They’re built on the same platform, the development of which was overseen by the late Dave Smith. They cost roughly the same price and take up the same amount of space. But TEO-5 is not Take 5. Look to the Oberheim desktop instrument for the SEM multimode filter, linear through-zero FM, and its own unique effects. Here’s the synth Tom and team built.

One of Dave Smith’s last projects was overseeing the tech platform that would become Take 5. And that was a breakthrough: everything great about the Prophet-5 meets fresh modulation and effects and an accessible price. Now, you can bring Take 5 home for $1299 as a compact desktop unit. Oberheim’s TEO-5 desktop is also out today at that price, thanks to that underlying tech, but let’s talk Sequential first.

Cmon, get down: Chuck D and Flavor Flav have resurfaced to deliver an all-Public Enemy album again, following the all-star guest appearances of their last outings. And they deliver a fiery critique of society, racist government, Big Tech, AI and chatbot love affairs, ageism, and the (CBS-owned) 1973 Yankees. But hip hop, OG hip hop, is here to save us, just like it saved those damned Yankees and the Bronx. This summer needed this release, and it’s right now pay-what-you-will on Bandcamp.

Sometimes, Roland gives us predictable things. Sometimes, the company decides to digitize the handpan for an electronic hand percussion instrument that can also make gamelan and singing bowl sounds, pretty environmental noises, and function as a Bluetooth speaker.

Stewart Copeland went from The Police to prolific composer, but perhaps no score was as beloved as Spyro the Dragon for PlayStation. Those sounds have now been revived in community-led, free libraries that run on all sampling platforms, along with some theory and composition lessons. It can instantly improve your mood–and it all began with Stewart playing, dying, and respawning in the game.

Soundtoys is supporting LGBTQIA+ communities by giving 100% of every purchase today and tomorrow, June 25th and 26th, to Lambda Legal. Here’s more on that organization, and in case you are going on a shopping spree for yourself for charity, a look back at the latest tips and resources on Soundtoys stuff on CDM.

AAS’ Lounge Lizard EP-5 refreshes one of the definitive electric keyboards in software with a redesigned physical modeling core for tine and reed instruments. What sets this particular plug-in apart is deep modeling and diverse presets, which can take the instrument way beyond the lounge. Yes, it can be an accurate electric keyboard, but it can also imagine new keyboard instrument sounds that you’ve never heard before.

Quick: when was the last time when you just messed with a synthesizer knobs and played with waveforms for the sheer joy of it? The new soft synth from GForce dumps all the algorithms and black-box elements of FM in favor of the visceral pleasure of messing around with sound. It’s not another historical emulation. It’s an FM playground.

cables.gl, the stunning, free, and open-source media creation environment for visuals and sound, is back with its June update. The Web-powered, Web-or-offline tool is faster, editing is easier, it’s more future-proof and reliable, and they’ve updated their roadmap for what they envision this to be. Even alongside other tools, it’s great to patch like this on the Web.

Splitting open the ordinary into sublime imaginations, this compact gem from Cairo’s ZULI bursts at the seams. A melodic fragment, tapping in a field recording, a dialog, a street argument–everything gets unfolded into another unseen dimension. It might be the musical pause you need right now, and hey Berlin, ZULI is live tonight (as am I) so there’s a chance to catch this energy in person.