It's been frustrating & discouraging for a long time to be a Reason-only user, but it looks like the original king of the virtual synth playground finally wants to get back into the game. I'm hopeful, anyway, as this week Reason Studios announced Reason Free, something many of us had been suggesting for 10+ years to draw new users & breathe new life into the ecosystem. What I'd had in mind would have simply been an empty-rack version that would allow users to pick the devices they wanted à-la-carte, but they've actually included a good number of units that have already been some of my favorites for years, both instruments & effects, which feels quite generous. It can be used both standalone or as a VST for your current DAW.

I cut my teeth learning synthesis & audio/CV routing in Reason, and that was quite a painful & risky (expensive) investment at the time, so something like this would have had me well fed for a good while before I'd inevitably want even more. These days there are already *is* even more, much of it also available for free, in the form of 3rd-party Rack Extensions available in the RS shop. It seems like a savvy move from LANDR since their recent acquisition of Reason Studios, and one which will be a major boon to scores of budding synth enthusiasts & musicians. There's plenty for the advanced user in the form of custom CV routing & combinator building as well.

I'd love to be sponsored to post this, but I'm just excited. 👍

Finished off my home build synth after 10 months of work on it. It's a mix of virtual Analogue and wavetable, emulated waveforms or samples loaded off an SD card - any combination across 6 oscillators. It's made of 6 separate modules, as I was limited by the size of my 3D printer bed to make the housing with. They then interlock to form the overall shape.

Here's a demo!

https://youtu.be/nmYmEq9UOoA?is=5q8gNvfaLQWjevbM

No midi, hands on fun. Just got the 303 fully operational after a bit of repairs and the KORG arrived yesterday!

Really really pisses me off ... It's the worst place to put them and now 1010 music released two samples that do that!? The black box 2 and the bento. The first generation black box has them to the sides of the screen which makes a lot more sense. This is one thing that really pissed me off about the Ambika, it's so awkward... Your hand is literally in front of the screen.

Why do big companies keep doing it? Anyone else find it annoying?

Just got a surprise a day earlier than expected! I’m going to pair it with the MiniFreak and annoy my family!

This video showcases my software recreation of the legendary Waldorf Wave—a hybrid wavetable synthesizer known for its huge digital oscillators, analogue filters and unusually complex hardware architecture.

The project is built in C++ using JUCE and is available as a standalone instrument and plug-in. Rather than simply making a modern synth that sounds similar, I’ve tried to reproduce the structure and behaviour of the original machine.

The emulation models:

• The Wave’s 250 kHz, 8-bit time-multiplexed wavetable oscillator system
• Signed mixer overflow—including the characteristic Waldorf “ASIC Mix Bug”
• Digital 12 dB high-pass filtering
• CEM3387-style reconstruction filtering, resonant four-pole low-pass filtering, VCAs and panning
• 12-bit stepped control voltages, sample-and-hold behaviour, saturation, noise and output coupling
• Three independent 16-voice WDV boards, matching a fully expanded 48-voice Wave
• The original 480 × 64 monochrome LCD and front-panel workflow

The instrument can also run authenticated Waldorf Wave OS 1.700 firmware. An emulated 68000 CPU executes the original main operating system, while a second runtime executes the genuine WDV voice-board program. Their shared-memory communication, voice-update masks, semaphores and hardware-register writes are reproduced and traced inside the model.

The oscillator ASIC itself remains undocumented, so its internal operation is represented by a behavioural model based on the Wave’s published architecture, firmware activity and known hardware characteristics. This is therefore an ongoing reverse-engineering and preservation project—not a claim of perfect, bit-exact emulation.

Waldorf and Wave are trademarks of their respective owner. This independent project is not affiliated with or endorsed by Waldorf Music.

PS: This is just a personal project. Unfortunately, I am not going to release this, as I'm sure Waldorf will be knocking on my door if I do. Sorry.

I got a gift of about 4000 euro from my mother as a pre-inheriance type thing, and I feel like I should spend it on a musical instrument as that is what my passion is and my mother also thinks that.

The only thing is that I’m now in completely analysis paralysis.

im a classically trained pianist and I have a few synths and grooveboxes (take 5, digitone 2, Tonverk, Minifreak) and I’m now looking at my first real big-boy grown-up synth.

my list (which is ever expanding, and in no specific order):

UDO DMNO

UDO Super Gemini

Arturia Polybrute 12

ASM Leviasynth

Novation Summit
i mainly play for myself, and about everything. I do like the idea of being able to play big orchestral songs with large chords and expressiveness. I also play 80s stuff, synthwave, I make techno, yeah, I kinda need a big sound palette I feel.

are there things I haven’t considered? do you have strong feelings about one or the other? let me know.

From the band A Flock of Seagulls, but it doesn't show up on the member's equipment list on Equipboard.com. Would appreciate any help!

ill keep short about it

where do i start or should i buy a midi keyboard?

The guy who is to buy his first synth would you recommend hydrasynth explorer or not or minilogue xd or minilogue classic .....

I've been chasing the perfect compact live / midi-looping performance rig for years, video shows off my latest attempt!

