Plini himself has been vocal about how much this new design means to him. “When Ola handed me the first prototype of my N2 signature to try, it became my favourite guitar I’ve ever played within seconds,” he says.

The end result is the Boden Plini Edition N2.6T Black Satin Metallic, a guitar built for players who want something expressive and streamlined without sacrificing tone or dynamics. It’s got that signature .strandberg* clarity and responsiveness, paired with a tremolo bridge that’s been engineered to stay rock-solid while still giving you room to get expressive. The guitar ships with a nice bit of case candy too — a signature branded pick tin loaded with six Tortex pitch-black Jazz III 1.14mm picks, each stamped with a Plini x .strandberg* holographic print.

As for the build itself, the Boden Plini Edition N2.6T features a Swamp Ash body with a Solid Maple top, finished in a sleek Black Metallic Satin acrylic satin finish.

Boden Plini Edition N2.6T Black Satin Metallic specifications:

• Body Shape: Boden
• Body Material: Swamp Ash
• Body Top Material: Solid Maple
• Body Finish Color: Black Metallic Satin
• Body Finish Type: Acrylic Satin

Get the Boden Plini Edition N2.6T here for $2,699 from Sweetwater.

For players wanting more range in the upper register, the ’71 Trella is now available with 24 frets. Sully Guitars says the model’s upper fret access and “gets out of your way” balance have been carefully maintained in the update, positioning the ’71 Trella 24 as a guitar built to combine the original’s design with added modern features.

The ’71 Trella 24 has already seen road use ahead of its release: a prototype has been part of Smashing Pumpkins guitarist Kiki Wong’s live setup, appearing on tracks including “1979.” Wong says, “The Trella is by far a work of art embodying all the beauty, versatility, and charisma I need from an instrument. It truly became one of my favorite guitars of all time!”

Sully Guitars ’71 Trella 24 features:

• The Definitive Modern Singlecut – The ’71 Trella’s carved top, stability, and playability are now available with 24 frets.
• Extra Range, Easy Access – The ergonomic spirit and upper fret access of the original 22-fret design have been maintained on the 24-fret version.
• Built By Rock & Roll – A slim C neck profile with 24 stainless steel frets and a sculpted neck heel for smoother upper-fret access.
• No-Compromise Construction – Hipshot locking tuners; Hipshot, TonePros, or Floyd Rose bridges; Sully’s custom USA-wound pickups; and other carefully sourced components.
• A Little Extra – Custom options include sparkle finishes, heavy relics, custom inlays, and baritone scale lengths.
• All USA Custom Series Sully Guitars are built by a small team in Texas, PLEK’d, and include a handwritten Certificate of Authenticity from Sully himself.

The ’71 Trella 24 carries introductory pricing starting at $3,839 and is available directly at sullyguitars.com.

But sometimes a pair comes along that just ticks all the boxes. A no-brainer.

After spending a TON of time with Sennheiser’s new HD 480 PRO cans ($399), I can tell you that these are the ones you’re looking for. They’ve got everything that the modern recording musician needs, and nothing they don’t (aka the things that make a pair cost $8,000 that .0003% of musicians care about).

Fit

For me, personally, comfort is always the first criteria. It’s kind of like the legendary Van Halen brown M&Ms – if they haven’t considered how the headphones are going to feel when you put them on, much less when you’re wearing them for hours as I do, then I’m worried about what else they missed. So when I first put on the HD 480’s, I knew I was in for a treat because these are, by orders of magnitude, the most comfortable on-ears I’ve worn. And for the many hours I’ve worn them since, that hasn’t changed. They never got any less pleasant to wear, and this is #1 for me because when I’m working on music, I love getting lost in the process with headphones on. It helps me focus – UNTIL my ears start hurting from some sub-par cups, and then I’m YANKED out of my flow state. That just plain never happens with these.

The padding in the band and on the ear cups is soft but not too soft, having just the right amount of give and support. At 272 grams, they’re light enough that they don’t need a huge amount of padding that could make them bulky. The mini XLR can also be plugged into either the right or left ear for maximum convenience, and it locks in so you don’t have to worry about accidentally yanking it out. This comes in REALLY handy for me because where I plug mine in is on the right side of my body, and having the cable on the traditional left side means having a cable annoyingly dangling across my torso all session. They really thought of everything!

Sound

The next consideration is, of course, the sound. What I (and most musicians) need in a pair of cans more than anything else is the truth – not something that sounds “good” or hyped. I need to hear the sound I’m capturing as close to what it really is as I can get, because before it goes out into the world for other people to hear on a variety of playback sources, it’s going through me, and it won’t translate to anything properly if I don’t first know what it actually sounds like. The HD 480’s delivering this for $399 makes them THE deal of 2026 so far.

