As you’ve probably noticed if you’re subscribed to our YouTube channel, I’m at Musikmesse 2016 in Frankfurt, Europe’s largest trade fair for all things music related.
Being that this is my first time at a music technology expo of this scale, I am quite fascinated by Musikmesse to say the least, as there is so much interesting gear on display here, available to check out, play around with and hear in action. The funny thing is, though, that most of the people whom I’ve met here (and who are regular visitors of Messe and NAMM) are telling me that the event is actually considerably smaller than it used to be, at least when it comes to the area that that is dedicated to synthesizers, music making software, home studio gear and DJ equipment.
But yeah, smaller than usual or not, I’m enjoying my time here and I’m doing my best to discover the most interesting bits of equipment and share them with you guys on our YouTube channel. Here’s a quick look at some of the stuff I’ve covered so far.
ROLI Seaboard RISE
ROLI showed us their excellent Seaboard RISE range of MIDI controllers. The controllers are bundled with the Equator virtual instrument which takes full advantage of the keyboard’s (or keywave-board’s, to be more precise) expressiveness and multi-axis controls.
Video: click here
Softube Modular
Softube has announced Modular, an exciting new virtual instrument plugin that is closely modeled after the Eurorack modulars. It will also be quite affordably priced (the basic version, at least) when it hits the Softube online store in May this year. Just as a real modular synthesizer, the plugin will be expandable with additional modules which will be released by Softube.
Video: click here
Nord Drum 3P
Nord has stepped up their percussion synth game with Nord Drum 3P, an excellent compact drum synthesizer that packs the synthesis engine and the six drum pads (with pedal input) into a single portable unit. It’s definitely something that live performers will appreciate, as the instrument sounds great and is very easy to setup and start playing.
Video: click here
Dasz Instruments Alex
After posting a rather intriguing teaser video just a couple of weeks before Messe, Dasz Instruments have unveiled the secret project that’s been in development for the past six years. It is an expandable hardware synthesizer called Alex, still a work in progress but looking very promising indeed. They gave us an in-depth overview of the product’s features (some of which are not yet implemented) which you can check out below if you’re interested.
Video: click here
More stuff coming soon, stay tuned! :)
4 Comments
MATTMATIX
onThe Dasz synthesizer looks sick.
baden
onthat seaboard is really cool!
Marcus Rasseli
onSeabord seems to be nice, I’d like to try one of those!
Frank Neumann
onAs for the Dasz Alex – not sure why they are excusing for the bad quality (flickering of the lights) due to camera settings, but I saw the device there as well, and the lights _were_ flickering. I hope they are still able to resolve that before going into production. I found it to be pretty disturbing.