We talk about the Mac, but ultimately the Mac was a vehicle for GUIs – icons, mice, scrolling, toolboxes, painting. We talk about the iPhone, but the iPhone turned out to be about mobile photography and apps and touch. Get too hung up on the (very pricey) initial hardware, and you might miss some of the potential of what Apple is doing with what they call spatial computing. And you’ll also miss how some of these threads in interaction design started – as with those other examples – long before Apple.

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.

Arturia has rounded out its Augmented line with Augmented BRASS. It’s like a hybrid brass plug-in even for people who don’t like brass plug-ins – more like the brass tool for synth lovers.

In the mountains of West Papua, a new electronic sound is emerging. It’s fusing traditional sounds with jaunty synthesized beats in a rapid-fire, high-energy dancefloor brew. And just try to listen without your whole body set in motion.

Buy local: the world of gear for musicians is opening up to independent makers in more places. That includes Tbilisi-based Ambient audio, who are making everything from glowing and recycled patch cables to modular kits.

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.

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.

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.

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.)

Everyone else might sign up for a gym or make some self-improvement lists. Music lovers reorganize their playlists – and what a joy to do so. So resident music lover David Abravanel is back and joins your dear edito. It’s a look back at music from 2022 that we can’t stop playing right into 2023.