Delete clips, use pickup beats, more: stupidly useful Max for Live tools from Dennis DeSantis

It’s the little things. Ever wish you could work with clips that didn’t start on a downbeat? Or your Live session has a bunch of clips you want to make go away? Dennis DeSantis, known for his Ableton book “Making Music,” comes to our rescue. First, let’s talk Pickup Notes. Ableton has over the years […]

Locally sourced: you can now run Stable Diffusion AI art generation on your M1 Mac

It’s got a one-click installer, runs locally, requires “no dependencies or technical knowledge,” and crucially, doesn’t talk to the cloud. Diffusion Bee is a simple way of running all that AI art stuff on your M1 (or M2) Mac.

A bubble wrap-popping organ, by Simone Giertz and team, is sure to be your new favorite thing

Simone Giertz, engineer and inventor known for “useless” inventions and “s****y robots,” has a marvel of musical machinery. It’s a barrel organ that pops bubble wrap, and somehow it can actually play tunes.

Synthstrom Deluge gets an OLED screen – and you can retrofit existing gear

In the middle of the ongoing Partspocalypse in this industry, here’s one spot of very good news – the beloved boutique Synthstrom Deluge synth/sampler/sequencer gets a shiny new OLED display.

Acid 4 Live: STING by IFTAH generates acid lines for Ableton Live for free

Iftah Gabbi, “the artist formerly known as “iftah from skinnerbox,” has built a Max for Live acid line generation tool called Sting. It’s free – and guaranteed to put a smile on your face.

Komplete 14 adds Kontakt 7, expands bundle, but M1/M2 support is spotty — at a glance

KOMPLETE 14 is coming later this month, with a major software update to the KOMPLETE sampler following in October. That includes some major expansion to bundled tools, but still incomplete support for new Apple machines until late 2022 / early 2023. Here’s an overview of what’s new. What’s new KOMPLETE 14 is the first landmark […]

NI has retired Absynth soft synth after 22 years; here’s a statement from its creator

Music software instruments are entering something of a mid-life crisis – and one landmark is the cancellation this week of Absynth by NI/Soundwide. Creator Brian Clevinger has recorded a statement. Native Instruments changes in ownership and leadership have already brought with them significant cuts to key designers and engineers, through layoffs and other attrition. Absynth […]

Videosync 1.2 for Ableton Live visuals overhauls Simpler and improves functionality

Ear candy’s not enough for you – you want that eye candy, too. So we’ve got the latest here for you, as always. New in Videosync for Max for Live – tons of improvements and an overhauled Simpler visual sampling engine.

Modalics Beat Scholar: a new hyper-divisible drum machine plug-in made of pizzas

Beat Scholar promises to let you slice and re-slice with a built-in sampler and endless free subdivisions – without losing flow. Move over x0x and steps. Now it’s all about pizzas. Infinite pizzas.

Techno meets graphic novel: Alan Oldham’s Johnny Gambit is back to the future

1986, Chicago. Hot Comics. Inside the sleeve of a Rhythim is Rhythim 12-inch. Private detective Johnny G is always popping up somewhere vital to techno – and now creator Alan Oldham has him set for Berlin 2023.