Celebrate Sludgemas with some free Detroit Underground groove

There are things that make your butt wiggle. There are things that make your brain tickle. There are things that get glitched and grungy. Well, here’s something that does all those things at once – it’s a glitchy good time, and it’s free. Merry Sludgemas. And for anyone bored with overly-shiny, overly-restrained, dark fashion-label sound-alike […]

Adult Swim has a free noise album you don’t want to miss

It’s that time of the year again: weeks of hearing Christmas songs on repeat plus the untimely death of George Michael, and your ears are probably oozing peppermint goo while you cry yourself to sleep. This calls for some seriously aggressive noise album. You know – like a palette cleanser. Well, here’s one, and it’s […]

How a meetup space for female music makers is making a difference

Ed.: If we’re going to see more women or other underrepresented groups in music, one place to start is by creating new spaces. CDM contributor Zuzana Friday is involved in an effort in Berlin that does just that. The idea is an informal one: just have exclusively female-identified artists meet for a couple of hours, […]

Right now Arturia is giving away a free sequenced filter plug-in

These days, there are models of the Moog ladder filter everywhere (hardware and software), but it wasn’t always so. 13 years ago, Bob Moog himself partnered with developer Arturia to model his creations in software form. Now, that developer is giving away the latest iteration of their software filtering tech in a powerful plug-in – […]

A strikingly honest interview about music and happiness

Does great music come from pain, or should happiness and caring for yourself come first? We don’t talk about that a lot in music. Indeed, from music gear news to dance music lifestyle publications, we peddle fantasies of success. We do that even when it’s clear most of our audience – most of us – […]

It’s time for heroes – a perfect remix and mix to end 2016

“It’s time for heroes” – that sentiment sounds about right. Our friend, producer Sofia Kourtesis, returns this week with a new remix releasing today, and a mix for us. And they’re both richly sentimental and gorgeous. First, there’s Sofia’s inventive remix of “Cool Kids” by Me Succeeds. It’s free-flowing and spontaneous, dense but magical, coming […]

Two videos show why the Make Noise 0-COAST modular is cool

2016 was the year when people said, hey, I want to get in on some of that modular goodness, but … maybe I don’t want to buy a rack and spend thousands of dollars to do that. So it’s great to finally see desktop semi-modular becoming a thing – and an affordable thing at that. […]

Explore harmonies in your browser with this free arpeggiator

Ever wondered what it would be like if the spirit of Philip Glass inhabited one of your web browser tabs? Well, now he can. Sort of. “Musical Chord Progression Arpeggiator” is a browser-based, JavaScript-powered harmonic exploration tool. Punch in a chord progression, then a root key and Church mode and go to town. The audio […]

djay Pro on iPhone is an afterhours gem – and a serious DJ, VJ tool

Could a DJ/VJ app on your phone be a serious tool? Absolutely. Not just could be – is. Algoriddim’s djay Pro is here on the iPhone, and after playing around with it, I think it’s a must-have for DJs and VJs alike. Are you going to do a serious DJ set with this? Probably not. […]

Reaktor adds Ableton Link, for software patches or hardware modular

Native Instruments’ Reaktor is the latest tool to add Ableton Link support – and as before, each time you add a new tool, Link gets way more useful. Ableton Link is already opening up jams in DIY software, including Max/MSP, Max for Live, and Pure Data. Reaktor joining the party means not only will DIY […]