The Hewlett-Packard Word Generator 8006A has become an unintentional legend of sound lovers, transforming this obscure lab equipment into a kind of instrument. So you knew that a Hainbach/AudioThing collab to produce a software version was inevitable. B00GA is available now as a macOS, Windows, or Linux plug-in, or an iOS/iPadOS AUv3 plug-in or app.

Those sprawling synths are great, but when it comes to exploring a sound design idea compositionally, there’s nothing quite like a modular patch. I’ve long admired Adam Pietruszko’s work for AAS, so it’s a treat to watch him break down a patch and hear what he did on Rotors, bringing those leftfield sounds to dancefloor contexts.

In a single, fader-covered box with a capacious patchbay, Alt brings together creative, generative sound worlds beneath a unified interface. FM, dual filters, random slew, scales, light sensors, a mic: it’s not every day you see a device so obsessed with exploration. And now it’s in preorder mode, shipping in December, making me wish for a residency somewhere in a cozy arctic cabin or something.

It’s the full SuperCollider synth, without the installation. You can add it to any site (self-hosted). It performs seamlessly via WebAssembly. But most importantly, it’s fun, colorful, and comes with examples and an OSC API so it can interface with live coding tools like Tidal (or your favorite). And you can mess around with it right now, for free.

It might be a funny intersection of interests. But developer Matt Greenwood built a macOS-native clone of the legendary Winamp in Swift, MIT-licensed, with MP3 and FLAC playback and Milkdrop visualization support (including fullscreen).

Composer Annie Hui-Hsin Hsieh, known for her concert outings, shifts to a lushly organic electronic album in flowing, humming, fragmented electronics for her debut album as a producer. And it comes with an interactive music video powered by Max and RNBO, so if you’re in the mood to VJ yourself, flying around some Gaussian splats, here’s your chance.

We don’t need another great reverb, let alone another great Valhalla reverb/echo. But we get one anyway. Sean Costello and Valhalla say this one is focused on transparency and realism — plus modulation and a bunch of echo modes when you want them. The now is FutureVerb.

For the final episode in this trilogy on learning Max for Live and Ableton DSP Objects, we’re going to keep the focus on working fast. We’ll learn how to use Ableton DSP to prototype instruments quickly, play expressively, and hack them with some tricks and mods beyond what the stock Live Instruments provide.

The concept prototype Project LYDIA by Roland Future Design Lab uses machine learning tech from Neutone to turn any input into a “tone.” But this isn’t just about “modeling” — far from it. It lets you process anything with anything else. Beatboxing, field recordings — anything becomes an input. That emphasis on sampling and messing around in the real world might make it the opposite of genAI sound. This is tech that demands you go out and play.

01000011 01101111 01101111 01101100 00100001! Binary Synth runs in your browser, and translates any binary file from its zeros and ones into audio synthesis and MIDI messages. The code is available under an MIT license, too, if you want to play with it.