ISF’s visual magic for Metal and macOS is now open source

Interactive Shader Format (ISF) code for working with Metal and rendering on macOS, plus an underlying Metal framework that powers live visual app VDMX6, are now free and open source. That’s great news even if you’re just toying around with shaders or working with visuals, as it opens up lots of possibilities to come.

SchneidersKeller brings Berlin synth landmark to London

The new Berlin is… London? Today is the opening of SchneidersKeller, the new Denmark Street outpost of the legendary SchneidersLaden, appropriately situated in the basement of Rough Trade. (It broke my hipster dosimeter!) And you’ll like the shopkeepers: the store is opened by our friends Edd Butterworth (London Modular, Sonic State) and Jean-Marcel Fricke (son of Manfred, MFB Berlin).

Cat from Flow with Blender logo, cat floating in the water and staring forward Splash artwork: Flow © Dream Well Studio, Sacrebleu Productions, Take Five Image licensed under CC-BY-SA – https://flow.movie/

Free Blender 4.4 adds animation and video features, improves stability

It’s a great week for free and open-source media tools. Hot on the heals of GIMP 3.0 final, we get Blender 4.4. It’s labeled as focusing on stability, but the Blender contributors have packed a bunch of major animation, video, and UI features in there, too. Now, we can say this is the tool used in Oscar-winning films (Flow).

GIMP 3.0, free and open source image app, looks brilliant

The culmination of seven years of open-source development, GIMP has reached its milestone 3.0 release. GIMP was always powerful, but this feels more like the mature, usable release to take on the proprietary heavyweights.

Radio Alhara at five years: 24-hour broadcast from Palestine

Today, Radio Alhara is marking five years of operation by playing 24 hours of archival material from its home in Bethlehem, Palestine.

Three free spectral synths to try after the new Serum spectral oscillator

Spectral resynthesis is having a moment now that it’s one of the new oscillator types in the mighty Xfer Serum 2. If you’re looking for other ways to get your spectral resynthesis on – or you’re a Serum user who just can’t get enough – here are three free tools to sink your FFTs into.

Serum 2: wavetable champ becomes much more in huge, free update

Serum 2, 11 years in development, is here. And it looks ready to take on its rivals, with an updated interface, arpeggiator expanded oscillator architecture (phase distortion!), granular and multisampler and spectral oscillators, new effects features, and – surprise, even a clip sequencer. It’s really an all-in-one synth now, without sacrificing its trademark accessibility.

Happy Monday; immerse your workday and soundscape in Severance

To aid in your professional merriment, here’s a complete round-up of Severance stuff, from behind-the-scenes discussion of the show’s sound design and score to an eight-hour mix of “music to refine to.”|

Whatever the Weather II: Loraine James talks about the alias and the album

Just as reality seems ready to blow off in a gale, Whatever the Weather II is here on Ghostly to pull you back to earth and the grace of the everyday. Loraine James – or I should say, the artist, Whatever the Weather – talks to CDM about how this full-length came to life.

Sinevibes’ “digital-analog” buffer delay Integer is now on KORG hardware

Sinevibes’ unmistakable, BBD-inspired Integer delay is available today across a variety of KORG hardware devices. That means the prologue, minilogue xd, and even the pocket NTS-1 (original and mkII) and NTS-3. It’s a must-have pocket delay or synth add-on.