There seems to be an extraordinary amount of resentment, in my social media feed, at least, directed at SoundCloud. That may be because the service as originally launched was aimed mainly at small-scale file sharing, and bears little resemblance to the much larger, more public-facing service that evolved after round upon round of investment. Or […]

There’s a famous line in business by Tom Peters, in his book The Circle of Innovation: “you can’t shrink your way to greatness.” But shrinking is exactly what SoundCloud now has to do, with its survival – let alone any ongoing greatness – at stake. As founder Alex Ljung puts it in a blog post […]

Elektron’s Analog series are getting the OLED screen, updated pads, and new aluminum enclosure design that the Octatrack MKII and Digitakt did. Bonus: new Analog Four synth circuitry, and Analog Rytm for the first time does sampling.

This is about as affordable and easy as gestural interaction with music can get. The powerful Geco music controller app pairs with the $80 Leap Motion hand tracking hardware – and now the app is free. But it could be just the beginning. For its part, the Leap Motion is now sort of yesterday’s news. […]

One’s more compact and cheaper, one has deeper sampling capabilities and a longer history. Which Elektron drum machine/sampler/sequencer is the one to buy? We now know the flagship Octrack’s follow-up, the just-announced Octatrack MKII, shares the software and workflow with the original model. So it’s really a question of whether you want Octatrack or Digitakt. […]

Dance or die? Some kind of robot with killer lasers? Well, if you happened to be in Leeuwarden in the Netherlands round late April 1996, that’s what was promised. There’s so much to love in this VHS vintage gem. There’s the retro Wolfenstein-styled 3D opening with the dramatic threatening voice over. Or the extensive footage […]

Okay, so we know you can keep remaking classic instruments and give people a good time. But what if you want something new and crazy? Can you bottle sonic weirdness and make it work for other people? The first time I saw Peter Edwards play live was at an event we hosted in New York. […]

Elektron’s Digitakt may be small, affordable, and friendly. But Elektron followers couldn’t help noticing some features missing from the flagship Octatrack. The more elaborate sample mangling and manipulation features, plus advanced routing architecture, not to mention the crossader and signature form factor were gone. In other words, the Digitakt is cool, but it isn’t an […]

Who would want something smaller, simpler, and more affordable than an Octatrack? Well, uh… lots of people. So while Elektron’s elder flagship Octatrack gets up in years, the Digitakt is satisfying existing Elektron owners (including those augmenting their Octatrack) and newcomers alike. I haven’t talked to anyone who got their hands on Digitakt who didn’t […]

If only… If only that controller had encoders, instead of knobs. If only it had two more faders. You don’t need buttons. You do need buttons. Controllers are endless challenges in combinatorics and personal use cases. That makes the Tinami line of custom MIDI controllers one of the big news items this summer. Shown to […]