil packages or not. You can get it at Thomann*.
While I was busy reviewing the MPC Live III, my colleague Adam was working on what was arguably an even bigger story. For the past four years, Roland had secretly been putting together the drum machine to rule them all. When the first leaks made the rounds a few days before the official announcement, everyone rubbed their eyes in disbelief: an analog drum machine? From Roland? No way!
The rumors turned out to be true, and that alone marked a spectacular turnaround for the manufacturer. But the TR-1000 is so much more than that. In addition to carefully tuned analog sounds of the 808 and 909, it also features a massively souped-up ACB engine, FM, and even a complete SP-404-style performance sampler with all the bells and whistles. Yes, the TR-1000 is expensive, to put it mildly. But it wasn’t built to be a budget drum machine. It was built to be the benchmark against which all others will be measured for years to come. And it shows.
The Roland TR-1000 is available from Thomann*.
- Best Samplers, Grooveboxes and Drum Machines of 2025: Our Top 5
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- More from Roland
Highlights of the Year: ReCycle is Back – for FREE!
Most of the time, I could do without the feeling of getting old. But every once in a while, something comes along that sends me down memory lane and makes me feel honored to have been allowed to experience a certain moment in time. When news broke in early April that Reason Studios had brought back the legendary ReCycle sample slicing software and made it available for free, I was taken straight back to the late ‘90s. Instant download!
Just in case you’re young enough not to be familiar with ReCycle: Originally released over 30 years ago by Propellerhead (which is now Reason Studios), ReCycle was the first widely available tool that made short work of chopping up a loop into individual hits or slices. In the second half of the ‘90s, no producer could do without it. Simply load up a loop, adjust the threshold until the slices line up with the transients, click Export, and you’re presented with a folder of individual samples, along with a MIDI file for putting the loop back together in your MIDI sequencer.
At the time, this was nothing short of revolutionary. The music of the late 1990s and early 2000s surely would’ve sounded different without ReCycle. Every aspiring producer just had to get their hands on this tool, legally or by other means. Today, most samplers and DAWs have similar features built in, so ReCycle isn’t really needed anymore. But, as I was delighted to find out, it still works much better than most modern tools – and it’s now free! Still waiting for Cool Edit Pro to come back, though…
That’s it for my personal gear highlights of 2025! Take care, have a relaxing holiday season, and have a great start to the new year! We’re already looking forward to the highlights of 2026.
*This post contains affiliate links and/or widgets. When you buy a product via our affiliate partner, we receive a small commission that helps support what we do. Don’t worry, you pay the same price. Thanks for your support!
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