Native Instruments Maschine +

Ironically, given the fact that we’ve all been spending a lot of time at home of late, 2020 has been a great year for machines that let you make music away from the studio. This is a very close category this year – you could easily make a case for the slick MPC Live 2 or Polyend’s unique and playfully retro Tracker being the winner. For us, though Native Instruments’ new flagship Maschine takes the top spot.

While it’s not perfect – at the time of writing, occasional bugs remain, and we’d love to see a few more of NI’s plugins make the jump to standalone mode – as an overall concept Maschine works beautifully in its new self-contained format. NI have been refining and expanding the Maschine workflow over the decade since version 1 first launched, and Maschine+ feels like the culmination of that journey. Any negative is offset by the sheer fun of jamming out loops and sequences free of your studio computer.

BEST FOR… STANDALONE SOFTSYNTHS

Massive, Monark and FM8 aren’t exactly the newest synths in the world, but having them in a self-contained hardware package away from your laptop screen is great fun. Load up your favourite presets via Maschine+’s SD card and take those classic sounds on tour.