Roland has built one packed instrument to celebrate 50 years of the company’s synths. The SH-4d sports eleven synth oscillator models in one box – from SH-101 and JUNO-106 to new cross FM and wavetable synths. But it’s still hands-on, battery-powered, and costs US$649. And there’s a twist, literally: D-MOTION motion control means you can pick up the synth and play it by moving it around.

The flagship CV/gate and MIDI sequencer from endorphin.es is now available in its own “ultralight” aluminum 42HP housing – atop last year’s V2 update and recent smaller tweaks. All your step sequencing and polymetric and polyrhythmic needs are here.

This graphic will definitely not reassure folks who are afraid of Eurorack buttons that have multiple functions. But there is now a visual cheat sheet for Noise Engineering’s Mimetic Digitalis sequencer. And stick around for tips on switches and – believe it or not, actual musical form!

One little board is the brains of just about any synth, modular starting point, noisemaker, or instrument you can dream up. Meet the Datanoise PicoADK – Raspberry Pico plus high-quality I/O and the Vult DSP language. Now with a complete video tour of how to get started.

In 1977, the marriage of motion pictures and telephones somehow birthed Hal Alles’ Bell Labs Digital Synthesizer – an experimental additive synth that imagined new directions for both music and vocal communication. This 1977 demo has the creator show off that vision, and Laurie Spiegel is on-hand to explore the device compositionally.

Why work in modular? One good answer: modulation. And modules are increasingly departing from more utilitarian approaches to gesture recording, morphing, and other expressive concepts. Neutral Labs Pip does all that and has some clever ideas for how two LFOs can work together. It’s available pre-assembled or with source code & DIY builds for those who want it.

Come in person to Berlin or tune in online from anywhere all day and evening Sunday, as Refuge Worldwide joins Root Radio, RA, and Radio AlHara to send urgently-needed assistance to earthquake relief. Also on the radar: in-person efforts in Melbourne and Berlin, and we can gladly add more and more ways to give.

The multi-effects module field is packed with choices. But Ghost stands out for its combination of dynamic, spatial, time, and distortion effects plus an easy-access filter. It’s a greatest-hits-plus of endorphin.es’ modules packed into 16HP – musical and playable, whether you want to be surgically precise or brutally dirty.

Ghost is Endorphin.es’ filtering, distorting, (sidechain) compressing, reverbing, do-everything multi-effect for Eurorack. And it keeps getting better – now with the free V3 update, it adds additional effects features and tweaks.

One box, many reverbs – MOD Audio (formerly MOD Devices) is back in action. Their open, plug-in architecture pedalboards just got a load of new high-end reverbs from DoGood Sound, including convolution with IR loading with IRs up to 15 seconds. That sounds greeeeeeeat. (Imagine a big cave reverb on that last line.)