Best Hardware Synths of 2024: 7 Synths We Went Nuts for This Year
The year’s best synths from Korg, Oberheim, Arturia, Moog, and more!
4,5 / 5,0 | 
From massive analog polys to affordable digital delights, we couldn’t get enough of these seven stellar synthesizers this year. These are truly the best hardware synths of 2024.
Best Hardware Synths of 2024
Say what you will about the state of the world (insert late-stage capitalism hellscape comment here), the world of hardware synthesizers has never been better. No matter your synthy predilection, from analog purist to digital daredevil, there’s something out there for you – and odds are it might even be affordable.
This year saw another clutch of instruments hit the market and, as we do every year, it’s time to pick the best. Here are the seven best hardware synthesizers of 2024 listed in no particular order. I’ve tried to include a little bit of everything – analog, digital and hybrid – and have kept price point in mind as well. Here we go.
What were your picks for the best hardware synths of 2024? Let me know in the comments.
Best Hardware Synths of 2024: Moog Muse
You can count the number of polyphonic synths that Moog has released on one hand, so any new poly from the legendary company is going to be cause for celebration. That goes double when it’s as beautiful and inspiring an instrument as the Muse.
Based on circuitry borrowed from a variety of past Moog triumphs, including the Voyager, MF-102 Ring Modulator and 904a Filter, Muse has that Moog sound, plus a number of unique synthesis features that set it apart from other big polys. With eight voices of polyphony, two VCOs per and a modulation oscillator, plus dual filters and a stereo VCA, it’s plenty capable. Upping the ante are probabilistic and generative features in the sequencer, parameter recording, and a surprising Diffusion Delay effect.
Beyond all of this though, it just sounds amazing. Very Moog yet also modern, with a beefiness and edge that I found lacking in the Moog One, it’s the flagship that we’ve long waited for.
- Moog Muse product page
Best Hardware Synths of 2024: Arturia PolyBrute 12
If you’re a regular reader of the Synthesizer section of Gearnews, you’ll know that we’re big fans of the Arturia PolyBrute 12. We called it one of the best big synths, a modern synth classic, and one of the best-sounding synths on the market today. It’s now time to heap some more praise on Arturia’s 12-voice behemoth.
As I’ve gone on enough about the sound and synthesis of the PolyBrute 12 (see the above links for more on that), I’ll talk instead about its expressiveness, something that our Rob also mentioned in his review of the synth back when it came out. Calling it “the real star of the PolyBrute 12,” the instrument’s FullTouch keyboard offers three aftertouch modes: Mono, Poly, and Alt. It’s the Alt part that is unique, with three unique options for expression. This all adds up to a synth that is powerfully expressive with only something like the expressive E Osmose to rival it.
Great sound, deep expressiveness. That’s the Arturia PolyBrute 12, one of the best hardware synths of 2024.
- Arturia PolyBrute 12 product page
Best Hardware Synths of 2024: Oberheim TEO-5
Ever since I saw Eddie Van Halen playing an OB-Xa in the ‘Jump’ video, I’ve wanted a classic Oberheim poly. Those oscillators. Those pinstripes! However, contrary to what you may think, you can’t get rich writing about synthesizers and so it’s always been an aspirational dream for me. However, with the release of the Oberheim TEO-5, that dream is now within reach.
An affordable Obie, the TEO-5 squeezes big Oberheim poly magic into a pint-size package. Like the Sequential Take 5, from which it borrows circuitry, TEO-5 is five-voice analog synth with a three-and-a-half-octave keybed. However, it has its own sound, one that is very Oberheim thanks to the dual VCOs and classic SEM filter. And that sound is glorious.
If you’ve always wanted an Oberheim but balked at the cost of the OB-X8, this is the synth for you.
- Oberheim TEO-5 product page
Best Hardware Synths of 2024: Korg multi/poly
When Korg re-released the KingKorg last year as the Neo, I thought for sure that its recent digital line of synths, which also includes the Opsix, Modwave and Wavestate, was complete. All that was missing was virtual analog, right?
