Keyboards

A new Prophet is always an exciting prospect, but the name certainly carries a weight of expectation. Can the latest model live up to its illustrious ancestry?

Fruit continues to fall from Yamaha's Motif tree and the latest and cheapest example is the MX range...

In the 20 years since its launch, the Bass Station has become something of a classic — and with analogue monosynths enjoying their biggest revival since the early '80s, what better time for a sequel?

Kurzweil's latest workstation introduces enhancements — but doesn't mess with that Kurzweil sound.

At first glance, the Max49 seems much like other controller keyboards, but it’s got a surprise up its sleeve...

Dave Smith’s latest synth crams four Mophos into one keyboard-shaped box. The result promises to be more than the sum of its parts.

Clavia’s updated Electro range prove that if you need top-quality staple keyboard sounds, playability and simplicity, Nords still lead.

For the best part of 20 years, musicians have been asking certain Japanese manufacturers for recreations of their classic synths, and finally one of them has been brave enough to do it. How does Korg’s reborn MS20 compare to its illustrious ancestor?

It’s named in honour of everyone’s favourite giant ape, but will Korg’s new keyboard scale the heights or be shot down in flames? Find out in our exclusive review...

Rhodes restoration specialists Vintage Vibe have turned their expertise to manufacturing. So how does their creation compare to the classics?

Miniature controller keyboards can be incredibly useful for making music on location. The new Korg MicroKey family of velocity...

The Graphite is Samson’s first foray into the world of keyboards — and it’s an impressive debut.

Novation go back to their portable synth roots with a compact gem that reworks the Ultranova synth engine and adds a few extras...

Studiologic’s new Waldorf-powered polysynth is here and it’s very yellow indeed. Put your sunglasses on and meet the Sledge...

The Nord C2D expands on the success of its predecessor with an improved Hammond emulation and the addition, for the first time, of real drawbars.

Roland’s Jupiter 80 has gained a little brother in the shape of the Jupiter 50. Does this slimmed-down synth offer the same Supernatural sound?

Years in the making, John Bowen’s Solaris is finally with us. So is this hugely ambitious synthesizer everything we hoped it would be?

The Minitaur may look like a simple beast, but there’s much more to Moog’s most affordable synth than meets the eye...

Arturia have broken away from their soft-synth roots with the MiniBrute, a 100 percent analogue monosynth. We put it to the test in our world-exclusive review.

An 88-note hammer-action stage piano as affordable as this seems far too good to be true. Is there a catch?

Self-contained keyboard synths have an immediacy that is seldom matched by synth modules or software instruments. There's a great variety of them available at the moment, but how do you know which one is right for you? Here’s a selection of the models we've looked at over the last couple of years, with links to the SOS reviews, to help you decide.