A Namm question: what should modern music tools feel like

Hi yall, Noam here.

I wanted to follow up on my last email about 2026 and the move from Safari Pedals to Safari Audio. There’s a question I keep coming back to this week, especially around NAMM:

What should modern music tools actually feel like?

Because if I’m being honest, I’m excited about where things are going and also a little nervous.

AI is moving insanely fast. Every day there’s another demo that can generate a track, clone a voice, write lyrics, “finish” a mix, do the whole thing. And part of me thinks: wow. That’s incredible.

Another part of me thinks: wait… if music can be generated in a click, what happens to the part we all love? The messy part. The human part. The “I don’t know what I’m doing but I’m chasing a feeling” part.

And then there’s the DAW question. Are DAWs still the center of music creation in 2026?

Or are we heading toward a world where the DAW becomes just one option, and creation starts somewhere else: inside an instrument, inside an app, inside a browser, inside a conversation?

I don’t have a clean answer yet. I’m not writing this as an announcement. I’m writing it because I’m genuinely thinking about it, and I want you to know how we’re thinking at Safari too.

What I do feel pretty confident about is this: Inspiration and creativity still matter.

And the tools worth building are the ones that make you want to keep going.

That’s what Safari Pedals was for me from day one. Taking the feeling of hardware pedals, the immediacy, the commitment, the fun, and bringing it into the box. Not “perfect sound.” More like: “oh… this made me smile. Let’s keep chasing that.”

So when we say Safari Audio, it’s not “Safari but bigger.” It’s more like Safari trying to stay true to the original feeling, while the whole world changes around us.

We want to build instruments that feel alive and playful. The kind you open when you’re tired, or stuck, and it pulls something out of you anyway.

And yes, we’re building AI too, But AI in the context of inspiration rather then “replacing” the process. More like AI that helps you hear what you’re doing, understand what you’re missing, and move forward faster, without taking the steering wheel.

I want Safari tools to feel like a creative friend in the room. A little wild. A little imperfect. A little brave. The kind of tool that pushes you to try one more take, one more idea, one more weird knob turn.

If you’ve been with us since the early Safari days, thank you. You’re the reason we can even have these conversations and build with this kind of intention.

If you joined more recently, welcome. You’re joining right as we’re asking the big questions, and building the next chapter in real time.

More soon,
Noam