Superbooth 2026: Its Awards Time!

US And the winners are... 12/05/26

Its awards time, and we gave out all 11 of our categories this year. Before we get into it, we'd like to thank all the exhibitors for a great show, the awesome Superbooth team who just seem to make it better and better each year, our sponsors and of course, Andy and I would like to than our team: Will, Matt, on the ground, editor Ben and story editor Chris for their tireless work.

So lets go...

Mono Synth

The Buchla Ziggy - a brand new format for Buchla with a complex oscillator at its heart, FX and a very playable wide-ranging sound - not just Buchla bongs and weird sounds, but capable of complex musical synthesis too. Expected to ship later this year.

https://buchla.com/

Effects

Enjoy Electronics Memento - a performance-focused audio processor that combines a texture engine, stereo reverse delay, filtering, and reverb into a single system, supported by two step-based modulation sources for evolving movement over time. Control is centered around a touch surface, which is designed to make parameter changes more immediate and gesture-based rather than menu-driven.
https://www.enjoy-lab.com/memento

Sequencer

OXI Instruments ONE MKII- Ok so its not new, but the continual improvement of this extremely popular sequencer makes it almost reinvent itself every few months, a great piece of hardware geared to performance with CV and MIDI

https://oxiinstruments.com/

Demo

Tomasz Bura - was demonstrating the newly released Osmose CE - Tomasz tours with an Osmose and is an incredible player - well deserved. Tomasz is a classically trained pianist with a wide repertoire, he tours all over Europe - check out his YouTube channel for more of his playing.
https://www.youtube.com/@tomaszbura

Innovation

Morphor Echon 6 - a six-voice analogue polyphonic synthesizer built around BBD-based resonators rather than traditional oscillator-and-filter architecture. Each voice uses a discrete delay-line resonator that tracks pitch and responds dynamically to the incoming excitation signal, giving the instrument a character that often feels more acoustic and reactive than conventional analogue polysynths. Depending on how it is programmed, the ECHON 6 can move between plucked and bowed textures, soft pads, basses, and more abstract evolving sounds.

https://echon6.com/

Modular

Shakmat Queens Court - Stereo Matrix Mixer - but not just a mixer, a stereo VCA matrix mixer. It offers extensive routing options, accommodating four stereo inputs and outputs with three additional auxiliary inputs. The design allows for unique routing of various tracks like drums, basslines, and more to different outputs such as speakers or effect pedals. You can assign multiple routing points to VCA groups, enabling complex configurations like master fade-outs and individual track effects like reverb.

https://shakmat.com/

Studio & Recording

The Focusrite ISA C8X - flagship audio interface with twin ISA Mic preamps as part of the 26in 28 outs available, with those famed Lundahl transformer mic amps for the flavour, Air Drive, and Console modes, plus the 6 clean modern mic preamps, 12 analog outs, plus ADAT and S-PDIF together with configuration saving. Also looks fabulous

https://focusrite.com

PWM

This award is for the wildcard, the floating and harder to categorize - and it goes to the unsual Bastl Kalimba, a six voice DSP instrument with a lot of features, synthesis, FX, looping and more in a hand-held battery powered device. Coming soon with a Kickstarter launch.

https://bastl-instruments.com

Polysynth

The GS Music Bree6 a six voice analog Poly with FX, Arp and Sequencer, with highly stable VCOs (one per voice), two envelopes and an LFO. Currently the first batch is sold out, which tells us something!

https://www.gsmusic.com/

Beats

Vermona Drumding - was first seen as a prototype last show, and will be released next month.
It allows you to design custom drum sounds with its analog synthesizer voice, capable of making a wide range of drum sounds from kicks to claps, which you can then internally sample to add to the sequencer and manipulate in the digital domain. Neat.

https://www.vermona.com/

Best of Show

Making Sound Machines Plinky 12 seems have caught many peoples imagination,Plinky 12 has interchangeable panels, offering three distinct instruments within a single hardware setup. These panels include Toadstep a 16-step sequencer with features like octave jumps, slides, and step repeats; Blocks a drum machine with a procedural drum engine and arpeggiator settings; and Chords with advanced harmonic sequencing capabilities.

https://plinky12.com

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