Open source Linux drum machine Hydrogen has made its way to Mac OS X; Johnathan Dempsey has created binaries for easy installation (10.3 required). Hydrogen is still in development, but this is worth trying, and you can bet you'll see many more Linux audio tools on the Mac. Install Jack first if you haven't already, […]

It's not enough to run rough emulations of vintage Roland instruments on your Commodore 64 — you need a way of making Christmas Cards in a vintage Roland font, fast. Fonts.com to the rescue: download a very convincing-looking rip-off the Roland font on this monophonic synth and drum machine. Resumes look fantastic in the TB-303 […]

The highly-anticipated Nuendo 3 upgrade, Steinberg's would-be "Pro Tools killer", is now shipping worldwide. What's Nuendo? It's the high-end sibling to Cubase, and Steinberg's ultra-high-end media production software. This new release is big news for post production in particular, with AAF support, X-Send integration, Media Management tools, an a new Warp to Picture features, plus […]

Steinberg says they have a "Christmas gift for all of our Cubase SX3 customers": the free 3.01 update announced today includes a new RoomWorks reverb. It's surround-capable, "studio-class," includes 60+ presets, and scales CPU usage to your machine and project usage. Many minor updates, too, some that will make a big difference — the MIDI […]

For those of you who haven't already seen this on Sonic State and Music Thing, soft synth developer GMedia has turned vintage synth geekery into a card game. Yes, folks, it's Vintage Synth Trumps, the game where you triumph by collectibility alone. And at just GBP7.95 including shipping, it's a perfect stocking stuffer — send […]

Jerry Halstead has taken a beautiful photo of the Tranzport wireless DAW remote, my essential tech of the week for Gizmodo, for those of you who can't get enough of drooling over tech. The device looks just gorgeous; I'll obviously post when this ships, expected in March 2005. Jerry also talks a bit about the […]

O'Reilly LinuxDevCenter.com today has an extensive interview and featurette on the development of the flagship power app for Linux music, Rosegarden. Easily the most full-featured free application for music, Rosegarden features MIDI and audio sequencing, effects, soft synths, and even notation. I might take issue with the developers' claim that it matches most functionality of […]

For fans of vintage synths painstakingly emulated in software, Arturia are rockstars. They're best-known for their Moog emulations, but we've been waiting for Arturia to bring another classic to software, the ARP 2600 synthesizer, since the software was first shown at AES. It's here: the Arturia ARP2600 V. For those of you don't know what […]

Tom at Musicthing is stunned by this as I am. Follow the chronology: 1982: Roland creates the TB-303 mono synth and TR-606 drum sequencer, a cheezy device in itself but one that becomes the cornerstone for electronic dance music. 1982: Commodore introduces the C64 computer, with an enviable synth built-in. 2004: Prophet 64 is released, […]

Ah, old Acme and his disappearing, reappearing link. For those of you who were dismayed that Monday's link to vintage drum machines recreated as downloadable Flash files went down, that server appears to be back. In other news, for fans of Soviet Synths still not sated by an online museum of instruments, Scott Peer from […]