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 […]

Everything about the iPad is about portability. Thinness. Ever-changing interfaces. Functionality hidden behind a pane of glass. But, hey, now that you’ve slimmed down your computational device, why not go hog wild with tangible controls and a sprawling DIY MIDI controller? That’s what Jakob Haq, the nearest thing to an iOS music celebrity we’ve got, […]

Cablesguys are one of the more interesting purveyors of plug-ins out there, and they’ve been showing off some interesting stuff with their lineup. These things can be a bit hard to describe, just in theory – okay, so you’ve got VolumeShaper and TimeShaper, which shape … volume .. and … time. But in practice, you […]

Let’s be clear: electronic music is what it is because of a spirit that emanated from people outside of what was popular, not inside. And underground isn’t just about what’s undiscovered. It’s also about people who are too often purposely sidelined: people of color, queer and trans and gay and bi- and lesbian people, people […]

Ableton Live’s dominance over a lot of workflows is unparalleled. But the software itself is looking long in the tooth. There are clearly some features long in coming, and despite some updates, the UI is still largely unchanged since the software’s debut over a decade and a half ago. That’s good in some ways, but […]

Paula Temple and Jem the Misfit are working on the latest iteration of a project about transformation. It melts and fragments, crystallizes and forms, from its rich palette of hybridized techno and ambient textures, sonic and visual alike. And now, it’s set to be involved in some way in transformation beyond just the confines of […]

It’s often overlooked, but the one piece of technology that has advanced the least in electronic music making in the past decades might be … the furniture. Output, whom regular readers will know mainly as a software instrument maker, have decided to make something that’s harder – as in a desk. PLATFORM is a simple […]

Ready to raise your energy level and channel your higher self on the longest day of the year? (Or the shortest day of the year, if you’re in the southern hemisphere?) Machinedrum (the artist, not the Elektron box) has quietly released the track that has the perfect vibe for that – even if you didn’t […]