Human modular patches may at times involve randomly patching into jacks and seeing what happens – that’s surely part of the fun. But what happens if you let an assistive AI chatbot do the patching? One Gert Braakman decided to find out.

The scale of the recent earthquakes in Turkey and Syria is hard to conceive, atop ongoing crises in the region and world. Tens of thousands have died, more continue to die, and millions are now homeless across the territories of the two countries. With music scenes intertwined with those places, responding is essential in any way we can.

Few people can power through a live set quite like Detroit icons Lenny and Lawrence Burden – and few can plaster a table with quite this many synths and drum machines. Behold the joy of Octave One live.

Yes, there are too many plug-ins, but I’ve been looking for something like this for a while – especially to replace some aging options. Cluster Delay, a combination of multi-tap delay and multi-effects, could fit the bill.

Elektron has a major update for Digitakt in 1.50 — now with Machines, as Octatrack, Model:Cycles, and Syntakt. Those bring sample warping, slicing, chopping, looping, repitching, and forward/reverse playback. Plus you get fixed-step recording and the ability to insert sample rate reduction pre- or post-filter.

If we can connect to artists through albums, especially as producers ourselves, why not through instruments and effects, too? A new release from Bari, Italy hard core/hard techno artist Carbone comes in the form of a software collaboration. And the results are suitably grimy and fantastic.

Over 60 years after its invention, FM synthesis is still full of surprises. And that’s what makes the free MS-2 synth plug-in fun.

Dutch designer Rob Hordijk inspired many instrument creators before his death last fall. Meng Qi is one of those moved by his work. He has just released an alternative firmware for his Wingie2 that allows it to behave like Hordijk’s beloved Blippoo Box.

What if a custom oscillator had its own chorus-y pitch drift tape wobble effect? So far, that sounds delicious. Sinevibes are posting some new teasers of their DENSE custom oscillator for the KORG ‘logue platform.

As our Ukrainian friends and family have endured a year of full-scale war, here are some of their voices. For them and to all those resisting violence and occupation, here’s some space for them to be musicians and artists, even in the face of terror.