Feel the beat on a Magic Trackpad or MacBook with free tool

Don’t like clicks or beeps or other sounds when using a metronome? Try some haptic feedback instead, with this free utility.

Zont is a futuristic pocket synth that takes snap-in cartridges

Time to start singing about how we’re the operator with our pocket calculator again. The ZONT Synthesizer is an upcoming handheld instrument. And it’s what one designer imagines for the synths of the future. Apart from being tiny, you can change its function by snapping cartridges in and out – Game Boy style. And whereas […]

Here are 25 music selections to celebrate 25 years of Tresor

Tresor has left a rich legacy to electronic music – one that has defined a lot of what “techno” means – and not least of all through the Tresor Records imprint. So as follow up to our preview of the Tresor 25 festival, we’ve partnered with Beatport to share a set of 25 tracks that […]

Steinberg made a free iPhone metronome – and it’s great

Soemtimes it’s the little things. I’ve struggled for some time to find a simple metronome I can recommend. But a lot have a bunch of features I don’t really care about – and then lack some basic flexibility. So this is a welcome and unexpected arrival. It’s a free metronome app from Steinberg for iOS, […]

A new arc and a new module from monome

Wheels were never as big as grids. Well – in this context, anyway. The arc was the spiritual successor to the monome from designer Brian Crabtree – ultra-high resolution encoders for turning, with lights, as continuous as the monome grid was binary. But despite some poetic, meditative videos the monome project produced, the arc was […]

Tresor at 25 set to prove it’s anything but a museum

Berlin’s Tresor club turns 25 this year, celebrating with a four day festival next week. And the lineup is just completely and totally insane. If you took, say, the Thursday night program out of context, you might be excused for believing it was the headliners for an entire festival. The festival says as much about […]

We’re coveting this walnut desk stand for Push 2

Ableton’s Push hardware is making it onstage, but whether or not it suits that purpose for you, it’s an absolute godsend in the studio. Hands-on control of parameters, always-ready grid access to melodies and percussion, and tools for starting ideas from clips to sequences to playing live make it feel indispensable to those of us […]

Get simple cheap mobile music making tips in these videos

Backpack-friendly rigs on the cheap are yours – if you know how to put them together. Fortunately, we’ve got some expert help. For starters… fancy tools? No. Sync? Who needs it. Just a Korg Kaossilator and the Propellerhead Figure app are part of a little jam here from our friend Jakob Haq.

Faderfox puts 16 faders in a briefcase that controls anything

In the march to fancy dedicated controllers and standalone hardware, something was lost – what if you just want a whole bunch of faders (and maybe some encoders with them)? German boutique maker Faderfox (the clue is in the name) seems to understand our craving. And they even appreciate our fantasy to show up at […]

Get a gig of free sounds for Ableton Live from Puremagnetik

Puremagnetik are one of the most experienced sound library houses around, with a resumé that includes collaborations with Ableton early in the history of Live. And evidently they want you to get to know them better, as they have a gigabyte of free sounds on offer showing their work. Included is both soundware and Device […]