New Gear At Musikmesse

Keeping track of the most interesting new gear announcements at Frankfurt Musikmesse – with new releases from MFB, Novation, Korg, Doepfer and Jomox. This page will be updated with details of new products as and when they’re revealed.

After a very busy NAMM show earlier this year, we’re not expecting too many major gear announcements at this year’s Messe, to be held in Frankfurt later this week, but we’ll keep you updated with all the news here, starting with a couple of very interesting new products from German analogue specialists MFB…

MFB Dominion 1 and Tanzbär

MFB‘s new Dominion 1 is an analogue monosynth based on the company’s Dominion X module. With a weighted three-octave keyboard with aftertouch, ribbon controllers for modulation and pitch bend, built-in arp/sequencer and patch points for interfacing with other analogue gear (including modular equipment), the three-VCO, three-LFO, three-envelope Dominion 1 looks like a very serious proposition indeed.

It goes on sale in July/August, priced at €1,380. That makes it nearly twice the price of the DSI Mopho Keyboard and still significantly more expensive than the new Moog Sub Phatty, pitching it up against the Little Phatty Stage II. Not a budget synth by any means, but the feature set looks like it might be able to live up to the price.

The company’s new Tanzbär (that’s ‘dancing bear’ if our elementary German skills are anything to go by) drum machine is the culmination of a long development process, originally going under the working title of the 523. It’s based around a combination of the best bits of the 808-inspired 522 and the 909-inspired 503, plus lots of entirely new features. The Tanzbär will go on sale in May/June, priced at €840. Check out an audio demo from MFB below.

MFB Drum Computer Session 2 by Yapacc on Mixcloud

Next: Novation Bass Station II, Korg Volca series, new goodies from Doepfer, Image-Line news and Jomox goes modular…