With community radio and online features, the metaverse in cities like Chengdu and Shanghai continues to be a conduit for community. Efforts by independent community streamers could serve as an example to the rest of us figuring out our post-pandemic world.

Here’s another great underground DAW. The elegant, tape-inspired MultitrackStudio runs on desktop and iPad – and now not only does it to polyphonic expression, but it breaks ground in supporting MIDI 2.0, as well.

Miller Puckette, the original creator of Max and Pure Data, has been working on keeping connected remotely, too. In this video, he reveals how he plays with a percussionist using Pd and Ableton Live, then joins Cycling ’74’s David Zicarelli to talk about the future of collaboration in modular environments.

Resolve 17 quietly exited beta recently – then turned heads by releasing a speedy Apple Silicon M1 version, too. That release also runs faster on PC, while you’re at it, and this is kind of the tool that does everything on every platform and a lot of it for free. So it’s a video editor. […]

The age of YouTube channels about stomp pedals now has its own… well, not quite Joseph and the Technicolor Dreamcoat so much as its own Red, White and Blaine. But it is historically accurate.

Bored by the Grammys? Try the Guthmans instead. The Guthman Musical Instrument Competition has selected its award winners, as musicians re-imagine acoustic, electroacoustic, electromagnetic, and digital all at once, with phenomenal results.

One tool gives you 8-bit retro digital sound effects (“bitcrush”/decimator) with loads of extras, for kind of every platform you can imagine – and it’s free.

Music gear and software supports MIDI. Visual software supports OSC. You have a network and want to easily run MIDI over it. Sound familiar? Here’s a clever free tool (with open code you can also learn from) that acts as an essential tool.

It’s like esoteric music tech bingo: Mutable Instruments Eurorack meets just intonation meets open source meets virtualization meets microprocessor programming meets soldering.

Make no mistake – music production is attracting investors. Just weeks after announcing it was acquiring a majority stake in Native Instruments, Francisco Partners now will create a parent company for both NI and iZotope, making two of the largest names in audio software “sister companies.”