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Best New Synthesizers of 2025
New & Classic Approaches from Clank, Moog, UDO, & More
Synthesizers! As 2025 has proven, they come in all shapes and sizes—from unusual devices with futuristic user interfaces to good, old-fashioned analog synthesizers modeled on the workflows of classic instruments. This year, we saw new releases from some of our favorite makers; UDO introduced a new approach to multi-timbral synthesizer design, Moog produced an all-new monosynth, and Clank presented a new take on what a synthesizer can look like and how it can be played.
The Perfect Circuit / Signal staff recently sat down to pick out some of our personal favorite instruments from 2025; here's where we landed.
Clank Uranograph
Clank's first foray into desktop synthesizers finally touched down in the hands of a few users in 2025, delivering a uniquely capable interface for electronic expression wrapped in Clank's idiosyncratic design language. Uranograph's name sounds like it's from outer space, and delving into its far-out sound design and performance potential, there may be something to that. While under the hood Uranograph collects a variety of expressive tools and synthesis techniques that flourish in congress with one another, it's hard not to focus on the iconoclastic interface by which the user accesses these novel sound generators and manipulators.
Capacitive touch plate keyboards are set into either side of Uranograph's bold contours, offering note control on one end and articulation on the other. This alone, like many elements of this unique instrument, insists Uranograph is meant to be made sense of by the user, eschewing the hard-worn muscular gestalts of typical interfaces for a landscape of musical action begging to be discovered. Each note key can be individually retuned, enabling microtonal experimentation and development, with over fifty premade microtonal layouts to explore instantly. Articulation controls allow for nuanced, real-time adjustment of amplitude envelope shapes and timbre, finding resonance in acoustic instrument interfaces that pull magic from every touch, and coming alive in rich detail in the hands of a practiced performer. In Uranograph, you aren't told how to play, but rather encouraged to define a path in close concert with your own musical moves and modalities.
Uranograph's sound engine combines numerous time-tested techniques of experimental electronic music. Starting with a versatile additive engine which expands a core sine wave oscillator via FM, AM, and wavefolding, you also get phase distortion control and spectral expansion to inflect both warm analog and decidedly digital tones alike. A unique harmonizer called the Alias effect splits this core monophonic tone into three tunable copies, enabling harmonic enhancement, chords, and thick detuned unisons. Additionally, a sub-oscillator and dedicated modulation oscillator are onboard for going deeper in both frequency and timbral manipulation. Adding to its west coast synthesis sensibilities, the integrated VCA and low pass gate provides an organic tone to each utterance, and can be pushed into self-oscillation at high settings.
Expand your sound even further with Uranograph's suite of DSP effects. Stereo delay offers anything from Karplus-esque resonance to time-locked rhythmicity. A single-knob reverb effect smears your sound into stereo space, adding rich nuance and spatialization to every phrase. Perhaps most central to Uranograph's capabilities are the onboard looping possibilities, letting you layer sounds into experimental collages of textural and melodic masses. While you may find Uranograph is plenty potent on its own, the premium XLR external input enables integration with other devices through the effects and looper, opening a door to endless ensemble explorations.
We are on the edge of our seats to see what the new year brings for Uranograph as more units reach the hands of inspired and daring musicians, but it seems clear that Clank's unique vision for their first standalone instrument will continue to make waves in the particulate washes of synthesizer space dust for years to come.
Groove Synthesis 3rd Wave 8M
The 3rd Wave 8M from Groove Synthesis brings the lush, advanced wavetable engine of the 3rd Wave series into the compact, accessible format yet. It's a streamlined desktop presentation of the incredible 3rd Wave architecture—making it easily one of the most flexible and expansive wavetable synthesizers on the market today.
