Hey, that other engine starting with the letter ‘U’ is looking pretty amazing, too. Unity 2021.2 Tech Stream is here, with loads of artist-friendly features. And you were worried what to do with your winter (southern hemisphere summer).

Bitwig users get a bunch of goodies in the just-announced 4.1. There are tons of Note FX devices with various features for organic and musical and simulated physics-based playability, plus a really smart way of handling color palettes, chains that trigger when you release Sampler notes, and more. She’s like a rainbow If you’re on […]

Live just turned 20 years old, but there’s still no end to personalized ideas for how to control it. The latest is open·control, and it’s focused on quick, customizable triggers for the Session View, Looper, and editing – as a pocket-sized remote or via pedal inputs.

In a world when so much seems virtual, remote, simulated, and yet oddly pre-scripted, Berlin’s Morphine Records turned in the month of October to something else. It was musical technology in raw and spontaneous form – intimate encounters, together in a room.

The floodgates are open, and not only are we seeing new Apple hardware, but M1 native plug-ins to take advantage of it, too. Eventide is the latest, bringing a massive arsenal of essential stuff. And the fact they run on iLok suggests more iLok-based plug-ins from other vendors are likely inbound soon, too.

garageCube, makers of MadMapper and the software that helped popularize projection mapping, are now about to take on frickin’ lasers. (Safety rules do apply here – very, very seriously.)

If Apple and PC makers aren’t inspiring you, there’s always teenage engineering. The Swedish maker of synths, sound gear, and electronics are now offering up their own custom PC case – orange, aluminum, with carry-handle, for mini-ITX and dual-slot GPU. It could be the start of someone’s killer portable music/gaming/VJ rig.

How great is live coding on Hydra, for free? It’s great enough that you’ll do it when you’ve never used code before. It’s great enough that – now with this new build – you’ll lie in bed with your iPhone or iPad and make trippy hypnotic visuals. You’ll plug in audio and stop using cameras and just permanently replace your visage with weird analog-style color feedback. It’s that great.

The MicroFreak already offered a ton of sonic madness in a small package – like a little oscillation playground. The v4 firmware that just dropped is essential, both in kinky new features and some overdue smoothed-out kinks.

The two user-requested features missing from Roland’s official editor/librarian are available via third-party tools. That means you can get a plug-in editor/librarian to store settings with DAW projects, and now you can even get started with drag-and-drop sample loading.