Listening to birdsong — and the instruments that mimic it

Okay, class: today’s reading includes a short but inspiring passage by Estevan Carlos Benson, who has lately been suggesting we treat our musical listening biome in the same way that we do our gut. Along the way, we get birdsongs and whistle bottles from Ecuador millennia ago and Peru today.

Max 9.2: V8 FFTs, better Windows support, Ableton abl goodies, more

Cycling ’74 has a surprisingly packed Max 9.2 update out now, with improvements and additions for Jitter, the Web, V8 (JavaScript), buffers, video on Windows, Gen, and the Ableton abl collection. It’s a slew of nice stuff for patchers.

Peter Kirn - October 14, 2026

Bana Haffar’s Ancient Future mutates memory and meaning in machines

If you feel at sea in a starless night, Ancient Future might summon charts from the ancestors, fragmented through samples and voltages, a hauntology of modular deconstruction. Bana Haffar, co-founder of Modular on the Spot in LA and Beirut Synthesizer Center in Lebanon, has an essential offering out this month.

Peter Kirn - October 13, 2026

UA Volt Gen 2, Max: built-in dynamics and preamp tone, displays, more

Peter Kirn - October 13, 2026

Beads, last of the Mutable Instruments modules, is now open source

Peter Kirn - October 12, 2026

teenage engineering might quit synths, but parody can’t quit them

Peter Kirn - October 9, 2026

Time-bending, granular-powered HyperWarp: hands-on, free pack

Peter Kirn - October 6, 2026

West Coast, with penguins: Aaltoverb on Linux; Aalto 2 coming soon

Peter Kirn - October 4, 2026

Pure Data (Pd) 0.57 inbound, enduring free software for tinkering with sound

Peter Kirn - October 2, 2026