This has been all over social media as of late, and I do generally enjoy the Kalimba format - I use mine quite a lot with my Boss RC-600 Loop Station - it’s a great instrument for looping and tweaking on-the-fly. And I had long considered the £275 Lottie Canto Colour Palette take on the Kalimba - which adds 8 effects to the core Kalimba - mine just has the output jack - which works very nicely with my wireless system. While Bastl Instruments’ take is a whole other category. Essentially the ...

I was somewhat wowed by Isnt’tses Mini Art Synths at the recent Birmingham Noise Maker Market Show. These are intricately designed open circuits - with topological details worked into the surface - in a mix of black, white and gold, and various strategically and topologically placed components - which often represent structures from that landscape.

For the Chernobylizer the art-side is a mix of realism and impressionism - where the 4 large capacitors represent the 4 Chernobyl Nuclear ...

At the recent inaugural Birmingham Noise Maker Market Show, one of the highlights for me was London-based Isn’tses - namely duo Lisa McKendrick and Tim Drage - who perform highly stylised experimental electronic music with colourful visuals and costumes to match - including Mexican Lucha Libre animal masks.

They make their own instruments too - including this superbly themed quartet / quadfecta of mini noise-maker Art-Synths featured here. Each of those has a highly evocative theme and a ...

While obviously a DSP / digital product - the Quimera (Chimera!) has very analog sensibilities in terms of how you build up those sounds - in the most elemental synthesis component fashion - Oscillators and LFO’s, Resonant Filters, Modifiers and FX. This is for proper synthesizer aficionados who want to bring minimal latency synthesis to their guitar, bass or vocals.

This is in the ballpark of the flagship Boss SY-1000 and Meris Enzo X Synthesizer pedals - which also have a component ...

There was a ripple of excitement when people first saw the somewhat oblique teasers for 2 ’new’ Chase Bliss pedals - turns out it’s just new colourways! Exciting still possibly for those who favour single tone pedalboards - but I already have these in their original editions. I don’t feel the need to have duplicates of these, and I actually prefer the original colourways. I run a large pedalboard of 52 pedals - which changes every week - it’s essential for me to be able to rapidly identify and ...

I have come across the Crossflow Modulating Stereo Tremolo & Expression Controller a few time now. Reinforced by my friend Henry Kaiser - who pointed out that this was a recent enhanced take on the Diffractor Soundings Arboretum Tremolo.

The Arboretum has 9 x Knobs, 3 x Toggle-switched, and 3 x Footswitches, compared to the Crossflow’s 7 x Knobs, 6 x multi-function push-buttons, and 3 x Footswitches also. The Crossflow has a little more to it, looks a little cleaner with its control ...

In the visual you can see the Three Versions of the Syntax Error. The Original compact came out during Summer NAMM back in 2017. I did a number of features that included that pedal - and it was a target for me for the longest time - but for whatever reason - I never quite managed to acquire one of those.

Then in 2021 we got the larger V2 edition with Screen - which I considered a little large for my need - for such a niche pedal.

And now in 2026 Alexander has finally delivered the perfect ...

This has turned out to be the largest category for 2025 with 38 pedals in this selection. As I favour those pedals that I own first, and then the more pedalboard-friendly editions - inevitably there would be some casualties for the year. With the most significant of those being the larger format Meris Enzo X, and the Polyend MESS Multi-Effect Step Sequencer. I know there are some who favour each of those - but they just aren’t targets for me personally.

 I always talk about having a lane - ...

I’m not sure most are aware, but I’m a huge fan of Jamaica derived Dub Music - Osbourne ’King Tubby’ Ruddock, Hopeton ’Scientist’ Brown, and of course Lee ’Scratch’ Perry, Neil ’Mad Professor’ Fraser, Adrian Sherwood and more. I own and favour dozens of Dub Recordings - classic and modern - and touching on all the different varieties of speaker shaking dub - proper Dub Sound System fare.

So this Riddim & Ting device is right up my street - what a superb idea, and as is usual for Teenage ...