When I’m monitoring on the HD 480’s in my room for tracking vocals and guitar, I’m checking what I’m hearing against my beastly $7,000 Focal Trio6 BE studio monitors that I trust. Of course there’s always going to be a difference between listening on headphones and listening to loud monitors in the room, but where it counts, the headphones hold up brilliantly. And I can bring the HD 480’s to mix in a hotel room, even though (much as I’d love to) I can’t really do the same with the Focals.

One of the most important functions of headphones for me is to check the spatial relationships between elements in my music, and there has clearly been a lot of care put into making sure that the spatial imaging is very precisely tuned. A lot of the time when I’m putting on headphones, the sound feels claustrophobic in a way – like it’s really just blasting directly into my ears (which can be a good thing depending on your use case – sometimes you want it SUPER dry to get something truer than the room you’re in). The 480s give a feeling of a little bit of comfortable space around the sound that I usually associate with open-backs, but it’s still cleanly isolated. I’m realizing as I write this that it’s actually pretty hard to describe, but suffice to say that it’s very pleasant, and noticeably reduces listening fatigue for me.

Conclusion

Everything about them, down to the sound-transference-reducing partially-coiled cable design is designed for an uninterrupted, honest, music creation experience. You’re not gonna have to stop what you’re doing and take a break early just because your ears hurt from the ergonomics, or having to use a different pair for a different use. I’m not really sure what their proprietary Vibration Attenuation System is doing to make these closed-back headphones feel more like open-back without the sound spilling, but it’s working. Sure, you could also get a pair of their HD 490’s for a comparable set of open-backs – but I don’t want to be swapping back and forth while I’m tracking vocals, do you? I want to hear what’s happening while it’s happening, ain’t nobody got time fo dat (as they say).

Gotta choose one pair, and one pair only? The Sennheiser HD 480 PRO is an easy choice. They’re called the 480 “PRO” because they’re intended for professionals – but they’re not priced like that, so it kinda feels like our little secret, you know?

They come in two different versions, the Pro ($399), and the Pro Plus ($439) that comes with a carrying case.

Grab yourself a pair and thank me later.

While the flanger and doubler sounds heard on countless ’70s and ’80s records relied on bucket-brigade circuitry, MXR has preserved that same analog signal path and original control set here.

The Flanger/Doubler is built around its two core voices. The flanger delivers the classic sweeping, jet-engine swoosh and metallic resonance associated with the effect, while the doubler thickens the tone with a slightly offset second layer that can create lush chorusing or a short, tightly dialed slapback.

The Doubler button switches between the two, while the Manual, Width, and Speed controls set tone, range of motion, and sweep rate. The Regen knob uses feedback to control intensity, ranging from a gentle shimmer to a more intense metallic bite, and the Mix knob blends the wet and dry signals. The Invert switch reverses the wet signal’s polarity, shifting the voicing from airy and hollow to a punchier low-mid thickness.

From there, the Manual, Width, Speed, Regen, and Mix controls shape the sound, from subtle shimmer to aggressive jet-engine resonance. An Invert switch flips the wet signal’s polarity for an additional set of textures. CV jacks and a line-level switch allow the Flanger/Doubler to connect with synths, sequencers, and hotter signal chains, making it suited to both pedalboards and studio racks.

The Flanger/Doubler includes two front-panel LEDs that track delay time in real time, with their rate, brightness, and left-right movement responding to the Speed, Width, and Manual settings — giving players a visual readout of the effect for quick adjustments on a loud stage. CV In and Out jacks allow the pedal to link with synths, sequencers, CV-capable expression pedals, and other external gear for synced and automated modulation, while an Input Level switch keeps the signal clean when running hotter, line-level sources.

The MXR Flanger/Doubler is available for $333 from Sweetwater and Guitar Center.

According to company filings from July, Native Instruments‘ CEO, Nick Williams, has been removed, along with Simon Cross, the company’s chief product and technology officer. InMusic Europe’s CEO, Richard Seymour, has seemingly taken over their responsibilities.

The closure of the Native Instruments UK office may result in the termination of roles including product manager, product designer, engineering manager, chief financial officer, VP global marketing, VP product design, senior product designer, and senior product engineer. Many of these positions involve work on Maschine, Kontakt, and Komplete.

The news first surfaced in a Reddit thread last week, which stated: “The layoffs continue: InMusic just fired the whole Native Instruments UK office… What everyone already thought about InMusic turns out to be correct once again.”

In a statement issued to MusicTech, InMusic Brands said it is “simplifying” its organizational and legal structure as part of Native Instruments’ integration into the company, including removing layers established under the brand’s previous private equity ownership model. InMusic added that it recognizes the impact on affected employees and is committed to supporting them through the transition, and maintained that Native Instruments remains “strategically important” to the company, with product development continuing and new hardware and software initiatives underway for 2027 and beyond.

