Celebrate #404day with great grooves from Japan and one cute t-shirt

I expect everyone could use a breather and some grooves. Japan is there for us, flooding my algorithm with a bunch of groovy beats – and Roland has an adorable t-shirt drop again for the superfans.

Therminator, with a curvy abstract glyph of a box with cables and a dot in the center engraved into the 3D-printed case, USB-C and jack connections

Ther’minator by Eric Singer transforms LIDAR to modular, CV

Eric Singer is back. The interactive artist and inventor helped the idea of robotics and alternative interfaces break out to wider audiences over the past decades – and now he’s gearing up to put LIDAR in your modular rig or other devices with analog CV inputs.

Peter Kirn - April 4, 2025

Roland SP-404MKII V5 now does Serato DJ and Studio: free update

On 404 Day Eve, Roland is squeezing more power into the SP-404MKII. This time, you can use the device to add hands-on control to Serato DJ Lite/Pro and Serato Studio, combining Serato’s sampling, beatmaking, live, and DJing capabilities with the 404’s familiar layout and effects. Once you’ve got the 404, you can start playing with all of it for free. Here’s what’s included, and how we got here.

Peter Kirn - April 3, 2025

Reason’s classic ReCycle is updated, free, and more useful than you might think

Peter Kirn - April 2, 2025

Ableton Note 1.3 adds MIDI editor in free update – an ideal Move companion

Peter Kirn - April 2, 2025

Two iPhones 16e shown on their side in white, floating in a white void. Image courtesy Apple.

iOS and iPadOS 18.4 add Braille and VoiceOver features for all devices

Peter Kirn - March 31, 2025

The best of Universal Audio’s native plug-ins, in Spark or standalone

Peter Kirn - March 30, 2025

VCV Rack 2.6: multilingual, drag multiple cables, fit in view – all for free

Peter Kirn - March 28, 2025

Still from Haken Continuum video with hands on the red-and-black horizontal ribbon controller of the Continuum Fingerboard; visualization above with Harmonic Resonator, circles overlaid on keyboard showing multi-dimensional expression.

Haken Continuum deep dive, as composition blurs with sound design

Peter Kirn - March 26, 2025

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