deton8 is a little drum machine with loads of soul

Twisted Electrons move on from acid and chip synths to drum machines. And the deton8, for around three hundred bucks, packs a ton of personality and sound possibility in a cute, playable package.

Years of MySpace music deleted; Internet weeps

It’s not so much that anyone expected MySpace to be alive at this point, let alone a safe place for music uploads. The demise of years of MySpace music is more like a sad reminder of the direction of the Internet.

Here are some of the weirdest musical instrument ideas from NAMM

Trade shows can be a strenuous onslaught of noise, cost, and crowds – but then it’s often the weirdest stuff that makes it worth it. And no one finds strange quite like Barry Wood and his annual NAMM Oddities.

NI Massive X synth sees first features, interface revealed

Native Instruments’ Massive synth defined a generation of soft synths and left a whole genre or two in its wake. But its sequel remains mysterious. Now the company is revealing some of what we can expect.

Visualize pitch like John Coltrane with this mystical image

Some musicians see Islamic mysticism; some the metaphysics of Einstein. But whether spiritual, theoretical, or both, even one John Coltrane pitch wheel is full of musical inspiration.

nanoloop reborn as standalone, Game Boy-inspired groovebox

nanoloop, beginning life as a Game Boy cartridge, helped ignite a craze in chip music by intuitively combining sequencing and sound. Now, its creator wants to make his own hardware.

Use Ableton Live faster with the free Live Enhancement Suite

Day in, day out, a lot of producers spend a lot of time editing in Ableton Live. Here’s a free tool that automates some common tasks so you can work more quickly – easing some FL Studio envy in the process.

Watch My Panda Shall Fly play KORG volcas with bits of metal

“Play your KORG volcas with bits of metal instead of your fingers” isn’t one of the Oblique Strategies, but maybe it ought to be.

Unique takes on delay and tremolo from K-Devices, now as plug-ins

K-Devices have brought alien interfaces and deep modulation to Max patches – now they’re doing plug-ins. And their approach to delay and tremolo isn’t quite like what you’ve seen before, a chance of break out of the usual patterns of how those work. Meet TTAP and WOV.

Mournful drone sounds of a repurposed HP test device

Hainbach continues to make beautiful sounds with esoteric or forgotten gear – this time, the “saddest drone machine,” a used HP 3782A Error Detector telco device.