Does anyone have a good list of small, handheld, battery powered mini synths, grooveboxes, effects and other noise-makers?
I've preordered a Dirtywave M8 which seems like an awesome piece of gear and it's got me really excited at the prospect of using interesting dedicated hardware machines that I can take to the park or mess with on the sofa.
The obvious ones I've come across so far are:
Korg Volca range
Roland mini synths and aira compact ranges
Teenage Engineering OP and POs
But these all seem a little uninteresting to me and just rehashed tiny versions of older gear and/or aimed at lo-fi producers.
Some less obvious ones that have my attention are:
Monome Norns
1010music lemondrop, fireball & razzmatazz (not battery powered but easily powered by a USB powerbank)
Bastl microgranny and kastl
Korg NTS-1
Korg Monotrons
Audiothingies Micromonsta 2 (again not battery powered but can be via powerbank)
I love all-in-one portable grooveboxes and I think the M8 is my favorite of the ones I own.
Ones I haven’t seen mentioned yet:
Synthstrom Deluge - Extremely flexible powerhouse and a pleasure to use now that it has been updated from a 7-segment display to an OLED display. Not tiny, but is about the length/width of a laptop and is battery powered.