Expression plus free patching: Sensel Morph integrates with Pure Data

DIY music instrument making with visual patching is like having a blank slate. Now there’s some blank-slate hardware to match.

Explore tuning: Bitwig, VCV Rack, reading, and why it matters

Discovering tuning outside standard piano tuning can feel like finding food with seasoning and spices for the first time. Here are some new resources – strong enough for tuning experts, easy enough for beginners (well, some of them).

An urgent music broadcast from Palestine draws an epic worldwide lineup in protest

Fil Mishmish – in the time of the apricots – is 72 hours of Palestinian protest music, airing online now. In an age of global disturbance, it’s drawing artists and radio stations across continents, echoing calls for systematic change.

Samplr’s creator made a free sample player for the MacBook Touch Bar

The MacBook Touch Bar just got a new use. From the maker of the excellent iPad app Samplr, this free utility makes a multi-touch sample player – and it’s surprisingly capable.

Indie games hold a warped mirror to our online dystopias – and you’ll want to play along

Games are the perfect medium for the moment for music and art, able to work in the midst of pandemic and echoing the dystopias around them. And oh yeah, they’re also something you might want to play.

Free tool: make any Mac app a video source with Syphon Virtual Webcam

Virtual, online, streaming tools – a lot of them are inflexible when it comes to inputs beyond just a webcam. The solution: a free utility that lets you route video from any Syphon app on the Mac. The Mac visual developer community is a friendly bunch. This time, the love comes from TroikaTronix, makers of […]

Synth Panels Designer makes lovely panels for modules and gear, for free

Eurorack and other modular formats, custom instruments, pedals – if you’re making a DIY instrument, this software makes it look all pretty-like, and it’s free. Now seems a great time to embrace DIY culture – audiences worldwide are stuck at home, but possibly ready to invest in gear. Synths Panel Designer, released last week, is […]

Pairing Mode: Listen to these new music releases right now, including some unsung gems

Channeling pain and ecstasy, from dance and avant-garde and genres newly brewed, Abadir to Cinthie to Lamin Fofana to patten to Pole, summer brings more spectacular ways to fill your hard drives and souls with music.

Hypnospace Outlaw is set in a weird 90s fake Internet – and it has its own music sequencer

It’s difficult to find an escape when pandemic and political unrest confine you to an Internet overwhelmed with the same. So – just use a fake Internet. With a fake 90s music sequencer and page builder. Seriously.

Plunge into the world of Sun Ra and the Outer Space Visual Communicator

When Earth seems to lack perspective, call on a Saturnian. And it’s a perfect time the Sun Ra Arkestra is back, and the Outer Space Visual Communicator is running, too.