A dream team of designers has gathered in the north, producing a swoon-worthy, ultra-sexy instrument that looks straight off the set of a high-budget new sci-fi show. CRUM2 is just a series of images but with Analog Sweden, Hultén, and Nyström signed on and these pics, who can resist?

If you’re staring at Ableton Live for extended periods of time, why not dress it up so it has all the panache of a high-end 90s UNIX workstation? DeafMan’s retro-chic theme collections have now been rebooted for Live 12, where they look better than ever.

Cycling ’74 quietly released an update for RNBO, their tool for patching sound for web, plug-ins, and hardware. Here’s a look at what’s new, plus their lovely Office Hours series with artists like Jessica Ekomane and Suren Senevirante (My Panda Shall Fly).

In collaboration with SF builder and experimental sound artist Victoria Shen, Ferrous from Landscape is a “Spinning Magnetic String Resonator.” It works by making a disc with magnets whirl around, activating strings on various instruments.

It’s 2024’s newest Eurorack module from CHAIR, The Center for Haptic Audio Interaction Research. But the inspiration dates back to some 1970s magazines and analog signal processing theory. What you get is an amazing physical modeling resonator for patching that sounds extraordinary. In a world of sound-alike gear, this is just the sort of experimental […]

Live visual artists, visual producers, media artists, VJs – the best news from Apple this month for us is that the company has added the ability to turn off the orange dots that appear when an audio input is active.

You dreamt of it; it’s here. Arturia has unveiled a beast of a flagship. More than just a 12-voice version, the PolyBrute 12 is a deep instrument with 3-mode poly aftertouch and MPE for expression and imaginative morphing and control.

Rekordbox 7 from AlphaTheta (née Pioneer DJ) promises to address the biggest needs for the popular DJ software and CDJ prep tool. The UI is cleaned up and more flexible, prepping cues is less of a chore, and at last the company says it won’t slam your CPU like past versions. And yes, this is yet another music software update touting machine learning functionality, though what’s there looks potentially useful.

Polyend’s Tracker+ completely enhances the standalone stereo sampler, sequencer, synth, and drum machine all-in-one. There’s more of everything: stereo sampling and playback, USB audio, more synth and drum machine engines, and expanded tracks and memory sample. At $/€799, it’s looking really competitive – and those new engines with this full-sized grid also bring back some of what was great about Polyend’s classic Medusa.

The newest hardware from Xaoc Devices is Berlin. On its own, it’s a very respectable compact VCO with LFO mode and extremely wide range for tracking and clock. But connect it to one of the company’s Leibniz Subsystem modules, and a whole world of binary hacking unfolds.