Melbourne Instruments NINA: Not just a pretty face! 

Every synth Matt demonstrates sounds warm, funky and outstanding! I'm starting to think it's Matt that sounds good, not so much the gear!

Even with no intention of buying another synth at the moment, I listen to every one of Matt's videos for the music.

I have a NINA and even I'm blown away by how impressive this review highlights what makes NINA so impressive. It was very much worth the pre-order.

I have been doing electronic music since eighties and first time ever I feel like this is THE ONE !

Best presntation of Nina so far Matt. This istrument is brilliant, sounds warm, big and bit gnarly, love it. Let us know where can we get those patches ;) Cheers!

Never thought we'd see such a resurgence of wavetables! I welcome all of it! 🧡

The best analog synth ever made. Kudos to manufacturer.

Every time you demo a synth it makes me want to buy it. But Nina is really unique and has the best UI I can think of.

This thing is adorable. I love it. Absolutely love it. I would love to have this in a mix on my albums.

Matt, your reviews are becoming a de facto benchmark even beyond your insanely valuable technique posts - thanks so much once again ... you're really killing it man - incredibly well done 😎🙏

However, these fantastic instruments are nothing without amazing keyboard masters like yourself.

Sounds punchy and the motorized faders are a huge plus for programming. It reminds me a little bit of early Thomas Dolby, which is a great thing in my book. Thanks a lot, Matt!

It's absolutely great sounding. I'm getting a NINA

People complain too much of the cost of this, with quality comes a price. Then some complain that it's a gimmick? The same probably don't understand how important it is to see what patch is doing what when changing to a new one. When you change patches on the fly during a set and you don't know where your settings lie and when you do try to adjust, you get some weird jumping due to previous tweaking on previous patch. I can only say that seeing the knobs reset is an amazing feature, especially for people who love to tweak. Another issue people complain about is the durability of the motorised knobs, their failure rate. These are coreless designs based on drone tech, proven tech too given they're required to keep drones in the air. Now their RPM is much much lower than 40K - 80K RPM operating of a drone function. I think I worked it out to be something like 320 RPM which gives it a prolonged life. Then add the sound of this, and we have a real winner that is innovative. Analogue bliss with a true analogue workflow...

Damn, what an incredible synth.

Very nice sound ! Really 😊

Wow this sounds absolutely insane

You're killing the game with your reviews Matt! + great to see these new synths from Argentina, Australia etc it's a golden age for sure

25:47 is just stunning. Thank you for sharing your talent Matt, exceptional demo too good of a game-changer synth

Imagine all preset synths having motorized knobs. That would be something !

Beautiful playing, you bring the best out of these machines. I seldom hear anything this jazzy in other synth demos.

Wish we could like a video more than once. The music at the end is epic and awesome!

You sold it to me just on the intro alone , thanks Matt that was a awesome overview of the Nina , one of my favorite overviews of it

I’ve been following the progress of NINA since Melbourne Instruments first demo’d their prototype at NAMM. I love it, the sound is amazing and the functionality is a game changer. Great demo Matt, liking the ‘Knee Deep’ bit @23:35 and @29:40. P E A C E : )

You are the sound magician! 🤩

Hey Matt, great review! Love the synth, and love your matching his and hers "Red and Black" outfits! 😊 You're the man Matt! 😎

Oh man that intro jam was wonderful

That synth has superb levels of sound.I love the warm textures of each sound. It is on par with old school ‘70s synths in my opinion. Your highly skilled playing really sells the device. Good stuff.

You give the best reviews of synths!

Very cool. 4-layer multitimbrality plus multiple outputs means it's actually a pretty good value proposition -- now of course you'd get more notes of polyphony by buying 2 or 3 polysynths in the $1000-$1500 range, but putting that many notes to use is tricky, and having a studio setup that allows proper access to that many synths' controls at once is much trickier than just having one desktop style synth in reach.

Just the man I wanted to see demo-ing this synth!

fabulous sound

13:00 I've got a pad here, my god that sounds godly, gorgeous, so warm and generous. 15:45 perfect example of how nice this sounds, 3 parts split, that's 3 players in 1. 4 parts would be amazing too. Having heard what you've done, I am going to go play one myself, luckily we have them in store to do so, great vid, thanks Matt. 19:00 on wards is just exactly how easy it is to make something very very basic, into some serious moving sounds, simple motif that keeps going and going. Thx for making me check the price locally lol. May take me a while to get one, but I think it's well worth it due to a) sound b) functionality c) size. So good!!!

Motorized faders and pots are the future. Synth companies have known this for years but weren't willing to use anything but dirt cheap components. We want quality, immediacy, recallability, and a good feel. Just buy the good fucking parts!

What an amazing sounding synth. And who better to show what it can do. Great review

Awesome Matt, love the review on this amazing synth!

Great review! I like that whenever Matt speaks, his jacket also has something to say!

Great synth Matt. The sound of that filter very ARP. Reminds me of my Tonus 2600 filter wise ❤

That sounds really amazing! You're a magician x ... very interesting, thanks for sharing

Another brilliant review. Love this sound.

Brilliant presentation & demos as usual Matt ❤ Really nice instrument for sure. The morph feature (which can clearly sounds exciting!) reminds me the Yamaha DX200: creative terroritories to discover!

Man, bro... You made my night. How many thx for this jamirofloyd session ❤❤

Matt could demo a frying pan and I’d watch (and probably buy). Golden fingers! Thx

Lovely looking and sounding synth. I would love for Matt to make a video about the Fender Chroma Polaris. I think the tones that can be coaxed out of the Chroma Polaris are right up his street - it is like a Polyphonic ARP synth and you can hear the soul of ARP instruments in the Polaris due to its heritage. Would love to hear Matt make it sing in a way I can't :)

I tried it at NAMM last week and had its designer explain it. It’s outstanding.

