Skating, like music, can be an escape and a DIY means to healing. “No ComplY” is a new compilation from Arabic- and African- region artists benefiting children in Gaza. They’ve just lost their skate park, but there’s hope – and a call for your help.

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.

New gear is great, but how about new life from your existing gear? Arturia’s pint-sized wundersynth just got a huge update: load your own custom user samples, and work with a sampling or one of three different granular engines and random per-key modulation. It’s really about the most fun little synth around.

It’s the other West Coast – but one that until recently got far less play in the broader modular world. Now, the folks at Random*Source are shipping years of work (including the involvement of creator Serge Tcherepnin himself) in a Eurorack module. It’s called the GTO, and behind a simple panel lurks a wild amount of possibilities. Real Serge in Euro. GTFO.

It’s 404 Day – in the more-overlooked of the Roland-themed faux holidays! And what way better to celebrate than with some sound tips from CDM editor-at-large David Abravanel. They add to the evidence that the SP-404MKII is capable of way more than lo-fi beats, just in case you weren’t already among the converted.

Composer, producer, and percussionist debashis sinha delved into spiritual spaces of his ancestral India in a double-release from late last year. These projects interweave rhythm, mythology, decolonization, and artificial intelligence. We talk to Deb about his take on machine learning – uniquely humble and human just when we need it – and the significance of the sonic imagery on this album. He reflects on the process of making and meaning for these gorgeous releases.

Live visual – VJ – media server tool Resolume gets another big update with a little version number. But we’re not just here to talk new and shiny: Resolume has al new set of tutorials for patching in their Wire modular environment, too. Spring semester is on the way.

Replicant 3 might be the most unique of Audio Damage’s entire stable of plug-ins. The new version is rebuilt from the ground up, comes packed with new slice effects, and yet has a more capable, cleaner UI. It might just be the kind of software update that re-launches IDM as a genre.

You’ve seen mechanical engineers attempt expressive synths, and real, polished products. But why not have fun with a slightly more punk, DIY, bendy synth of your own? Sound Werkshop has been working on that, using the eminently affordable and flexible Daisy Seed embedded platform (which in turn runs code and Pd and Max-generated patches).

Korg sound design fans, you’ll want this: a user has made a free tool that automatically generates images from program presets. (Sounds like a great idea for other synths, too – and we get into other geeky scripts here, as well.) And now is a good time to revisit free patch sheets for volca modular, though for that you’ll need drawing software … or a pen.