When it comes to chilly polar sounds, it’s tough to top the incredible Antarctic Weddell seal. These creatures live in some of the most extreme conditions on Earth, above and below sea ice – and scientists are discovering more and more about their audible and inaudible vocalizations.
Music
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Terje Isungset makes musical instruments out of carved Arctic ice
Acoustic instruments we think of largely in wood, string, gut, metal. Terje Isungset has spent decades making music out of ice.
Cherry Audio Voltage Modular software hits 1500 modules, adds exotic vintage Moog-style tools
It’s the unsung software modular platform – Voltage Modular has an eminently usable interface and now some 1500 modules. And now a bunch of rare Moog-derived effects, oscillators, filters, and vocoder they created with MRB arrive where they belong: natively in the Voltage Modular platform.
Trace the Black roots of disco, house, and techno in videos and reading – summer school is in
What a week – the Juneteenth commemoration in the US, Chicago house music interest trending as it’s repurposed for new big-name pop, and the death of disco legend Patrick Adams. Every day is a good day to know your roots, so let’s do this.
Hard as queer: Brutal Gegen releases and videos capture a party that’s defiant as ever
Forget for a second industrial and techno and “queerness” as social media fashion and commodity. Don’t even worry if you particularly like the music on this EP. Berlin’s Gegen remains a bastion of opposition to norms – and in spite of that, perhaps its greatest feat has managed to be successful anyway.
Free monosynth BLEASS Monolit for Mac, Windows, iPhone, iPad
It’s free, lightweight, simple, and clean – but make no mistake. Monolit can get big with sound, with FM, massive unison up to 7 voices, filter drive, and plenty of modulation.
Tooll3, VJ-friendly free procedural visuals, puts some sweetness in sweet spot (Windows)
If you feel like a kid in a candy store, here’s still more eye candy you can make for free. A little bit of patchable generative graphics, a little bit of rendering live and interactively, and a little bit of keyframe animation and editing so you can hold it together? That really satisfies. Check out […]
Arturia FX Collection 3: now with tube and op-amp distortion and more enhancements
It started as small collections of effects “you’d actually use,” and Arturia’s full FX Collection suite has grown well into that. I’ve been hands-on with the latest edition – here’s all that’s new.
CLAP is a new open-source plug-in format from Bitwig, u-he – do we need it, and who will use it?
Bitwig and plug-in maker u-he today are announcing a new plug-in format into beta, dubbed CLAP, for CLever Audio Plug-in API. It’s open and has features missing from the leading proprietary formats – and boasts some significant support at launch. So what will that mean for you?
Review: Here’s Moog Mavis, packing analog Moog modular essentials into a 24-jack, $349 box
It looks like another budget semi-modular, but look closer: Moog’s latest is a distillation of a lot of what distinguishes a Moog modular voice, with some significant twists (wavefolder!). And it can work on its own or as an ideal companion to other patchable instruments. Let’s break it down.