Love it! Looks like a lot of fun.

This thing sounds fantastic .wow.

the smile when turning to look at the camera

Very impressive!

23:46 to 24:02 Wow - Gorgeous music.

Hearing someone who's a great keyboardist is just SO MUCH more enjoyable than the people who just smash the same key a thousand times and turn a knob. DAH DAH DAH DAH DAH DAH 😫

Sounds greats and almost perfectly color matches your EP ; - )

These vids are so inspiring, thanks Matt!

Nice little nod to Bowie and Eno at the end! 😊 23:00

Very nice sound, I like it....

3:16 I like that it has analogue AND digital oscillators. A lot of folks always make it sound like you have to make a choice between the punch of analogue and the smorgasbord of digital wave tables.

What a synth and what a great tune too!!! Love it mate!! Very very cool synth and well demo’s!!!

I want one!! 👍🏾👍🏾👍🏾😃😃😃

Nice breakdown, and explanation, really cool unit.

just waiting on mine as it will arrive soon Darn its a great sound Its all i was looking for its a combination of all the synths i was looking for heard it played ed with it Bought it!

Terrific underrated player. Quite the gentleman at the radio station when I got my Matt Johnsons confused. 🙄

Interesting machine 🥁

Nice. Especially nice to the Low track

Excellent review Matt! Nice to see you showcasing the new firmware, they've done a lot of work since launch. I was going to ask for some custom patches from you, but just noticed you're giving some away for free! I can't wait! I'd give my right plum for the patch @26:27

Best demos as always

Brilliant review as ever, Matt. Thanks!

Awesome 👍

Amazing synth!

great work matt!

O and the Sub bass that comes from it is also Epic!

You make it sound so good 😅

Smooth sounds

Very nice!

23:00 omg one of my favorite Bowie songs!

A one voice synth with only one key working is going to sound good in Matt's hands

that alternate pan voice thing you show at 21:45 is such an essencial thing in poly synths for me, it gives the sound space to breath... wow, such a versatile synth :') who's robbing the bank with me?

🔥🔥🔥🔥great video Matt! 😃

Excellent review.

As a resident of Melbourne I really want to use that as a reason to buy it.

Impressive synth, great review thanks Matt

Now, that's something unique. Price is unique too, haha.

Matt you fought that Nina and made her produce those beautiful sounds. It's going in a way synths need to go, very good run down using something that is so complex. It has not much in the way of limitations IMO

Sounds awesome! My only one "complaint" is that here is no any type of BP or HP filter. But wavetables makes things different! Your demos are lovely, Matt! I'm always playing a rythm on something (now it's a plastic bottle with a home leechee wine that is still not ready so it changes the tone while you're playing on it). Demos are toooo short :)) If you have a big video with these, could you make a separate video for YT with long versions?

designed & built in my home city Melb. Australia

NINA is quite happy to have Matt's hands all over her.

Holyshi- The pots are modified drone motors, I'm sure they'll last

Clever synth

The built in effects do some serious heavy lifting, I think people aren't realizing that.

Bowie at 23:20 ❤️ u r looking similar too….with this heroes jacket

Something about the tone reminds me of a video game. Maybe it's a tad thin. Going back and forth between this video and your P10 video, the P10 is richer and has more weight to the sound. Nevertheless, this is really neat and a lovely sounding.

That really clean but still very warm sound and the fm-y capabilities sort of remind me of the UDO Super 6's character and versatility. Plus those paradigm-shifting encoders... what a marvellous machine. I so wanna have one. I kind of stretched my budget with the Super 6 already this year, though, and this beast is even like double the price, as well. So.... not going to happen, I'm afraid. 😢

I’ll never afford one but this is dope. Self moving knobs needs to be standardized.

If the people at Melbourne instruments made a MIDI controller with those motorised knobs that would also blow the rest out of the water…the issue of knobs and positioning is not just an analog synth issue VSTs also have this issue

Internal synth reverbs have gotten much better and good enough to use in production. That NIna verb sounds good. I just compared a few verbs and even shimmer verbs. With the Nord Wave 2 built in reverbs. Meris Mercury X, and Eventide H9, and Nord Wave 2. They were all slightly different but all nice in their own ways. I think having additional pedal reverbs next to your synths as an instrument add on in themselves (Like a guitar play does with their pedal board) is a very useful real time production tool for creating great synth tracks. Listening to the 3rd Wave and this Nina the 2 synths cross over. How would you describe the differences? It seems the 3rd Wave features the wave table at its front with virtual analog second, and the Nina the other way around with its analog sound featured first with its addition of the 3 wave table osc. Also the analog side of the Nina seems like it gets quickly to a warm analog sound by comparison.

👌👍. From God's own country. Kerala

Just killing it, sir, with your lovely, informative, fun instrument overviews. I would have never predicted that back with the first record when Stuart Z. influenced my bass approach, now in 2023 you'd be an inspiring influence as a synthesist! :D

I want to riff like MJ!

Many thanks Matt for yet another great video. As you walk from the boat to your desert island, will you be carrying Nina or the 3rd Wave desktop?

I wish more synths had motorized controls I just want to have it plugged in backstage and automate the parameters via mpc while I trigger it via midi keyboard And that goes for like, any synth! It’s just that there’s not many that do it this smoothly, maybe moog slim fatty, but that uses encoders with led indicators instead of motors. Those really are the only two options, motor knobs, or encoders with led ring.

Saucey