Ahead of Superbooth 2025, being held May 8-10 at the FEZ-Berlin, Italian synth maker Frap Tools has announced Magnolia, a flagship 8-voice analog through-zero FM synthesizer, featuring a Fatar keyboard with polyphonic aftertouch.
The company says that they designed Magnolia “to create sounds from the modular world through a classic keyboard interface.”
What they have to say about the Magnolia synthesizer:
“Waveshapers, wavefolders, and, most importantly, analog linear through-zero FM unlock every sound associated with the “West Coast” synthesis world. But that’s not all! Fat resonant filters and powerful analog oscillators allow more traditional subtractive synthesis sounds as well.
A vast and flexible modulation section encourages complex patches with the twist of a knob, but it is always easy to keep track of what’s going on thanks to LEDs on every source and destination. An arpeggiator and a sequencer complement the machine.”
Magnolia Synthesizer intro video. It’s in Italian, but you can enable closed captions in English:
Frap Tools is showcasing two pre-production Magnolia synthesizer keyboards at Superbooth. They say that they expect to release the Magnolia synthesizer at the end of summer 2025.
They note that the release version “may have a more refined interface, it will feature digital effects, and some of the features currently under evaluation may disappear.”
What do you think of the Magnolia? View the video and share your thoughts in the comments!
Ahead of Superbooth 2025, scheduled for May 8-10 at the FEZ-Berlin, Error Instruments has announced the Cinematic Tape System 9 – a powerful tape-based system designed for ambient, soundscape, and experimental music.
They describe it as “wild, lo-fi, and cinematic—perfect for pushing boundaries and exploring new sonic territory.”
Features:
Four independent tape players – each with individual speed control
A central mixer for blending textures
Lots of CV inputs for deep modulation and performance
Built-in effects to shape and mangle your sound
It’s “wild, lo-fi, and cinematic—perfect for pushing boundaries and exploring new sonic territory.”
They’ve shared a preview of the Cinematic Tape System 9 in action on Facebook.
Details are still to come at the Error Instruments site.
Melbourne Instruments and Bitwig are pleased to announce that Roto-Control’s deep integration with Bitwig Studio is now available as a public beta.
This is the second and most advanced DAW integration for Roto-Control, allowing Bitwig Studio users to take full advantage of this innovative controller’s features. Melbourne Instruments brings its revolutionary touch-sensitive motorized knob technology, high-res LCD displays screens, and adaptive haptic control to Bitwig Studio projects.
Roto-Control, launched in January 2025, follows Melbourne Instrument’s motorized synths NINA and DELIA. Powerful, compact, and portable, Roto-Control features three main modes of operation: MIX, PLUGIN and MIDI with Motion Recorder. Bitwig Studio users can streamline their creative workflow and quickly develop ideas with responsive physical control through Roto-Control’s MIX and PLUGIN Modes.
In MIX Mode, the colors and track names in your Bitwig Studio project will instantly appear on Roto-Control’s displays, and those names and colors will update automatically when connected to an active Bitwig session. That means there’s no need to save or edit labels in the device.
In PLUGIN Mode, plugin parameters and labels are taken directly from Bitwig Studio with one touch, one time. That means Roto-Control only needs to learn plugin parameters once — and you can select parameters to map directly from a third-party plugin’s GUI. Since all learned parameters are stored locally on Roto-Control, it will remember the mappings the next time you open Bitwig Studio — even if you’re in a different project file. And all remote controls in Bitwig Studio get mapped to Roto-Control automatically, including step parameters.
The Bitwig Studio integration for Roto-Control is a public beta, please visit this link for more info and to download the beta firmware.
Bitwig Studio’s integration for Roto-Control is a public beta. Please visit the Melbourne Instruments website for more information and to download the beta firmware. You need Bitwig Studio 5.3 or higher to make use of the Roto-Control integration.
The Bitwig Studio / Melbourne Instruments Roto-Control integration will be on display at Superbooth in Berlin next week at the Melbourne Instruments (H220) or Bitwig booths (Z105).
