Roland’s latest handheld boutique synth is a departure. Instead of a synth or drum machine, it was inspired by the SP-404. Here’s the skinny on its onboard sampling, effect, and sequencer features, direct from the source.

Ableton Operator, the FM instrument designed by Robert Henke, is celebrating 20 years since its (internal) debut. Want to celebrate? How about a ton of FM synthesis and Operator history, 100 free presets from Robert Henke and Christian Kleine, and more links? And now is a great time to celebrate those years – or even try Operator sound design for the first time.

Dark, hard techno producer and DJ Chiara Bubu, aka OCD, is working through chemotherapy and fighting cancer. She’s also using that as an opportunity to talk about the disease and treatment and remind audiences that young people can get cancer, too.

Devotees of the new Roland MC boxes said it all along: these boxes are deep — if you’re willing to dive in. Developer Benedetto Schiavone has done what Roland didn’t and created a comprehensive editor for everything the MC-101 and MC-707 can do, hacking into the hidden features of the MCs.

“I’ve been too long, I’m glad to be back”: our MeeBlip geode synth is finally available again in a limited, 100-unit run. For the Nightshade Edition, we’ve given it an all-black livery and aluminum knobs, and we’re hand-signing and numbering every synth.

Expressive E’s 2.0 firmware has arrived for their flagship Osmose expressive keyboard. With better external MIDI support and improved preset management and navigation, this significant release addresses some of what users most wanted.

WaveTracker is a fun, free tracker for Windows that features wavetable editing, more than 100 instrument macros, and visualization for a glitchy good time. And that brings up the many other free trackers you might try out these days…

Aslice, an experimental community-based model for sharing DJ revenue with producers, announced today it is closing its doors after paying over $400,000 to producers. The announcement is accompanied by an independent report on Aslice’s data – with some sobering revelations.

Against the unlikely backdrop of top horror film festival MOTELx, Lisbon will host a beautiful spectrum of DIY workshops, audiovisual experimentation, video art, and synth building from across Portugal and Europe this week.

Sinevibes’ Artemiy Pavlov features in a free online sound design showcase this Wednesday on the ultra-affordable KORG NTS-1 and NTS-3. And we already have an exciting sneak peak of what Artemiy is bringing to those platforms soon.