Gear In Progress - What's Next?

The Lounge Other Gear
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This is for posting about any gear, that’s new or freshly announced or otherwise exists, that hasn’t quite crossed the line to actually be available for purchase.

There is a ton of this kind of thing, and i find myself trying to find places to put it, so this thread is somewhat a catch-all for that specific thing. And hopefully it’s fun to read as well.

This is also a way to gauge how much interest a product may have. If something pulls down a lot of posts here, it Iikely will support it’s own thread.

This is not intended for Behringer GIP which has it’s own GIP thread – posting those here would be fine by me, but i understand why others just don’t wanna know, so please post Behringer GIP there.

I’ve stretched the line once too often ( as you’ll see in the next post ) so this will give me one more way to stay closer to topic elsewhere.

ADDED NOTE : Posting about gear in progress that already has a thread, for the purpose of listing it here, is beyond permisable, it is encouraged – just try to cross reference the thread.

It is also fine to post about stuff, that while not absolutely confirmed to be gear in progress, has some strong evidence to suggest that it is. ( Like a copyrighted name, or a suggestive comment from a company, or a suspicious discussion at a show, etc. )

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PWM had announced last year that it has four new synths in development, to add to its two existing products, the Malevolent and the Mantis.

At Superbooth 2025 Paul Whitington showed off ( aurally, as you can’t see it yet ) their purely digital multitimbral synth. Code name for now is the M30 – looks like they intend to extend the ‘M’ names.

While the physical setup of this synth hasn’t been defined, it will be massively multi-timbral, with a combination of wavetables and samples, along with separate filters and effects. It also will include a pattern-based sequencer and have groovebox features. Projected to arrive sometime in 2026.

Watch this video from Superbooth 2025 where Paul explains this to Nick, and also mentions their other GIP.

This sounds like it will be killer, if PWM csn pull this off.

Paul mentions two other developers working for them, does anyone else know of these developers ?

I posted about this in the Mantis thread where it floats there in a nebulous semi off-topic cloud. Well no more.

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Analogue Solutions has a new vocoder just announced that is just the sort of thing you would expect from them.

The AS Vocoder is entirely analog with 12 bands, and plenty of controls as you csn see. It comes in two versions, one that can be added to **Colossus, and an all metal case stand-alone version for the rest of us. As you know vocoders have all sorts of uses way beyond the robot voice thing.

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VoicAs announces the Deskpressor Stereo Compressor at Superbooth 25. It looks great!

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Is this like the pre-order and hype megathread over on Lines? Great idea!

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I was thinking more like a thread for other prolific producers like PWM who deserve attention as much or more than that other GIP thread.

Plus this is motivated by my own off-topic posting, which now is on-topic here.

By the way – if GAS is a thing for you ( anyone ), you might consider simply muting this thread. Look but don’t touch can also work too.

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Is this the synth equivalent of football fans down the pub speculating on who will be in the team next year?

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where I’m from, gip means to vomit.

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Dangerous thread, this is - it’s tiltle could be extended to

“Gear in Progress - or antidote for people without GAS”
:wink:

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Continuo arpeggiator by muSonics

MIDI based. It supports polyphony. Can also be used as a basic sequencer. Is a USB host. Has a transpose mode too.

Still in a beta form, but you can buy it this way, as muSonics finishes the final version. ( I’d wait. ) The final version will be more compact and will be stand alone. Hopefully they keep those style of buttons and switches.

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This is really cool. What we see here is a prototype of the Bela Trails scheduled to hit the market in October of this year. Lots of nice features here in the CV controller world. A really creative way to create sequences and modify them on the fly.

They have a one dimension device called Gliss, but this really expands your options way beyond that. Nice use of colors. This sort of interface may be a bit familiar to those who have used a Korg device with a 2D pad.

I don’t think they’re done creating on the interface and functions. Lots of CV outs with this. The price seems good to me. I’ve started thinking of mini polyphonic Eurorack setups with this at the center.

Even just watching the color swirl you create looks fun.

ADDED : Will be at Machina Bristronica at the end of September.

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Controller by Dog Paw.
Saw it in a microtonal thread on Reddit.

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Just posted this; it’s not due until September.

Seems pretty awesome, if you’re into this.

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They’re busy working on the LEVIASYNTH ! :wink:

( thread )

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MAT 16X8 portable 16-in/8-out audio interface
It looks like it’s finally nearing completion.

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It is awesome - the module seems to be more or less the same as my stand-alone instrument. I love it for years now :smiley:

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Adding to this – the ELFO from Enjoy Electronics.

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Very different premise compared to Bela Trails, but really works in the same sort of space, bringing organized chaos to a multi headed CV control environment.

ELFO from Enjoy Electronics

Seems that people looking for wide polyphonic control with CV, can have their pick between these two – or perhaps even combine them for a more than the sum of the parts arrangement.

