Reason 14 is out of beta now, with faster workflows and a bunch of new effects packed into the new RV-9 Reverb Station, plus Dark Mode. I’ve been testing the beta for a few weeks now. Here’s your snapshot guide to what’s new and how to upgrade.

Lavendel Kranz’s lavender- and gold-colored Eurorack modules and eye-popping stand have long been a show favorite. But it’s time to free up some space to bring these home, because two must-have modules are in stock and production is ramping up. That includes ingenious ideas like a Eurorack module that outputs paraddidles.

Teenage Engineering’s two-channel K.O.-sidekick is an answer to the question “what if a battle mixer, but for mobile gear, with live FX?” And that could make it an ideal companion to more than just the Teenage Engineering kit you see in the photos. €189/$179. First impressions:

inMusic Brands, the US-based owner of Akai, Moog, Denon, Numark, Rane, and M-Audio, announced today that it will acquire Native Instruments. That puts NI tools like Traktor and Kontakt under the inMusic umbrella along with Plugin Alliance, iZotope, and Brainworx.

It was bound to happen. Now Eurorack hardware is emulating your computer. How the tables have turned! Or, um, mesas. But if you haven’t experienced Plateau yet, get ready to find out why it’s an instant favorite reverb — and one that a whole lot of people will want in their Eurorack skiff, too. Plateau, meet 4ms Mesa.

Soundhack creations endure years and decades, and now we get a new one. Think mighty morphing modeless modulation. Plexiphon is neither reverb or echo. It’s both, simultaneously, for spatial textural sounds you can shift fluidly. And in my quest to avoid being consumed by a sea of modules, this one just rose way up the list.

Elastic OSC expands on Émilie Gillet’s 24 original open-source Plaits oscillator models, adding 8-voice polyphony, expression (MPE), a modulation engine, and Elastic effects. And if that sounds like something you wish you had in your computer DAW and not just Android and iOS, now you’re in luck.

It’s the biggest Commodore Amiga news of the week: Pink Parrot Studio is launching a new “Dynamic Performance Sequencer” with powerful modulation and Trig Tools option, built for jamming right on the computer keyboard. And there’s a music album to match. But don’t worry: if you have one of those inferior PC or Macintosh machines, you can still get in on the fun with an emulator, no installation or setup required.

tbd 16 does everything the other standalone grooveboxes do, but in a handheld form factor, built as an open platform that you’re free to customize, mod, and hack. Choose the engines and apps you want to use. And get them all on a compact, standalone device that rivals big-name competitors in a fraction of the […]

It’s been decades in coming: what if you took the best parts of the classic Buchla complex oscillator with its, well, ziggy waveshapes, and built a friendly compact synth around it? It’s all that modular fun, but in a package that lets you tweak right away without connecting a single patch cord.