It turns out you don’t need VST2 and AU and AAX and CLAP versions of the same plug-in. Here’s a free, fast command-line tool that gets rid of them in a hurry, with options for particular configurations, on macOS.

In a dark and often soulless world, the Square Enix Music Channel is a total oasis — like an instant-action antidepressant. Want to see the Osaka sound team play with a sushi piano? Want to hear composer Yoko Sihomura talk about figure skating? Want to tune into an hours-long stream of Final Fantasy III music? They’re here for you. I guarantee you it’s better than anything else you could possibly be watching.

Beloved by digital reverb buffs and shoegaze aficionados, not one but two classic reverbs are now in unofficial plug-in emulations — the MicroVerb and the MIDIVERB II. That includes the full range of MIDIVERB multi-effects, from gated reverbs to chorus and triggered flange, plus the grit and reverse of the Micro. Let’s travel back to the hottest gear of the late 1980s, for free.

Soundtoys’ Decapitator, Radiator, and Little Radiator (they’re different!) each is capable of nuanced saturation, compression, drive, and tone for mix tasks. Or you can unleash bloody murder. So if you’re in the need of a way to direct rage into sound for some reason — we’ve got you.

In a way, it’s funny how complicated we make modulation. We wind up creating layers of envelopes and free-running oscillations just to get what we want. Tomavatars’ MSteppySnap, once you grok its approach, is nothing like that. This is steppy snappy whooshy glorgy modulation you can play, capture, and trigger intuitively.

Ableton tends to discount its products only a couple of times a year, so this flash sale is worth noting. They’re offering 25% off Live 12 Suite and Standard, upgrades, and all Packs, now through Wednesday, April 29. So if you’ve fallen behind on Live versions, or been eyeing those Max for Live Devices I’m constantly writing up, here’s your chance. Let’s refresh our brains on what’s in the upgrades.

Memory may be vanishing, phones and laptops may be getting downgraded specs. But we’re enjoying an unexpected renaissance of mobile samplers. And of all of these, Casio might pack the most fun into a single package. The SXC-1’s Japanese preorder was announced and sold out this week, and with good reason: this looks like the most fun we’ve had with Casio since the 80s and 90s.

May 29: that’s the date Boards of Canada is back with Inferno. And you must be excited about it, because Bleep is down. But we have a dreamy faux-VHS tape to watch and hear, anyway.

For over two decades, Rafael Anton Irisarri has been carving out a space that exists somewhere between the tectonic weight of modern classical and the vaporous drift of ambient music. Whether recording under his own name or as The Sight Below, Irisarri’s work is characterized by a physical sense of scale – soundscapes that feel like they have weather systems and geological history.

What if an integrated plug-in instrument could rival even full-blown modulars? That’s the question posed by u-he’s Zebra 3, out now at long last for macOS, Windows, and Linux. It’s unlikely any other soft synth takes on just this much synthesis territory, or with this much depth. From spline-based morphing oscillators to physical modeling and […]