Full color touch screen, with ways to modulate the LFO output waveforms.

Both of these are four channel CV, and can be mounted in Eurorack, or done standalone. Running the more explicit input from Trails through the “Magic Crystal” function of ELFO might be interesting.

Tchu has the only post on ELFO so far, on the forum – from Superbooth. ( An awful lot of stuff from SB25, went right on by this year, without notice in this forum. ) Tchu posted the SonicState video, here’s another video from Les Sondiers in a mixture of languages :

Both of these should be available sometime this fall. Much more interesting detail to come out on both modules – so stay tuned.

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Another “one man, poly synth”! copied from adamstan@GS

JX-2044

It’s an 8 voice bi-timbral analog synth that combines DCO section inspired by JX-8P with 2044 filter.

Modulation routings are arranged in a way similar to JX-8P meaning that modulation amounts are adjusted independently at destinations and that’s also where you select source for each destination.

The synth is still in prototype stage (currently I’m at third boards revision). I’m planning to make it rackable desktop module - in a form factor similar to bigger Behringer desktops. It will be 5U when racked.

Here’s the demo I recorded today - it’s just browsing through the presets I’ve made so far:

Some basic specs:
  • 2 DCOs per voice based on JX-8P, but with addition of PWM.
    DCO A features sawtooth, pulse and noise, while DCO B has triangle on the last switch instead. Waveforms can be switched independently and mixed.
  • Cross Mod (AM) - the same circuit as in JX-8P
  • 3 ADSR envelopes per voice, with shape switchable between exponential and linear, RTZ switch and adjustable keytracking (with note number affecting envelope speed relatively to C4 (60).
  • 3 LFOs per voice with seven waveforms - triangle, sine, square, rising ramp, falling ramp, random and noise. LFOs can be switched to mono mode, or work polyphonically with adjustable keyboard tracking, which is very useful e.g. for PWM patches
  • 4 pole resonant low pass filter built around CoolAudio’s V2044 chip. Filter can self-oscillate and also has adjustable keyboard tracking.
  • Filter FM using DCO B as a source.
  • 1-pole master HPF per part similar to the one in JX-3P

Initially I tried to use BBD-based chorus, using MN3207 chips, but it was too noisy even for me, so I decided to switch to digital FX.
Each layer has its own FX processor with following blocks:

  • Resonant filterbank with two modes:
    • VP-330 “Human Voice” section emulation (with two presets)
    • Polymoog resonator emulation
  • Stereo Chorus with three presets - “JX Slow” and “JX Fast” corresponding with “I” and “II” settings from JX-8P, and the third mode is “Stringmachine”, which uses three delay lines modulated with dual phase-shifted LFOs.
  • 4 stage phaser
  • Delay / Reverb - switchable between the two. Delay has its own modulation LFO with adjustable rate and amount. Reverb output also can be pitch-modulated.
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This happened to hit my youtubes and I was so inspired I came here to post about it as well! Really digging the JX-like topology. And a desktop module planned from day 0? Sign me up!! Hope it makes it to market.

And there’s a new video up showing off aftertouch. I’m hoping they continue with the frequent youtube updates. I love seeing how sausage gets made.

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He’s posting quite a lot on here ( see below ) - hopefully posting to gearspace is ok

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Athena is going to release a narrow key digital piano this fall. The Athena NK5.5-301.

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This is also sometimes called reduced size. This is different from “mini keys”. This graded hammer keyboard has regular length keys, with the standard amount of motion, but the width has been reduced from the standard keyboard 6.5 inches per octave to 5.5 inches in this case. This is also sometimes called 7/8, in that there are 8 white keys in the space of 7 on a standard size.

This 88 key keyboard has up to 256 note polyphony, and many voices other than piano ( 750 plus user voices ). It has MIDI in and out, both USB and standard, and many other features.

I dug a bit and discovered that Athena is OEMing this keyboard, from Medeli, who is doing the engineering to create a new keybed that is being put into a SP-A500. This is a good way to bring this sort of product to market, as the engineering, mold making, QA, and manufacture, is a very large upfront expense.

As an aside, to viscerally understand what it means to have a keyboard that fits ones hands that allows people who have passionately pursued piano, but have been limited from playing at top levels because of the ergonomics – give this video a view.

Speculation : Perhaps if Athena is a success with this, it will also allow them to fund an affordable, acoustic piano. To now the reduced size keyboards are adaptation of keyboards ( from Steinbuhler and others ) put inside standard grands and some upright. That is fine as far as it goes, but is an expensive, customized approach.

Definitely something to consider for anyone with smaller hands – but it doesn’t need be limited to that, as these keys won’t be too small for those with regular hands, and may improve the mechanics after some practice.

For whatever reason this product has not really gathered much attention at all in the trade press.

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