The Best Gear Of The Decade: 2010-2019
As we welcome the new decade, let’s first take a look back at the products that changed the game, or represented trends that defined the past 10 years.
We’re finally here, at the end of a 10-year stretch that has seen the music production world completely transformed by the increasing speed of home computing, ever-capable DAWs and the explosion of mobile-music making. Throughout the 2010s, we’ve kept our ears to the ground and reviewed countless products in both hardware and software (and sometimes, in-between!) yet it’s often only with the benefit of hindsight that we can truly evaluate the impact of certain things, and their resulting effect on the industry – and the music-maker.
In this look back at the last decade, we’re going to highlight our selection of the gear that we believe has genuinely had an impact on the music-making world, or serves as an example of an evolving trend that has permeated through the industry in the 2010s. So, without further ado, let’s turn the clocks right back…
The best gear from 2010 to 2011
- Apple iPad
- Teenage Engineering OP-1
- Celemony Melodyne Editor
- Fabfilter Pro-L
- GarageBand for iPad
- Moog Minimoog Voyager XL
The best gear from 2012 to 2013
- Ableton Push
- Korg Volca
- Universal Audio Apollo
- Logic Pro X
- U-He Diva
- Moog Minitaur
The best gear from 2014
- Genelec 8010A
- Best Service Shevannai: The Voices of Elves
- Native Instruments Komplete Kontrol S-Series
- Modartt Pianoteq 5 Pro
- Audio Technica ATH-M50x
- Korg Gadget
The best gear from 2015
- Novation Circuit
- Teenage Engineering PO Series
- Spectrasonics Omnisphere 2
- Chandler REDD.47
- Focal Alpha
- Yamaha Reface
The best gear from 2016
- ROLI Seaboard RISE
- iZotope Ozone 7
- Aston Spirit
- Yamaha Montage
- Splice Sounds
- Studio Electronics Modstar Sensei
The best gear from 2017
- Novation Peak
- Expert Sleepers ES-8
- Behringer DeepMind 12
- Oeksound Soothe
- MPC Live
- Loopmasters Loopcloud
The best gear from 2018
- Universal Audio Arrow
- Novation SL MkIII
- Soundtheory Gullfoss
- ADAM Audio T5V
- Toontrack Superior Drummer 3
- Spitfire Audio Hans Zimmer Strings
The best gear from 2019
- Steinberg Cubase Pro 10
- Kilohearts Phase Plant
- Arturia MicroFreak
- Spitfire Audio LCO Textures
- Black Lion Audio Seventeen
- Nektar Panorama T4
