In the midst of lots of splashy effects, Soundtoys’ latest is an exercise in subtlety and precision. These plates are as lush as you’d expect, but they stand apart in giving you detailed control over their results.

“Check it out.” It’s just The Kids in the Hall’s Bruch McColloch and a BOSS DR-660, “the hottest drum and percussion sounds.” “And the surprisingly low price makes this the best value of any drum machine on the market.” Now add one Bruce. Just watch.

Okay, forget the vaporware “metaverse” business. You can open a browser tab and use this right now (in beta). Create, build, remix, and code 3D rooms for any kind of fun you imagine. While the big tech platform internet is unraveling, we can all play with stuff like this instead. And it’s kid-friendly – and a way for kids to learn to code (human coding, not AI).

Universal Audio, which now make native plug-ins you can run anywhere (not on specialized hardware), has a couple of new releases this week. Most interesting: they’ve recreated an insanely rare tube compressor.

Molli Looper is a new quick-looping tool you can use standalone or drop in any iOS host. It’s always on, so you can grab a recording or loop whenever inspiration strikes. And there’s synced loop playback and filtering onboard, as well.

Skating, like music, can be an escape and a DIY means to healing. “No ComplY” is a new compilation from Arabic- and African- region artists benefiting children in Gaza. They’ve just lost their skate park, but there’s hope – and a call for your help.

Liquid Sky d-vices have unveiled their warped limited-edition modular hardware: a dual oscillator with 8-bit wavetables and analog envelopes and overdrive, and a sprawling patch bay expander for circuit-bending those oscillators.

Tom Whitwell, the human who previously blogged about music tech, has turned his attention to just making gear instead under the same banner, Music thing. But that didn’t stop him from getting ChatGPT to hallucinate some news from Superbooth before it happened. Now that we’ve got the real news, how did the AI fare?

Getting too sucked up in your production and forgetting you’re a human who needs to move around? This free Max for Live device from Ableton Live for Drummers will remind you, complete with a set of yoga videos (or videos of your choice).

The pandemic apparently brought together modular house Make Noise, instrument maker Jeff Snyder, and soundhack creator Tom Erbe. Spectral analysis/resynthesis, once just an esoteric software process, is now in a beautiful module. Get your hands on some new sounds.