With eight voices and two multitimbral parts, 3rd Wave 8M is a powerful platform for both sound design and performance, offering the flexibility of a full studio rig in a single, streamlined package. At its core, the 8M blends digital wavetable synthesis with analog-style filters, taking cues from classic PPG Wave designs while expanding the engine for modern workflows. Each voice starts with three high-resolution oscillators, supporting wavetables, analog-style waveforms, FM, and sampling, making it easy to craft anything from classic tones to entirely new textures. Sculpt your sound further with the Dave Rossum-designed 2140 low-pass filter or a SEM-style state-variable filter—or chain them together for complex timbral control.
Movement and modulation are simple to implement with four LFOs, four envelopes, an arpeggiator, onboard sequencer, and a 16-slot modulation matrix. Finish your patches with up to two digital effects per part, modeled on classic hardware—including saturation, modulation, delays, reverbs, and more.
Connectivity is generous and versatile, with MIDI via USB and 5-pin, dual stereo outputs, audio and pedal inputs, and multitimbral routing for complex arrangements, making the 8M easy to slot into any studio or live setup. For sound designers, performers, or anyone looking to explore rich wavetable synthesis without compromise, the 3rd Wave 8M delivers immense sonic potential in a compact, modern package.
GS Music Bree6
There's something special about the Bree6 from GS Music. It's hard to fully quantify: the oscillators sound great, the filter is exceptional, and the addition of a chorus and delay is thoughtful. In many ways, it is the perfect workhorse synth—letting you dial in classic synth sounds when you want it, but with enough internal modulation points to let you get weird when desired. Its form is also compact and discrete, letting you tuck it in on your desk under a hutch or easily transport it from gig to gig. The interface is clear, and there are no menus to even consider, let alone dive through.
As the name portends, the Bree6 is a 6-voice polyphonic analog synthesizer that uses a single VCO for each voice, with a sub. You can select sawtooth, square, or both with a pulsewidth modifier for the square wave. The secret sauce of this synth is the Poly Stereo voice mode that will pan each allocated voice differently. This makes the pads lush, the sequences effervescent, and interjects a sense of spontaneity to any lead line. This signal gets effortlessly shaped through a 24db, 4-pole low pass ladder filter for a classic subtractive sound, complete with modulation controls for keyboard tracking, LFO, and envelope 1.
The Bree6 does not include a complete modulation matrix or have assignable destinations—this would go against its knob-per-function ethos—but nonetheless, there are plenty of creative modulation options. You get a single LFO that is assignable to the cutoff, to add vibrato to the VCO section, or to add a tremolo effect to the VCA section. Of course, these can all be adjusted with the dedicated control knob—and the LFO can be pushed pretty far, well into audio rate territory. The amount of LFO influence can be controlled via aftertouch or mod wheel, as well as the physical control knobs. Two envelope generators are available with preassigned destinations: filter cutoff and VCA. To round out the signal path, a stereo chorus and delay are available to be dialed in at your leisure.
With the above features, you already have a very capable synth…but GS Music has also added MPE compatibility with controls for the pressure and Y-axis. Indeed, this compact little desktop unit is, well, an absolute unit when it comes to sound, creativity, and versatility. Its price point is also something that isn't nothing, but also is hardly the most expensive. Bree6 is perfect for anyone who needs an analog polysynth, but doesn't need—or have space for—a full keyboard.
Moog Messenger
When you get right down to it, the release of a new Moog monosynth is kind of a huge deal. While Moog hasn't been afraid to embrace polyphony in modern instruments like the One, Matriarch, and, most recently, Muse, it's really the humble monophonic synthesizer that embodies the Moog sound for so many. Messenger continues to carry the torch for Moog monosynths in stride, while packing in some new surprises that help it hold its own in an increasingly crowded synthesizer market.
Messenger offers two flexible analog oscillators, along with a delightfully shapable sub oscillator and an obligatory noise source—all of which are handily provided with level controls on the front panel. And now for the first big surprise: not only are the oscillators capable of variable waveshapes from the classic array of subtractive synthesis toolset, but this also includes a special wavefolder hitherto unseen on a Moog instrument outside of the compact semi-modular Mavis. There's also an option to sync oscillator one to two and selectable oscillator FM or filter envelope control of various parameters.
