It started as an artist tool, but it could become yours, as well. Grainstation-C is a free and open source sound creation workstation that’s playable live and supports ambisonic spatial sound. And the music its creators makes is ethereal and wonderful. Micah Frank, noted sound designer and toolmaker as well as composer/musician, produced Grainstation-C for […]

Novation are going patch crazy, with 1000 free artist patches for their Peak synth and newest Summit. And they come from some of our favorite artists. “Presets,” “artists,” blah blah… but wait, the lineup here includes Legowelt, Craig Williams, Lightbath, Hinako Omori, Emily Sprague, and Shawn Rudiman, plus others to be announced. Novation use their […]

Hardware or software? Yes. Modular synthesizers, of all things, are blurring the line between the two. The popular Vult line of software modules for VCV Rack is going hardware, just as Erica Synths offers its popular hardware in a free software form on the same platform. VCV Rack has rapidly established itself as a platform […]

Interactive visuals in the browser now make stunning eye candy live that used to require whole server farms to render. cables.gl – now in a free open beta – lets you harness that, without even knowing how to code. cables.gl is a dataflow (visual patching) development environment that runs entirely in the browser – using […]

It’s liberating – just take your phone or tablet, plug in a USB cable, and you can make music on this hardware synth anywhere. Here’s how to do that, with our MeeBlip geode, plus some tips on the best apps for both iOS and Android. Inspiration is a funny thing, and somehow in the process […]

Sony’s Walkman turned 40 earlier this month. But look to the TC-50 before it for some of the technology and usability innovations that changed the world – and joined the Apollo mission – plus a glimpse of where music might boldly go next.

DIY marketplace Etsy has announced plans for a massive $275 million acquisition of used music instrument market Reverb.com. That’s likely to turn heads both in online retail and musical instruments. As reported by VentureBeat, the deal has an approximate $275 million value, in cash, as the NYC-based Etsy buys out Chicago’s Reverb.com. It’s a massive […]

Rack-mounted audio equipment – once fairly vanilla stuff, now it’s turned to high voltage coils. Meet PLASMA Rack, now in a new full-length video tour from Gamechanger Audio.

Signal from Isotonik was already a revelation – a powerful toolkit for adding modulation to Ableton Live. But curves, step sequences, and crossfades add real motion and transformation to your music. Darren of Isotonik Studios has been busy documenting how to use this with some no-nonsense, clear video tutorials. It’s the latest episode, adding Steps […]

It’s the Detroit-Croydon connection. But for innovative electronic dance sounds, you really don’t want to miss James Ruskin – either his new EP or the refreshed Bandcamp page for Blueprint Records. First, out today, you get a new James Ruskin EP – and it’s brilliant, worth the five year wait from the last one. This […]