On 404 Day Eve, Roland is squeezing more power into the SP-404MKII. This time, you can use the device to add hands-on control to Serato DJ Lite/Pro and Serato Studio, combining Serato’s sampling, beatmaking, live, and DJing capabilities with the 404’s familiar layout and effects. Once you’ve got the 404, you can start playing with all of it for free. Here’s what’s included, and how we got here.

ReCycle, the sample/loop manipulator by Reason Studios, has a refreshed new look – and now it’s free. The REX format works everywhere from Ableton Live to Pro Tools to KORG Gadget. Also – wait, did its name start as a reference to a 1993 Disney instructional video?

Ableton Note 1.3 for iOS adds the ability to sequence beats, drums, and chords in a compact MIDI editor. And while oddly Ableton doesn’t talk about it, the combination of Note and Ableton’s Move hardware is an appealing one-two mobile punch.

Apple Intelligence may be the headlines you’ll see for iOS 18.4 and iPadOS 18.4. But any device that can run iOS/iPadOS 18 also gets new accessibility features for blind and limited vision users.

Manila’s ELEPHANT (aka thatelephantparty) has a collection of curated culture that deserves echoing here. All that, and let’s also spotlight some meaningful music that you almost certainly haven’t heard.

Universal Audio’s Spark subscription (native plug-ins) is on sale for 99 cents for 3 months for new customers through the end of the day Monday the 31st. That seems a good time to check in on the subscription offering, which is on my short list of subscriptions I’d consider. (If you prefer perpetual licenses, though, I’ve got some quick picks on their sale there, too.)

“Chaos and resiliance” – the words become cruel cliché when applied on repeat to Beirut’s music scene. But the three latest releases from the Ruptured label tell a sonic story that’s not from some periphery, but the center of our world. They do so in collage — like film fragments (one from a filmmaker). That include’s today’s debut of Ripe from Postcards and in the recent sound narratives of Nour Sokhon, Stefan Christoff, and Camille Cabbabe.

Both VCV Rack Free and VCV Rack Pro 2.6 are out, including the ability to Zoom to fit / Zoom to fit modules and drag multiple cables stacked on a port. It’s a nice upgrade for this free and open source modular tool (and its partly-proprietary Pro package, too) – while we wait on upcoming v3.

When reality slaps you, slap back. Poly_Chain, aka Kyiv-born multi-talent Sasha Zakrevska, has a pure-fire mix of “bumpy electro” and adrenaline-driving broken beats, a lot of it unreleased (though some of it you can and should buy.) The Choreography and Merriment departments say you’re welcome.

Is it sound design? Or is it composition? Yes. Here’s a full exploration of the Haken Continuum, the oft-misunderstood expressive device, as a musical instrument, plus creations for the hardware. It might inspire you to rethink how you view digital interfaces for performance.