Meanwhile, a number of new roles have appeared on InMusic’s careers page, mostly based in Rhode Island, USA, and Cambridge, UK. These positions include content development engineer, lead product manager, lead product designer, and other product-focused roles.

This latest round of layoffs follows news from July that InMusic fired 100 employees across all departments at Native Instruments. Upon acquiring Native Instruments, InMusic published a sit-down interview with its global CEO and founder, Jack O’Donnell, who said early in the conversation that the future for Native Instruments was “very exciting, very bright, and very secure.”

The situation mirrors InMusic’s actions following its acquisition of Moog Music in June 2023. In its original statement announcing that deal — no longer accessible on Moog’s website — InMusic said the acquisition would help address ongoing challenges Moog faced as a small manufacturing business. By late September 2023, InMusic had laid off 30 employees at Moog’s historic headquarters in Asheville, North Carolina, and moved parts of its manufacturing pipeline to Taiwan. Moog has since released two major synthesizers, Muse and Messenger.

TONEX is built around a shared library of Tone Models and presets that spans IK’s software, hardware, online community, and premium content. Rather than treating software and hardware as separate products, updates to TONEX are designed to add value across the whole ecosystem at once.

Key highlights:

• Redesigned Home page
• Smart Search for Tone Models, presets, and collections
• Dedicated, resizable browsers for navigation
• Enhanced ToneNET integration for discovering and managing content
• New photorealistic gear view with visual signal-chain editing
• Up to 220 new Premium V2 Tone Models
• One connected workflow across TONEX 2.0 Player and TONEX hardware
• Public beta available now; final release will be a free update for all TONEX users

The redesigned Home page brings gear, signal chain, and library into a single workspace, aimed at making it quicker to find, tweak, and organize sounds. A new photorealistic gear view is meant to make working with amp and pedal models feel more natural, and a flexible signal chain lets users build out full guitar and bass rigs. Smart Search locates Tone Models, presets, and collections directly, while resizable browsers organize different types of content.

Other workflow additions include resizable floating windows, multi-monitor support, custom folders, Favorites, a Recently Used section, and quicker access to core tools.

TONEX 2.0 Player gives users a central place to build and organize sounds without hardware connected. Once a TONEX device is plugged in, presets transfer over and are ready to use. The idea is that the same Tone Models and presets carry across capture, studio recording, rehearsal, and live performance, rather than requiring separate setups for software and hardware.

ToneNET is now built directly into the browsing experience in TONEX 2.0 Player, making it easier to audition, download, and manage Tone Models, presets, and collections. ToneNET combines official IK content, Signature Collections, Tone Partner releases, Premium Collections, and community-created Tone Models in one place, with added tools for discovery and organization.

TONEX 2.0 adds up to 220 new Premium V2 Tone Models to the Factory Library, covering vintage amps, boutique gear, modern high-gain tones, and bass equipment. These are built using IK’s AI Machine Modeling technology.

TONEX 2.0 Player is available now as a free optional public beta for existing TONEX users through the IK User Area under My Products. The final release will also be free for current users.

TONEX SE and TONEX users can upgrade to TONEX MAX for $/€49.99 to access the full collection of 220 new Premium V2 Tone Models; current TONEX MAX users get the expanded library at no additional cost. For a limited time, new users can purchase TONEX MAX for $/€99.99, down from its regular price of $/€299.99.

Get into the IK Multimedia TONEX ecosystem here via Sweetwater.

Packing 12 delay and reverb engines, an all-new reverb engine, and a five-minute stereo looper into a single stage-ready enclosure, the TimeLine MX pairs serious sonic depth with intuitive, dynamic controls that let players shape their sound in real time.

The standout upgrade is dual-engine operation, which lets guitarists run two effects simultaneously and route them in series, parallel, or split configurations, complete with independent stereo panning.

Then at the heart of the TimeLine MX are 12 fully independent engines, each with its own character and dedicated controls.

Alongside tape, bucket-brigade, oil can, and early digital delays sit deeper, more experimental options like the Spectral engine, a granular playground offering pitch, reverse, time-stretch, and filter effects, and the Multitap engine, which delivers eight individual taps with per-tap control over panning, level, feedback, and filtering.

New to the MX is a full-range reverb engine capable of tight room reverberation, vast ambient washes, and everything in between, complete with a Grit control and optional tremolo modulation inspired by Strymon’s Flint.

The TimeLine MX’s onboard stereo looper is a serious upgrade over the original, now offering a full five minutes of recording time. The dynamic feature operates in instantly switchable multi- and single-button modes, and can be placed before or after your delay effects in the signal chain, giving you control over whether your loops feed the delays or sit cleanly on top of them.

