Machine learning isn’t necessarily always going to be about typing a prompt and letting the machine do the work. There are far subtler possibilities in generating tiles – and even how tiles are grafted together for seamless materials. Here’s a great deep dive into that topic.

We live in extraordinary times—times when the Internet has driven innovation and shared culture to previously unknown levels. And as with extreme performance in pro sports, we’re now treated to harmonization of the most tone-deaf renditions of the USA’s national anthem that are reimagining tonal harmony.

David Tudor’s Rainforest series is a beautiful artistic use of resonance, a well that never runs dry. So as I was going through some teaching notes today, I found myself returning to Tudor’s thoughts on the piece, plus a 360-degree record of a recreation at MOMA a few years back.

The founder of SOMA Laboratory announced he would participate in an event in occupied Crimea in September at a venue backed by the Russian government. That revelation has produced an outcry from Ukrainian and international musicians and cultural workers – starting with a former Mariupol resident.

Ableton Live has never had a built-in notation view, but one intrepid developer has created one in Max – and it’s free/donation- and community-supported. And it works beautifully.

From the creator of Strokes, Stacks is a unique 4-voice wavetable morphing polysynth combined with a 4-track granular looper. But that description doesn’t really do it justice: modeling and digital grunge combine to make a raunchy instrument that behaves like an experimental studio.

Falling through a hole in space-time from 1978-1979, the Oberheim OB-1 seems strangely at home as a monosynth (or polysynth) in 2024. GForce made an addictively good recreation in plug-in form – and it’s the perfect time for Tom Oberheim himself to weigh in on his creation.

Resolume Arena, Avenue, and Wire got a nice little bump update as this media server / live visual platform continues to excel. That includes features other environments should copy, like an easy transform widget and group-able, fold-able parameters for inputs.

Bitwig Studio, by default, has one love-it-or-leave-it color scheme. There are contrast controls, but that’s it. Without an official, supported solution, users have banded together to create their own customization – and some of the themes they’re producing look fantastic.

Talk about “business techno”: corporate techno appropriation continues, as Elon Musk has evidently opened an employee-only club space at the Gigafactory Berlin. And it’s emblematic of some political storm clouds gathering over the German capital.