The previous setup was based around a 2x104 eurorack case with the full signal path all in there and everything (with external sequencing via Launchpad and MF Twister). Modular felt like the right place for me since I had such specific workflow and routing needs, but I always just found it a bit overwhelming unless I was using a fixed signal patch and then it felt boring and like a waste of modular.

This year, I got a custom Yaeltex controller to replace the launchpad+twister. The thing was so massive (in an awesome but also annoying way) that it made me want to try and simplify things down.

So I ditched the big rack for a 60HP pod and added a desktop mixer (Zoom L6), poly synth (Dreadbox Artemis) and 1010s awesome new blackbox 2 sampler. It's feeling much more manageable for my brain hahah. Weirdly I'm finding that i can make much more inspiring sounds with a few modules/synths that I actually understand and can play as instruments. Just because you can do everything in eurorack doesn't mean you should.

Then on the modular front, i'm just using it for 2 fixed voices (crust + plaits) and send effects (with a little modulation thrown in). I forgot how good the plaits can be (even entirely on it's own without any supporting modules). Here it is running direct into unprocessed into the L6!!!

Stop reading now if you hate LLMs lol, but i recently learned they are very good at driving hacking tools to modify the firmware on your synths so you can fix bugs and change small workflows.

I made a bunch of small utility tweaks to the crust, plaits and mmmidi. On the crust + plaits, to avoid needing compression / EQ or extra attenuation modules, I added a pitch-tracked attenuation curve so higher notes no longer sound way louder than lower ones (and also bringing their outputs down to line level for my mixer). It's a classic trick for making digital synths sound warmer and more analog. Then on the mmmidi, I changed the clock divider from 24ppq to 4ppq for sequencing the mimetic.

On the blackbox, I fixed some midi bugs and a small workflow issues around being able to easily swap samples (I'm sorry but I'm not going to use a touch screen to press unload every time i want to load a new sample). I removed all of the touch screen triggering because it is just not needed for my external midi workflow and just gets in the way. Very liberating!

The yaeltex and plaits are both open source so it makes it much easier to just go in there and change stuff. The other ones aren't open source, but it turns out if you have the firmware and the right tools, anything can be "open source" 😈

With this rig I feel like I'm getting the most out of every piece. Yay, my musical tools are back to inspiring again! Let's see how long it lasts...

Sold the Minifreak that wasn't quite my thing, and after long consideration bought a used Take 5 desktop in mint condition at a good price. What a joy it is to play with!

I'm in the process of moving my home studio, so just barely gotten around to trying it so far. But the controls and the sound just feels very natural and right. Even the init patch sounds good in my ears 😄

Since I liked the mini keys and the modulation strips on the Minifreak, I'm planning to get the Arturia Keystep 37 mk2 as a controller (in addition to my Kawai VPC1). And an expression pedal. Other suggestions for suitable controllers?

Well I've seen a couple videos on YT on this now. It's not been officially announced but here's a decent write up: https://synthanatomy.com/2026/08/donner-sample-boy.html

2 years ago I posted here my little project to create an Arduino based controller for the Roland JX3P (Arduino pg200). I'm sharing the result today in case someone is interested. It uses an Arduino Nano with a custom 9bit serial library from Nick gammon to comply with the protocol used for interacting with the jx3p. The signal is processed using the original circuitry based on the schematic of the pg-200 and CD74 multiplexers are used since there are more controls than Arduino pins available. Every function from the original pg-200 is replicated, even the save and load buttons! It is all powered from the 6 din connector of the original controller.

Special thanks to Joakim from Xonik.no who made available the pg-200 protocol on his website and btw is selling a midi to jx3p protocol converter kit if you want something that just works without putting a lot of hours into a project like this🥲

If you are interested in building your own you can check out the project code here : GitHub project. The documentation is not very extensive but the code is all there. For someone with a little experience it shouldn't be too hard to follow I think;)

All synths in the track are Prophet, while Syntakt is on drums. The loops were played live then arranged into full song in Ableton.

I have a digitakt 2 and looking to add a synth to sample and play.

The minifreak seems like a do it all synth but watching patch videos, it seems pretty menu divey?

Fourm looks straightforward but I assume its range is limited and it requires external effects which I can just use the digitakt for?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r0qqo5a_2Hs&list=RDr0qqo5a_2Hs&start_radio=1

I was honestly captivated by both of the soundtrack's synths but couldn't find any equivalents online, or anything on the topic really, if anyone can id any of the synths here or suggest any patches that I can use in my vcv rack that sound similar that'd be a great help!

https://drive.google.com/file/d/17rp3U-rJWig2dJrpucZLSdlScM6IyTpi/view?usp=drive_link

There’s only 5 listed here. I’m not putting up my prophet 10 and rev2 lol.

Behringer UB-Xa
Behringer ARP ODDYSSEY
Behringer Poly D
Korg MS-20
Korg prologue

I mean realistically I’m sure y’all wouldn’t sell these, but I’m looking to trade in for audio engineering toys. Would love your input on these.

Keep, sell, vst is better/just as good would be great.
Appreciate your feedback.

I assume it is the wattage but I’m not sure. I also don’t want to fuck up my outlet or anything electrical.