Get the Strymon TimeLine MX here for $679 at Sweetwater.

Well, there may have been no time in history more suited for the topics of metal than the Medieval period – the Black Plague wiped out more than a third of Europe’s population, the Inquisition was torturing and killing anyone they felt like, and basically everything sucked. It was a bad time to be a human being – but a great time to visit to make a metal song with some peasant bards.

So that’s what I did! I took my trusty ol’ Retcon3000 time machine and risked life and limb (am I vaccinated for the bubonic plague? I have no idea) to bring metal to the miserable masses.

And as an added bonus, I brought the wildly cool Osmose keyboard by Expressive E to blow these peasants’s minds with MPE (MIDI Polyphonic Expression).

Unlike typical limited-time demos, Helix Stadium Native Intro is free to keep forever. Users simply need to create a free Line 6 account to download it, with no Helix hardware required.

The free version includes five amp models spanning Fender, Vox, Marshall, Revv, and Ampeg-inspired tones, along with five matching speaker cabinets and 16 essential effects covering overdrive, distortion, delay, modulation, and reverb. Players can also load third-party impulse responses and up to two Proxy Clones, allowing them to customize their rigs beyond the included models.

For those looking for the full experience, Helix Stadium Native introduces Line 6’s new Agoura Amp Modeling technology, designed to improve the responsiveness and feel of its digital amplifiers. The plugin also supports Proxy Clones, which function similarly to captured amp profiles found in platforms like Kemper and Neural DSP, letting users recreate real-world amplifier setups inside the software.

The full version dramatically expands the available gear, offering 132 amp models, more than 60 speaker cabinets, and over 260 effects. It also introduces Preset Audio Clips, a feature that lets users audition presets using prerecorded guitar performances before plugging in, making it easier to browse sounds.

Helix Stadium Native is available now in AAX, AU, and VST3 formats for macOS and Windows, supporting sample rates from 44.1kHz up to 192kHz. A 15-day trial of the full version is also available for users who want to explore the complete feature set before purchasing.

Pricing

• Helix Stadium Native Intro: Free
• Helix Stadium Native: $399.99
• Upgrade from Helix Native or Helix Stadium hardware: $99.99

Get it all here via Sweetwater.

“The V Series has long been KRK’s flagship studio monitor, trusted by engineers and producers around the world for its precision and reliability,” said Andrew Ladner, KRK Marketing Manager. “V Series Five builds on that legacy, delivering the sonic accuracy for which the V Series is known, while evolving to meet the demands of today’s modern workflows.”

A major addition is KRK Mesh technology, which enables wireless communication between the monitors and the KRK Control App. Users can remotely adjust monitor settings, compare EQ profiles, manage levels, and fine-tune speaker performance without physically accessing each cabinet. The system supports both stereo and multi-speaker immersive setups, allowing individual monitors or groups to be controlled from a mobile device.

Internally, every V Series Five monitor features custom-designed woven Kevlar woofers mounted in cast aluminum frames for low distortion, paired with a newly engineered one-inch silk dome tweeter and integrated waveguide for improved imaging and consistent off-axis response. The electronics platform combines ESS converters, Analog Devices DSPs, and Pascal Class D amplification, delivering 280 watts to the low-frequency driver and 175 watts to the high-frequency driver for substantial headroom and dynamic range.

Room tuning has also received a significant upgrade. The V Series Five offers 49 Boundary EQ presets, seven fully parametric PRO EQ filters, and three user presets that can be saved and recalled instantly, making it easy to adapt the monitors to different rooms or production environments.

The lineup includes three models:

• V4 — 4-inch woofer, 48 Hz-40 kHz frequency response, 113 dB maximum SPL.
• V6 — 6.5-inch woofer, 40 Hz low-frequency extension, 118 dB maximum SPL.
• V8 — 8-inch woofer, 32 Hz low-frequency extension, 121 dB maximum SPL.

Additional professional features include front-ported bass-reflex cabinets, Neutrik XLR/TRS combo inputs, support for both analog and AES3 digital connections, adjustable standby mode, ground lift, input sensitivity controls, removable protective grilles, and integrated mounting points for permanent installations.

“With the addition of the Control App and KRK Mesh, V Series Five expands beyond exceptional monitoring into a more connected, intelligent studio ecosystem,” added Ladner. “For more than 40 years, KRK has earned the trust of everyone from first-time mixers to GRAMMY-winning professionals. We’re proud to carry that legacy forward with V Series Five, setting a new benchmark for the performance, innovation, and sonic accuracy that define the KRK name.”

Get the KRK V Series Five here via Sweetwater starting at $649, or here via Guitar Center.