What's a Moog synthesizer without a delicious filter? Of course, Moog's signature 4-pole lowpass ladder filter returns to Messenger in all its glory, joined by new options for 2-pole lowpass, bandpass, and highpass filters. Beyond these different filter types, you can coax some more sounds out of Messenger with the internal feedback connection (based on a classic trick from the Minimoog Model D, provided you aren't using the external audio input) and optional cutoff modulation from Oscillator 2. And for the bass fanatics, a Resonance compensation switch reduces the low-end cut of the classic resonant ladder filter sound.
With loopable envelopes, LFOs, and parameter recording capabilities, Messenger boasts several ways to enliven your patches with movement. Of particular note is the Sequencer/Arpeggiator, which features optional probabilistic interaction with defined Note and Gate Pools to inject melodic and rhythmic variation into patterns. Messenger thus offers abundant ways to manipulate and transform what you're playing, whether in real time or fed in via MIDI.
If you're finding yourself incredibly receptive to Moog's latest monophonic message, you can read up more on Messenger in our dedicated overview article.
UDO DMNO
UDO’s DMNO is an eight-voice synthesizer built for flexibility, depth, and sonic adventure. Like UDO's previous instruments, it takes clear inspiration from the synthesizers of yore—this time turning somewhat away from explicit references to iconic Roland and Yamaha designs, and toward Oberheim. Indeed, the DMNO quite resembles early Oberheim polyphonic instruments, especially the infamous Two Voice system. Like the Two Voice, DMNO provides hands-on controls for all aspects of two otherwise independent synthesis engines; but where each of the voice modules in the Two Voice was monophonic, DMNO's timbres each offer four voices of polyphony.
So, at its core, DMNO is essentially two synthesizers in one, using a dual four-voice architecture that lets you play one engine, both, split across the keyboard, or experiment with unusual voice addressing techniques. Indeed, one of DMNO's most unique offerings is less about its synthesis features, and more about the creative potential of its voice allocation system. Rather than using run-of-the-mill round-robin voice addressing all the time, it allows you to send successive notes between the two timbres in a variety of fashions, including so-called One-Two, Random, and Chaos modes. So, you can ping-pong between two timbres, dynamically switching sounds in a predictable or unpredictable fashion. Worth noting: you can also combine the two timbres into a single complex oscillator in Series mode(!!).
It undoubtedly evokes a distinct vintage vibe—that's a real vacuum fluorescent display, after all—but under the hood, DMNO is pure cutting-edge tech designed to hold its own well into 2025 and beyond. As in prior UDO devices, it employs FPGA-based oscillators that run digitally at an extremely high sample rate, eliminating aliasing even under extreme modulation. And, as in other UDO instruments, it allows for rich, immersive binaural textures with subtle or dramatic differences between left and right channels. The oscillators feed into analog Dynamic Multi-Core Stereo filters—a new offering in DMNO—which can be routed in stereo, parallel, or series, offering a wide palette of sonic shapes. Internal modulation sources like LFOs and envelopes add further modulation possibilities, keeping the instrument expressive and responsive.
DMNO also includes a digital effects section, with syncable delay, lush reverb, chorus, EQ, and distortion for shaping and thickening sounds. Connectivity is equally flexible, with stereo audio I/O, USB, and two assignable 3.5mm outputs, making it easy to integrate with modular rigs or external gear.
Where UDO's previous instruments are known for their clean, classic tones, DMNO is designed to get a bit wilder: and we're beyond thrilled to see a somewhat more experimental addition to their already incredible lineup of instruments. Whether you’re a performing keyboardist or an adventurous sound designer, UDO’s DMNO offers a remarkable combination of precision, power, and flexibility, making it a synthesizer ready to inspire both live and studio workflows.
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