It’s what The Guardian called the “Pulitzer of the new instrument world.” There are paid commissions and star judges. And this year is different, because (of course) the whole event goes online. Welcome to the 2021 Guthman Musical Instrument Competition.

An update to Zoom today helps address its woefully low-quality audio – essential, as classes, music rehearsals, and even conferences rely on this tool.

Experimental, “chaos”-driven, West Coast synthesis is now delightfully popular. And the creative folks at Newfangled Audio have developed a monosynth – free, and they’re quick to add, without iLok.

Ash Lauryn, Detroit-born journalist, DJ, and creator now based in Atlanta, helms Beatportal this month and champions “Black and underground” music in all her work. Here’s where to find it all so you make sure not to miss it.

What if Conway’s Game of Life, a Tamigotchi, a Turing machine, a Game Boy, and a stack of ecology and philosophy books got mixed up in a transporter accident and then spawned… a new monome program? Well, it’d probably look like this.

Party like it’s 2002. By popular demand, Sonic Bloom has recreated the “vintage” color skins of Ableton Live 2, 18 years ago.

At some point, you don’t want another plate reverb. You want the experimental sounds of a phase vocoder combined with a physics model – like in this free Max for Live effect.

Detroit is “not going to go along with what everyone else is doing” – and yes, for all that history, its scene has new artists growing. Here’s a look at an essential local label and community hub.

Arturia’s MicroFreak is about as much sonic exploration as you can get in any single low-cost synth on the market now. And now it adds more – a new vocoder.

From Reason Studios comes a new physical modeling instrument, Friktion, focused on bowed and plucked strings. The twist: it lets you push the envelope sonically, but never loses its cool.