It’s what VCV Rack users have been waiting for. Instruō has Apple Silicon-native support for its software module clones, plus, for all platforms, the cèis envelope generator and powerful øchd modulation expander. And it’s all freeware.
Music
RIP Dax Pierson, Árni Grétar Jóhannesson aka Futuregrapher
Music January 6, 2025
Lists aside, these 2024 albums are personal must-listens
Music Reviews Stories December 31, 2024
Saying goodbye to 2024 with music and reflections: David’s picks
Music Reviews Stories December 31, 2024
Tbilisi’s music scene is still out in the streets, defiant
While the year draws to a close and much of the world is focused on holidays, Tbilisi’s music community is out in force in ongoing protests, fighting for Georgian democracy.
Interview: Michael Vincent Waller connects concert music and hip-hop
From La Monte Young and Marian Zazeela to Valee and Gangsta Boo, Michael Vincent Waller talks to us about collaboration, mixing, and connecting the dots between modern Classical/new concert music and hip-hop.
Free Manifest Audio Percotone is a delicious percussive monosynth
Noah Pred has a fantastic free treat out on Manifest Audio for Ableton Live and Max for Live. Percotone is monophonic, expressive, playable, and full of tonal, pitch-mangling delights. It’s just the thing for sneaking in some quick sound experiments in the waning days of the year.
Live radio from Gaza, Khan Younis and Bethlehem-Hebron choirs meet
On December 24 and 25, radio will broadcast live from Gaza and produce a live-streamed exchange between a choir in Bethlehem and Hebron and one in Khan Younis. It’s an unprecedented live connection to a world whose violence has been shrouded in darkness. It’s also a way for live streaming to reconnect a Palestine divided across the West Bank and Gaza.
Patch in VR using gestures, not controllers: PatchWorld update
Virtual patching has reached a major milestone: you don’t need a controller. Using just your hands and natural gestures, you can now build up entire interactive worlds, connect virtual wires, tweak knobs and faders, and play virtual instruments in PatchWorld on Meta Quest. Combined with Mixed Reality, virtual physics, and support for OpenSoundControl and Ableton Live and Link integration, it’s a glimpse of how mixed reality and VR can work for music making.
Strange-R modules: navigate generative melodic contours
Stochastic Instruments has a preview of some tasty generative sequencer modules. Random walks meet music theory, and what you get is Melodic Contour Sequencing, navigated with knobs, voltage, and (on the larger module) a joystick.
Minimoog’s missing link: how an icon was born in summer of 1970
How did the Minimoog take shape – and set the course of synthesizer and musical instrument history? Among many revelations in JoE Silva’s The Minimoog Book for BJOOKS, we learn how the synth’s early prototypes evolved into the instrument we know today. Read the excerpt here.
Freebies: Eventide’s one-knob fixers, DeBoom and Sheen Machine
Eventide is in on the holiday gift game, too, with a giveaway through New Year’s Eve of one-knob signal separation fixers for low-end thump and high-end air.
Freebies: Universal Audio Pure Plate Reverb
Universal Audio also has their holiday freebie announcement, and it’s lovely – the Pure Plate Reverb, licensed for both native systems and their UAD-2/Apollo hardware.