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At Superbooth 2025, being held May 8-10 at the FEZ-Berlin, Arturia and Native Instruments are introducing NKS integration for KeyLab MK3, KeyLab Essential MK3, and MiniLab controllers.

The collaboration builds on NKS Hardware Partner Program, announced at the 2025 NAMM Show. That means owners will soon be able to audition and select sounds from Native Instruments plugins and those from fellow partners such as Best Service, Big Fish Audio, Ohm, Spitfire Audio, Sugar Bytes and more – all directly from their Arturia keyboard. This enables third-parties to create NKS devices that give you more immediate and tactile control over your virtual instruments and effects, without the need for you to manually configure how your hardware maps to your software.

“This collaboration gives producers, performers, and composers a streamlined creative workflow – where software and hardware speak the same language, right out of the box,” said a statement from Arturia.

“Arturia is committed to designing universal MIDI controllers, built to inspire creativity without limits.” says Martin Dutasta, Product director at Arturia. “We’re thrilled to partner with Native Instruments on NKS integration. This initiative brings greater connectivity and a more fluid workflow, benefiting creators who rely on both ecosystems.”

“This reinforces our commitment to an open and connected music industry,” adds Simon Cross, Chief Product Officer at Native Instruments. “We’re giving musicians the freedom to explore sound without workflow limitations.”

This will be a free update for anyone using the KeyLab mk3, KeyLab Essential mk3 and MiniLab 3.

NKS lets musicians use compatible hardware devices to intuitively access and control over 2,000 NKS-compatible instruments and effects. You can learn more about NKS at the Native site.

If you are attending Superbooth, you can see this in action at the Arturia and Native Instruments booths.

Komplete 15 Select Added To Arturia Lab Controller Bundle

To celebrate the launch, newly registered owners of supported Arturia controllers will receive Komplete 15 Select (valued at $99/€99) free. The offer is valid for new activations only.

KORG berlin is previewing the final design of the phase8 at Superbooth 2025, being held May 8-10 at the FEZ-Berlin.

phase8 is an eight-voice electro-acoustic instrument, with envelope control, sequencing, waveshaping and audio modulation. It synthesizes sound using eight independent electro-mechanical voices, where the sound is generated using electronically controlled metal resonators.

The company previewed the instrument at Superbooth 2024. Now, they’re showing the phase8 synthesizer in its final form.

Here’s what Korg shared about the new phase8:

“Ever since the beginning of KORG berlin we’ve been experimenting with ways of making sound by hitting objects. Hitting things to make sound is such a primitive act and when done right, it can be the most expressive form of performance. Look at all the amazing musical instruments across millennia that have perfected this art.

We dreamed of making such an instrument, but in the familiar format of a synthesizer and we’ve cracked it. The result is an instrument that feels, acts and sounds alive, as well as being a box full of fun knobs to twiddle.

The demo units shown at Superbooth this year are made using tooling samples. If you’re not familiar with tooling, it’s basically the molds that you need to manufacture the product many times repeatedly—think cookie cutters for making many cookies. Tooling is a big step towards gearing up to production, but there’s a whole bunch of other stuff like software, electronics, procurement, production engineering, quality assurance, certification etc. etc. before we can start series production reliably.”

Korg expects for the phase8 to be available starting in Q1 of 2026, priced under € 1000.

Ahead of Superbooth 2025, being held May 8-10 at the FEZ-Berlin, Polish electronic music gear maker Polyend has introduced MESS, a multi-effect step sequencer.

Polyend says that MESS is designed to change how you think about effects.

MESS is a “texture box”, with all effects stack-able, in any combination, giving you a deep set of sound design options, including overdrive, filters, big crushing, fuzz, pitch-shifting, reverbs, tape style effects, granular effects and more.

The built-in sequencer expands your options, letting you create rhythmic patterns that transform your sounds. Dynamic effects can evolve over time, to add more life and interest than is possible with static effects. With built-in chance and probability controls, MESS can generate randomized glitches, stutters, repeats and more.

Features:

• With over 200 ready-to-play presets MESS provides instant creativity, and 1000 preset slots to store your own products.
• An intuitive knob-per-function interface and clear visual feedback make creating custom effects chains easy. You can quickly build sequences on the 16 step-grid pad, focusing only on the most important parameters.
• 4 Effect Tracks – Combine four effects for every preset to create your own unique multi-effect. No limits are placed on what effect each track contains.
• 125 Stereo Effects – With over 120 effects to assign to the four tracks, MESS opens the door to the unexpected.
• Effects Sequencing – Control per-track speed and length to create polyrhythmic or polymetric sequence. Use chance options to easily create complex generative effects that never sound the same twice. Reverbs bloom, delays evolve rhythmically, and modulations shift in sync with your tempo.
• Extravagant or Traditional Effects – Polyend says that MESS excels at in-your-face weirdness, while still covering all your pedalboard basics. You can use it as an avant-garde idea generator or a straightforward pedalboard replacement. Tapping the play switch to kick the sequencer into motion transforms MESS from a traditional FX processor to powerful rhythmic effects system.
• Reverbs & Delays – MESS features a extensive range of stereo reverb and delay modes. Explore lush ambient spaces, tight room simulations, and modulated plates with 7 core reverb types and dozens of sub-modes.
• Granular & Glitch – 9 modes for Granular and Glitcher engines break apart, blur or fragment any signal.
• Shapers, Drives & Filters – Shape your sound with effects from subtle saturation to natural overdrives to complete destruction, with bitcrushing and sample rate reduction.
• Pitch Shift & Spectralize – Spectral engines can warp, pitch shift and transform a large spectrum of sound. You can also used dedicated pitch-shifters with monophonic pitch tracking to re-harmonize your sound or sequence complete musical compositions from a single note.
• Slicers & Microloopers – A collection of repeater algorithms can be tightly sequenced for microlooping, repitching, arpeggiation, and tape-stop style effects. With per-step chance controls, MESS can also generate randomized loops, stutters.

An overview by David Hilowitz:

MESS is available to pre-order now for $599, with shipping planned to start at the end of June 2025.