Whether or not drum machines have soul, you can bet the LinnStrument does. The creation of Roger Linn couples a grid layout – one that keeps pitch relations consistent for easy playing – with expressive touch sensing. Until now, you could get a US$1499 version with 200 pads. A new version drops the price to […]

Apple’s new MacBook Pro series – regardless of screen size – ships with four connectors, all of them USB-C. That may lead to some confusion, because these aren’t the USB ports most people know from their current laptop. Let’s take a quick inventory of the gear I typically use, which I think it fairly typical: […]

It was really hard for me to watch Apple’s “Hello Again” event today. Understanding history is important – to a point. But Apple’s obsessive navel gazing in the Mac event today speaks volumes. This is a company with no real vision for what its most creative users actually do with their most advanced machines. So, […]

Like pressure-sensitive control – but don’t want to commit to one layout? Joué is a fascinating new controller concept that has touch sensitivity but lets you change layouts on the fly – with tactile control. The concept: add physical, modular overlays to the top to change the function of the controller. At its heart, the […]

Now having let the genie out of the bottle, there’s no saying where Roland will turn next with reboots and reissues. But some people are evidently not content to wait. So, via Twitter via Facebook, we see this lovely image of the 1998 Roland MC-505 groovebox, reimagined for people who love that black-with-Matrixsynth green-trim look […]

So, this just happened – Ableton quietly announced an SDK for working with file export. That follows up the company’s wildly popular Ableton Link platform for sync and jamming, which is available both as an open source project and as a mobile and desktop SDK. Novation’s Blocs Wave uses this export functionality, as mentioned today […]

For many of us, finishing something is still a task best left to a laptop. The precision and familiarity of a desktop interface, the favorite suite of plug-ins, a big monitor in the studio, and tools like Ableton Live all add up to something that mobile just can’t beat. But that’s finishing. Starting and sketching […]

There’s something counterintuitive about it, right? Plug a USB stick into a giant digital player alongside turntables. Or plug the turntables into a computer. What if the USB stick … was the actual player? In the age of rapid miniaturization, why hasn’t this happened yet? Well, thanks to an open source project, it has happened […]

What would your future clone think of you now, looking back across an apocalyptic reshaping of humanity? That’s the question posed by the 2005 novel The Possibility of an Island, and it resonates in Franz Kirmann’s new album Elysian Park. This might sound bleak, but it isn’t. Kirmann’s new record paints a science fiction sound […]

The beautiful thing about software is that it’s flexible. You can reconfigure an entire live rig on the fly. But it’s still necessary to channel that flexibility into consistency, especially playing live. Reuse the stuff you need most so it’s always there. And train your hands and muscle memory so you can play fluidly. Savages […]