It’s Herb Deutsch’s birthday today – and what better way to celebrate than listen to him talk about music, sound, and synthesizers? The co-creator of the Moog modular is featured in a just-released video and is a great professor to all of us as always. Pull up a chair.

It’s all about positive and negative distortion. Today Minimal’s Rift 2.0 hits, with refreshed features, an updated look, and must-have Apple Silicon support. I’ve had an advance copy; here’s a hands-on.

Momo Müller continues a tear through our favorite music gear, with companion plug-ins to capture and recall automation and integrate with DAWs. The OP-Z is next – and gives your desktop some love alongside what Teenage Engineering already built for your mobile device.

This is a nice unexpected gift – some favorite adventurous sound artists and favorite futuristic Javier Senosiain architecture coming together in a new Arturia feature from Mexico.

Visual platform, VJ tool, and media server Resolume keeps adding cool stuff. 7.9 brings advanced monitoring right on your display, perfect for more complex settings and mapping, plus a big, easy search tool for bringing up all the modules (nodes) inside the Wire patching environment.

Real-time granulator Emergence spins incoming audio streams into rich textures – and it’s a free download, with inexpensive Patreon options available to support the author. I’ve been hands-on with it lately; here’s how to get more out of it.

It’s algorithmic, generative 70s sci-fi pulp, courtesy OpenAI. Artist Lewis tells us about how it was done. Meanwhile, see how many friends will pretend to have heard of Neytiri A. Quaritch’s pioneering tome, Green Glass is the Color of the Wind. Whether you’re a hardcore sci-fi fan or have just been rummaging 70s paperbacks at […]

It’s like ripping some of the delicious goodness out of the Noise Engineering modules and adding them to your DAW of choice or Reason Rack, for free. And now the trio – distortion and two synths – have substantially enhanced modulation, control, and usability.

Ah, the Fast Fourier Transform. You see it throughout audio and synthesis. And, of course, it’s the thing that … transforms … things. Faster. It’s a fast way of transforming things. Probably a guy named Fourier was involved. Wait – ever wish you knew more about what an FFT actually is and how it works – or even if you do know, wish you had a better visual reference in your own mind and a way to explain to others?

The Digitakt got updates last summer; this winter, it’s Digitone’s turn. Look to full dual mono mode for inputs, filter envelope delay, global FX mix, and other improvements like intensity for the displays, plus – of course – bug squashing.