Our friend DeafMan is back with another retro take on the Ableton Live color scheme. This time, the idea is making Live look attractive and legible in low light – even extreme low light. So get set for that late-night session, light a couple of candles, and travel back to the screen aesthetics of the 80s and 90s.

Few instrument designs have ever come as close to science fiction as Synplant – and the alien breeding lab for sound has gotten more otherworldly in this update than ever. Replace those knobs with a double helix and start genetically engineering new paths from any sound you want to load. Here’s a first hands-on.

Korg’s drumlogue has a killer app: the incredible-sounding Sinevibes Nano dual-oscillator synth, with all the extras. And that app gets a ton of new stuff in a free system refresh. Add that to the separate, 3rd-party synth based on Mutable Instruments’ Braids macro oscillator, and … drumlogue is like two shampoos in one!

Crises are a given; resilience is a given – to slightly bastardize the author’s words on Beirut’s Underground Scene, Hajar Ibrahim’s portrait of a musical world. But in this book, released this summer, what you get is more personal. It’s the underground telling its own story, rather than having one framed for it.

This year has proven that independent music developers are able to give back and share resources. It’s important to follow up on those efforts, too. So here’s how it went with Soundtoys and flood relief in Vermont – flashback to summer.

Dnipro Modular and Sinevibes are collaborating on an upcoming Eurorack module, adding Sinevibes’ effects to Dnipro’s module design. And the module is being produced in Ukraine. We’ll have more info on this soon, but I’m set to clear some rack space already. It’s a shining bit of collaborative engineering with friendly design and cosmic capabilities.

With Ableton Push 3, Max for Live effects, instruments, sequencers, and other tools can work on standalone hardware – even without your computer. So it’s a perfect time to look at how Max for Live devices can work without a computer display – and, by the way, that’s just as useful on Push and Push 2, as well. Here’s what you need to know, as a user, a first-time patcher, or an experienced developer.

In the “that didn’t last long” files: Epic Games is divesting itself of Bandcamp after barely a year and a half. The music platform will be acquired by Songtradr, a “music licensing platform and marketplace company supporting artists, labels, and publishers.”

MIDI starts with the obvious – in and out, easily understood. But then it throws us this curveball of a preposition – thru. Through? Let’s really talk about what it means, what a thru box or MIDI splitter is for, and how this knowledge can help you keep your gear timing perfectly tight.

Here’s a product name I didn’t expect to come back: it’s the Roland GAIA 2. But despite the name and form factor, the new GAIA has a different architecture – virtual analog plus wavetable, and support for (some) Model Expansions so you can swap out different instrument engines.