Afrorack with a DIY MIDI-CV converter on the Nile, robotic shakers and kick drum

Our friend Brian aka Afrorack has kept up his must-see series of DIY video tutorials in his home Uganda. And as ever, he’s producing brilliant instruments and fantastic music on a budget, thanks to some serious ingenuity.

From Hong Kong, broadcasts of expansive experimental and underground music

It’s another winter of tough commercial pressures and pandemic limits on gathering. But Hong Kong Community Radio – and now CFK Radio – provide some shining examples of how to create new spaces for far-out sounds.

SOMA has a new compact 8-bit noise synth and sequencer for 130€

The romantic engineering synth maker has something small and affordable, a post-apocalyptic weirdo instrument from designer Kakos Nonos. It’s part chip music, part noise experiment, in the grand tradition of stuff like the Atari Punk Console. Meet Rumble of Ancient Times aka Грохот древних эпох. It’s great to see Soma using some of their recent […]

MadMapper MadLaser video tutorials have arrived, for your live laser instructional needs

Create Digital Laser Motion? The laser control tool from the makers of MadMapper now has a video tutorial series to walk you through its workflow.

8-bit painting – watch a DIY light pen for the IBM PCjr

Jozef Bogin, Slovak engineer and hacker, has just posted this short video of a light pen – PCjr interface, and whenever we have events planning again, I really want to see it as a VJ act.

Alvin Lucier, who saw sonic poetry in pencils and soundscapes everywhere, has died

An imaginative generation continues to pass away from us, now with the death of Alvin Lucier.

Here’s a free custom VCV Rack module controlling tempo and time in Ableton Live

Now that VCV Rack Pro 2 is here, Rack works properly as a plug-in. And here’s an advanced application for it – trying new ways of working with clock and time.

VCV Rack 2 arrives – standalone is still free, $99 intro gets plug-ins with VST right away – details

The anticipated VCV Rack 2 is here and out of beta. What will it support? What does the release mean for compatibility with modules? What will it cost if you opt for the ‘Pro’ version? All the details here – but yeah, you can finally run VCV Rack inside your DAW.

The Prince symbol has been salvaged from a 1993 floppy disk

Prince was way ahead of non-fungible tokens – with a symbol that was intended to make life a pain-in-the-a** for the record label. (Non-f***able totem?) And now Anil Dash and Limor Fried/Adafruit have brought back that image from a floppy.

Polyend and Cyclone Analogic have rare discounts on their hardware

Two last hardware deals for you in the Black Friday – Cyber Monday sales – Polyend and TR/TB clonemaker Cyclone Analogic have discounts on their excellent boutique hardware. Polyend has a 15% discount (“SALE15”) on everything they make – that includes two machines that have reached the end of their life, the beautiful Perc drumming […]