We are awash in vintage compressor plug-ins, but Softube’s VCA Compressor is worth an extra look – and not just because it’s free.

Kaleidoloop, an adorable portable looper/recorder, is back with a compact form factor plus a software update that delivers new modes, layering, and more. It’s now also a unique playback/effect that you can customize yourself with Pd.

Live 12 is here – so now what? Here are twelve other ideas to try out, from timesavers to inspiration sources.

Ableton Live 12 is now out of beta – plus both the Performance Pack and a tuning site available to everyone (with or without Live). Here’s a review of everything to know.

There’s no new hardware from Roland for 303 Day, but what we get instead is music – a minisite, a mix, a vinyl pressing (really), and records that double as control vinyl for Serato. It comes with sounds courtesy artists J. Rocc, Fast Eddie, Shadow Child and DJ Haus. And if you just want to have your own 303 party right now, there’s a mix from J. Rocc.

Pigments 5 from Arturia adds the ability to route audio input into soft synth, opening up new sound design possibilities and turning Pigments into a multi-effects plug-in for any source. Here’s a detailed guide on how to use it, with notes – and some presets to get you going.

The musical revolution led by underground Black artists in Detroit has brought Roland back to the source. An editorial team from the Japanese gear giant goes inside the story of Submerge and Underground Resistance.

Noise Engineering continues to revive beloved and now-unavailable modules from their back catalog, thanks to their updateable firmware platforms. But Sinc Legio is more like a sequel, with internal modulation, new algorithms, and stereo chorus atop the original’s formula of phase modulation, hard sync, and wavefolding.

Palestinian multi-instrumentalist and experimental DJ Falyakon has long been an inspiration to anyone who’s met her – for her energy, her vision, and the depth of feeling and activism threaded into her music mixes. We were fortunate to have her in the Refuge Worldwide studio over the weekend, in a mix that says what no opinion piece or social media post can.

Imagine polyphonic modular patches – but now imagine that with polyphonic patch cables. Announced in May, Tiptop Audio’s ART system and patching approach arrives now as modules, a system, and a whole mess of videos exploring patching with this paradigm for polyphony and integrated expressive data, all via analog connections.