zZounds News The Class of 2025 Is...

2025 brings us Fender's revamped Standard series guitars and basses, the new Gain Baby and Dual Baby amp heads from Orange, Martin's Billy Strings signature acoustics, the Tone King Imperial preamp pedal, Gibson's new made-in-Montana Hummingbird, J-45, and L-00 Special models starting at just $1999, the Darkglass Anagram bass multi-effects pedal, and much more!

In the synth world, the brand-new Moog Messenger and Korg Multi/Poly module are making analog synths affordable and accessible, with Roland's V-STAGE series and the new Nord Organ 3 and Nord Piano 6 making waves in the high-end keyboard market, and Arturia's KeyLab 88 MK3 and Studiologic SL88GT MK2 quenching the thirst for full-featured 88-key MIDI controllers.

Solid State Logic's SSL 18 USB audio interface is one of 2025's hottest releases, along with Shure's new Nexadyne instrument microphones and MV7i smart mic, Zoom's revamped H5studio and PodTrak P2 portable recorders, the Harrison 32Classic MS MixStrip mic preamp, and Black Lion Audio's updated take on the Shure Level-Loc compressor/limiter.

The valedictorian of the class of 2025 is the QSC KC12 "K Column" PA system -- QSC's first foray into the all-in-one format, with a 3-way design that delivers QSC sound in a column system. Meanwhile, Electro-Voice is expanding their mega-popular column family with the EVOLVE 70 and EVOLVE 90 models, and Xvive just dropped 5.8 GHz versions of their wireless mic and IEM systems.

New drum machines abound in 2025, from the Polyend Step pedal and Cre8Audio Boom Chick analog machine, to Arturia's "1984" vintage-white reskin of their DrumBrute Impact. AIAIAI dropped their TMA-2 DJ Wireless headphones with under 10 ms latency, enabling DJing in wireless cans. And in the percussion world, Sabian released new MAX cymbals in collaboration with Mike Portnoy.