Torso S-4’s 2.0 OS makes it the performance sampler it wanted to be

Torso Electronics S-4 already looked compelling – hard-core granular sampler hardware just when that genre needed a boost. But we were waiting on the 2.0 OS to deliver on that promise. Now it’s here, with macros, scenes, varispeed recording, unlimited sample length, dynamic modulation, and more.

Barry Vercoe, who made coding sound accessible to all, has died

Barry Vercoe, composer and music scientist, founded MIT’s electronic music efforts and helped shape the Lab’s efforts in digital synthesis and machine listening and learning. But his biggest impact came outside the academy: as the inventor of Csound, he took the original innovations of Max Mathews and made them accessible to everyone. The live coding scene that followed has transformed the practice of coding sound into a new form of musical performance.

Peter Kirn - June 17, 2025

Live round-up: 12.2 is out, vids, a free Grain Slicer Rack, tuner, and more

Ableton Live 12.2 went from beta to public yesterday. And there’s more for all Live users – Iftah has an accessible tuner device called Pitch Pipe and Side Brain has an awesome free instrument rack for performing granular tricks, among other new add-ons. You don’t have time to wade through hours of videos; let’s put everything in one place and get bouncing tracks/spectral resonating/granulating.

Peter Kirn - June 12, 2025

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