This is what many drum machine fans were waiting for: following their remade 909, D16 has its 808 plug-in reboot, and it looks and sounds gorgeous. Here’s what’s new.

Music consolidation continues – even beyond what we might have imagined. Hal Leonard is “joining” software maker Muse Group in a “partnership” (read: merger, but with separate operations, they say). Private equity giant Francisco Partners, the same company behind the NI – Plugin Alliance – iZotope conglomerate, is providing the investment.

The Synthstrom Audible Deluge, a grid-based synth/sequencer/sampler, has its first official open-source, community-developed firmware – “and it’s huge,” the makers say. There are new views, new effects, new modulation, and more.

Our long-time friends at ШЩЦ, Kyiv-born collective now based in London, have an emotional, diverse compilation out now that “celebrates the spirit of winter.” It also memorializes their late community member Maksym Ostyak, who died defending Ukraine.

Behold the sonic possibilities of the “depths of the mathematical universe.” Eccentric, prolific software developer Alexander Zolotov (NightRadio) is back from the reaches of space with a crazy new app for Android and iOS, an endless sample generator for just US$1.99.

Brooklyn’s incredible artist and writer Janus Rose recently came on Refuge Worldwide in Berlin for my ongoing program POST, and this is one mix you don’t want to mix. It’s one of those times you want to creep/trainspot over the CDJ display on every single track, and a lot of it is forthcoming music so – you heard it here first.

Arturia’s versatile MIDI/CV controller KeyStep Pro gets a big update with version 2.5. The release accompanies a sleek dark-gray, customizable Chroma edition but applies to all KeyStep Pro models.

It’s the sound plenty of us grew up loathing – only to love it later. VHS tapes can shift pitch, add grain and grime, and immerse your sounds in lo-fi chorus and spread. Our friends Bedroom Producers Blog and Toybox Audio have modeled all of it in a new free plug-in for macOS and Windows.

The 1986 Alesis MIDIVERB has a unique and fabulous sound – peak budget 80s digital reverb preset trash in just the right way. So why not recreate it for free with some high-quality impulse responses?

Even with the feature still evolving in Ableton Live 12, there’s already a tutorial on creating your own Transformers and Generators for unique ways of making and altering patterns. This time, it’s in Spanish – because the first certified trainer from Latin America is also first out with a video. Here’s Joaquín Jiménez-Sauma with the scoop.