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Erica Synths and Richie Hawtin’s educationally inspired synth isn’t just for kids.

Like the original, this Pico pedal identifies individual notes extremely well and it has plenty of attack range, from just softening the attack transient to a slow bowing type of fade‑in.

Orchestral Tools’ new strings library distils the sound world of a major European composer.

The latest version of Softube’s Console 1 gives you even more reasons to abandon the mouse.

If your vocals require sweetening, a little Nectar might be just the thing...

There are so many reverb plug‑ins for Mac and Windows DAW software now that, in order to stand out from the crowd, a new one needs to offer something a little out of the ordinary, and Minimal Audio’s Swarm Reverb does exactly this.

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ 5/5 Stars. MagicDrum 2 is a multi‑sampled steel tongue drum with on‑board sound‑shaping and processing that brings it into line with other recent Quiet Music offerings.

DJ.Studio is a one‑stop shop for creating professional playlists.

Although, at heart, this is ‘just’ a stereo reverb pedal, it’s capable of some very unusual sonic treatments...

A “phase and frequency modulation toolkit” is how Eric Schlappi describes the Three Body...

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ 4/5 Stars.  Firestarter provides a modestly-priced collection of trailer‑friendly sound effects all served up in a well‑organised set of categories and in a 48kHz/24‑bit WAV format.

Eventide’s celebrated reverb and pitch/modulation plug‑ins have been reinvented — with immersive audio applications in mind.

With a GUI that looks as though it was designed by an astrologer on magic mushrooms, Instant Audio’s QuickMuse is a five‑section multi‑effects plug‑in with a simple interface and some smart randomisation functions.

Polyend’s Play gets a major + upgrade.

Bitwig goes from strength to strength as v5.1 introduces a host of new features.

JZ’s first small‑diaphragm mics combine a distinctive appearance with excellent technical specs and an appealing sound.

Recirculate is a feedback delay/echo that can process the feedback signals in various ways to make the repeats change character, with the change becoming more pronounced each time the signal passes around the feedback loop.

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ 5/5 Stars. If you are a media composer working within the broad field of modern drama, action, horror or sci‑fi, Infinity Vol 1 offers a palette of sounds that might well appeal.

Realphones’ sophisticated headphone tuning is now paired with an ever‑growing array of virtual monitoring environments.

The latest addition to the 200‑series is the RV‑200 Reverb, which offers 12 different reverb types, including a new algorithm called 'Arpverb'.