Truly rounding out the lineup is this year’s multi/poly, a modern-day reimagining of the company’s classic Mono/Poly from 1981. Rather than try to compete with Behringer and its analog MonoPoly, Korg has gone the VA route – and doubled-down on the digital by offering wavetable and waveshaping oscillator types too. That means that all four oscillators can do any of the three types, making this one powerful digital beast. Other 21st century Korg embellishments include the Kaoss Physics pad from the Modwave, Motion Sequencing 2.0, and more.
It also sounds superb, as you’d guess with all of that oscillator power. I haven’t even mentioned the Korg legacy filter emulations. Virtual analog doesn’t get pulses racing like it did in the ‘90s anymore – but maybe it should. Leeloo multi/poly, anyone?
- Korg multi/poly product page
Best Hardware Synths of 2024: Melbourne Instruments Delia
Melbourne Instruments came seemingly out of nowhere (well, Melbourne presumably) with Nina, a desktop synth with a unique twist: drone motor-powered self-rotating knobs. Nina is a beast, with a beast of a price to match. Delia, the company’s latest, takes the best of Nina (including those knobs), adds keys and somehow lowers the price.
The main difference between the two is Delia is very much a hybrid synth, with four VA oscillators pumped through an analog lowpass filter and digital highpass filter. Some bold synthesis choices happening here. It’s six-voice polyphonic with a special 12-note mode that keeps all the oscillators intact but maxes out the filters at six. Semi-paraphonic? It’s got lots of modulation options (three LFOs, three envelopes) and a MOD Mode that takes full opportunity of those wild knobs.
Hybrid is the new analog and Delia is an impressive example of what happens when developers push the envelope (no pun intended) to get the best of both analog and digital worlds.
- Melbourne Instruments Delia product page
Best Hardware Synths of 2024: Sonicware Liven Ambient Ø
I love that Sonicware has carved out its own niche in the synthesizer market. Rather than make big, bold synth statements, it’s taken more of a granular approach (in one case, literally) by releasing a series of affordable instruments called Liven that each do one, often unusual thing. The latest – and in my opinion, greatest – is the Liven Ambient Ø, and it’s all about atmosphere.
Sonicware Liven Ambient Ø is focused on floating, drony sounds and has a brand new form of synthesis to accomplish this. Called Blendwave, it’s sort of like a mix between wavetable and FM, with different combinations of parameters like harmonics, pitch, modulation, detune, depth and structure arranged into FM-like algorithms. Add in nature sounds, user sampling, effects, and a sequencer, and you’re ready to get the party, er, slowed right down.
Sonicware just keeps going from strength to strength and Liven Ambient Ø is its strongest yet.
- Sonicware Liven Ambient Ø product page
Best Hardware Synths of 2024: Pittsburgh Modular Taiga Keyboard
You may remember the Taiga, Pittsburgh Modular’s semi-modular analog desktop playground. With its three oscillators, gorgeous Pittsburgh Modules filter and Dynamics Controller, which manages both amplitude and harmonic content in a very West Coast way, it offered a unique take on analog synthesis.
This year, the company surprised everyone by adding a keyboard to the synth. The name (which is not surprising at all) is the Taiga Keyboard. That 37-key keyboard with pitch and modulation wheels is the most striking difference, but there’s also that 24hp Eurorack-format modular expansion bay. And, if that weren’t enough, the larger format gives space for bigger knobs and an additional LFO.
And then there’s the sound, that unmistakable Pittsburgh Modular sound, making this truly one of the best hardware synthesizers of 2024.
- Pittsburgh Modular Taiga Keyboard product page
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One response to “Best Hardware Synths of 2024: 7 Synths We Went Nuts for This Year”
The Behringer Proton is a modular powerhouse and you could get 4 of them for the price of the Taiga.