Superbooth 2026: 4ms MESA is a new stereo reverb based on the famous VCV Rack Valley Plateau reverb and a LEQA, a leveling EQ amplifier.
Continuing with Eurorack. Yes, 4ms was also at Superbooth 2026 this year. Two years ago, they showcased the MetaModule, which brought VCV Rack to the Eurorack platform. It’s polarizing, but it has found its fans.
At Superbooth 2026, 4ms presented two new modules, MESA and LEQA, one of which brings a famous VCV Rack algorithm into the real Eurorack game.
4ms MESA and LEQA
MESA is a hardware version of the popular Valley Plateau reverb processor from VCV Rack. Companies typically develop Eurorack modules and then offer them as a virtual version in VCV Rack for testing. Here’s another way.
Like the software original, 4ms MESA is a stereo plate reverb based on the famous Dattorro algorithm from 1997. The VCV Rack module has many knobs that are very crammed together. This made 4ms on the MESA different and provided more hands-on control.
Different design, but everything you know from the software version is there. You have control over the reverb size, diffusion, pre-delay, modulation depth and rate, decay, and more.
The hardware module has stereo I/O and CV control over 10 parameters. This includes diffusion, size, dry/wet, and more. There is also the freezer function with a dedicated CV input.
Like Valley Plateau, it excels at endless reverb tails with plenty of modulation. It’s also great with shorter reverbs. The ability to modulate all parameters enables creative sound design.
4ms LEQA
Alongside the new MESA, the second new 4ms module is LEQA (14HP). It’s a vintage-inspired leveling EQ amplifier for your master. It combines a compressor/limiter inspired by the legendary LA2A with a 1073-style 3-band EQ.
The compressor offers two switchable ratios (3:1, 10:1) and a gain reduction meter with controls over the amount, mix, and gain. The 3-band EQ has four switchable frequencies each for the low and high shelving bands, plus a mid band with six frequency ranges.
Further, there’s also a high-pass filter and a CV-controllable stereo width processor.
On the connection side, the module has stereo I/O on mini jacks and CV control over the width. With 14HP, the LEQA is quite compact and offers a good amount of knob-based tweaking
First Impression
Two interesting new modules from 4ms.
4ms MESA will be released in August 2026 for $399, while LEQA will be out on June 30, 2026, for $345.
More information here: 4MS Company
a $400 hardware version of a vcv rack reverb? how embarrassing to have that in your rack.
Why?
because they’ve taken something that is free and repackaged it for $400
with your logic it’s utterly embarrassing to have any hardware at all… just don’t buy it if you don’t want it 🤷🏻♂️
The value of it is, this way you don’t have to look at a freaking computer, and you get to make music in the real world.
a computer screen is larger than this. what is the problem?