This month has brought unimaginable suffering atop thousands of deaths in both Morocco and Libya. To readers whose communities and loved ones have been directly impacted, we’re thinking of you. As music makers and instrument makers, I hope we continue to connect to remain tuned in and responsive. News can be overwhelming, but we live in a world where connections – and action – is never far away.

Resolume continues its update churn – and expands its ubiquity as the go-to live visual tool. New in 7.17: a new recording panel with more features, expanded copy and paste, Akai APC Mini MK2 support, and still more functionality packed into its patchable modular Wire environment. Here’s the latest on Arena and Avenue:

Fresh, unexpected, unreleased music – we’re back with the regular series Post at Refuge Worldwide. This month’s special guest is Donbas, Ukraine native Moe Nagasi, our conduit to the Donbas-Berlin connection. Tune in 1pm local time (UTC+2 ) / 7am NYC time / 8pm Tokyo.

It’s the prototype that ate Chicago’s Knobcon. 4ms showed their new “Meta Module,” which lets you put patches inside a hardware module. The new module can run compatible VCV Rack patches with full hands-on and CV control. An image went viral, but without all the details. So here’s 4ms to get meta with us and explain exactly what’s going on.

It’s the no-mixer no-input-mixer. Developer Igor Vasiliev has created an experimental app that models the feedback effects of mixers and effects – and it’s capable of creating beautiful, ghostly sounds, all entirely in software.

Native Instruments has updated their Kontrol S-Series with a single big glass screen, redesigned buttons, and one big new feature – polyphonic aftertouch, for per-key expression. But those premium features will command a premium price, at $749 up to $1299 for the 88-key hammer action option.

Just when you thought the Roland TR-8S (and its little sibling, the 6S) couldn’t do any more – there’s this. Surprise: Roland’s drum machine for the rest of us just packed in new CR-78 and chromatic 808 bass models, plus a ton of new content, and a compact UI for the TR Editor. I’ve been playing with the release candidate firmware and – yes, indeed. Happy 1209 day, everybody!

Hot on the heels of Noise Engineering’s Eurorack mixer dream, we get a different approach. 1010music announces today at Knobcon that they’re bringing their bluebox mixer to Eurorack format, with quite a few extras. That means if this was closer to what you wanted in modular mixing, now you have a Eurorack-native device. CDM has both to test – but first, here’s a look at Bluebox.

You’ve probably seen Transit, the collaboration between Baby Audio and Andrew Huang, on the Interwebs and YouTubes. Well, surprise: it’s not just for massive EDM-style breakdowns or something like that. It’s an eminently tweak-able, programmable tool that lets you combine multiple effects and set them in motion. And it’s surprisingly fun to build up your own multi-effects from scratch. Let’s have a look.

Videosync 1.3 has landed. One of the better tools for integrating visuals seamlessly with Ableton Live, this version adds a new, unique method for generating and manipulating images, easy browsing of shaders for added visual effect inspiration, an intuitive new graphical Transform, and more. And there’s a Summer Sale on this week.