It was once the stuff of dreams — a patchable, modular environment for sound, synthesis, music, and procedural generative audio. Now it’s free (MetaSounds) in a free game engine (Unreal Engine). You just have to learn to use it – which is why this free comprehensive tutorial series by our friend Matt Spendlove is a must.

Nonlinear Labs has unveiled a major firmware update for its expression-packed C15 “musicians, not machines” keyboard instrument. No LFOs? No problem: modulation and envelopes are now massively expanded in ways that should intrigue sound designers and keyboardists alike.

Bethlehem-founded international sound platform Radio AlHara is celebrating their collective involvement in CTM Festival with a don’t-miss program today of adventurous sonic exploration and talk. Tune in (live or we’ll add archives as available)! No FOMO, because you just don’t MO.

Amidst many granular tools out there, Scatter is nicely focused – intuitive controls plus elegant pitch modulation options. It can be a shimmer reverb as much as a granular cloud effect, marrying grain soundscapes with classic digital pitch effects.

What would electronic machines be like without our usual resources? What about sound from old screw cans and radiosensitivity, or the reclaimed science of fluidics and swirls of water? Romanian-born, Berlin-based artist Ioana Vreme Moser asks those questions in her work, today at CTM Festival, in a discussion you can catch live online.

It’s an even rounder roundtable – inside an epic planetarium dome. The latest TouchDesigner roundtable falls in a major couple of weeks for the world media art scene as it descends on Berlin for Transmediale and CTM. That means a very special edition on TouchDesigner and spatial imagery and sound.

Soundwide on Wednesday laid off approximately 8% of their employees, across their stable of brands. That means at least one major music technology company follows layoffs in tech and media starting this year.

Free meets free: in a labor-of-love community project, soft synth Surge XT is now available as an exquisitely designed set of modules for VCV Rack. It combines two of the best open-source projects for software synthesis lovers, bringing new ways of patching to both. And that means all this power is on macOS, Windows, and Linux, all three.

Noise Engineering has added new Eurorack hardware: Jam Jam 6HP trigger-and-gate with clock phasing and delay, and Quantus Trajecta 10HP quad envelope modules. Plus if you’re using the swappable-function Versio and Legio modules, you can now buy ready-made overlays.

Thursday night, as part of Vorspiel – the lead-up to CTM Festival and Transmediale – we’re gathering like-minded creative souls at Berlin’s Urban Spree. It’s an all-live electronic night with visuals by DEFASTEN, marking an AV release (on VHS!). Virtual and in-person immersive sounds and imagery collide, whether you’re in the club or watching a screen, which is just how we like it.