Native Instruments quietly stuffed a bunch of little improvements into its Maschine groove production tool today – including the ability to control Apple Logic and at last, to record loops.

The story: Apple leaves QuickTime securities unpatched on Windows; Adobe drops support in their product line. But that leaves creative people stuck – including live visual artists. And now they’re looking for solutions.

One of Windows’ most powerful, most popular, most native-optimized audio tools is not only back from the dead, it’s available for free. A version of SONAR Platinum will be available free, and finally, it’s just called “Cakewalk.”

Music gear and modular maker Bastl Instruments have been dedicated to DIYers and open source hardware since the start. But today they’ve done a major dump of circuits that tinkerers will want to check out.

VCV Rack is still in a pre-release, beta cycle – but it’s already up and running with a vision of what an open platform for software modular could look like. With 0.6.0, the software integrates with your DAW and manages third-party modules more easily.

SoundCloud last summer rescued its future financially and promised a renewed focus on creators. The first small steps of that creator focus are starting to appear – including one small but useful addition.

Happy 1st of April! Mono/Poly synth, Monopoly board game – get it? Oh, wait. Actually, they’re serious. KORG are doing a complete reskin of their Mono/Poly synth for iOS to look like the classic board game.

“Hexadome,” a new platform for audiovisual performance and installation began a world-hopping tour with its debut today – with Brian Eno and Peter Chilvers the opening act.

The quiet addition of arbitrary audio routing in Max for Live in Live 10 has opened the floodgates to new tools. This one free device could transform how you route signal in the software.

From a crowded stand in Frankfurt to a sprawling show in East Berlin, Superbooth has become a modular mecca and the premiere synthesizer summit on the world calendar.