Sometimes the way out of darkness is hitting play – to reach deeper feelings in a way only music can. The challenge can be just getting the track queued. All due respect to algorithms, half the joy of doing that is finding someone you trust.

FL Studio users got a nice solstice gift – lots of new features, covered in their lifetime updates plan.

It’s not an exaggeration to say iZotope defined the modern distortion plug-in with Trash. Grabbing the deep, expansive Trash 2 plug-in for free is a no-brainer.

In a huge boon to coders and hackers, Resolume’s Arena, Avenue, and even modular Wires now all can be accessed as web servers. Want your smartphone to be able to dial into that visual creation? Now it’s easy.

It’s a way of going truly off the grid – MIDI Tape Recorder captures and recalls performances as sample-accurate, like tape. It’s free for Mac and iOS now, from developer Geert Bevin / Uwyn.

Imagine VR not as passive experience, but as the ability to “play” all those immersive elements – from 3D forms and architectures to spatial sound – live like an instrument. That sums up what has made the Patchathon artist intensives with PatchXR so engaging. Here’s the newest work from late this year, made in just days by invited artists, live in VR.

Poppy pianos, house keys, lofi stuff, and tweakable racks are all yours for free for Ableton Live in the just-released Foundation: Keys by Abletunes.

The preeminent multi-platform touch control app just keeps improving since its next-gen reboot earlier this year. And that means the ability to get your hands on music and visuals wherever you are, on any OS. So let’s catch up with Hexler.

Sleigh bells … and tubular bells and glockenspiel and more ring, are you listenin’? It’s a sparkly, icy sample pack with crackling fire for whatever wintry wonderland you want to make … and if that’s not your speed, it’s also a cricket-chirping siren screaming LA atmospheric field recording festival of sound.

Hotrod your Ableton Live sessions with still more Max for Live freebies. From J74 aka Fabrizio Poce comes a chord generator, phase vocoder, and stereo chorus for free, plus a lot more updates if you spend a few bucks on the packs.