How do you set the mood to concentrate, especially in times of distraction and anxiety? Adjust the light, open a window to allow some air flow? Here’s a unique set of sound design tools and music to match that accomplishes that with audio.

Forget what platform it’s on for a moment – a Friday is a perfect time to support independent DIY music production, by directly supporting the artist and downloading something that you can come back to again and again.

“Life is so fragile” is the phrase that has echoed among friends, as last week claimed producer SOPHIE. My heart goes out especially to those who knew her, especially in this time of loss.

Strega is the new Make Noise invention – a tone maker, control instrument, and effects processor. It’s also an artistic collaboration with Alessandro Cortini. CDM talks to Make Noise about what that’s about.

KORG’s Modwave synth isn’t even out yet, but CDM sonic wizard-at-large Francis Preve was one of the people making sounds for it. Time to go 20,000 leagues under the sea with this monster wavetable hardware.

In dark moments, sometimes the most vital gesture is acknowledging uncertainty and feeling. So as we pass the milestone of one year into the next, I’ll be talking through some mixes alongside our year-end music review.

Maybe it’s not about being DAW-less or having particular software or gear. Maybe it’s just having your hands touch a box from the future that gets you into that state of music play. Andreas gives us an in-depth review of the $499 Bluebox.

It’s the virtual equivalent to someone dropping off the keys to a massive vintage studio. Version 8 leads with new retro additions, a vocoder, and various improvements and features suite-wide.

Legends Mad Mike and Wajeed have an idea to build support for communities of marginalized music makers – right in the heart of Detroit. That effort might have gotten upstaged by the election, so now is the perfect time to dig in – and recall some of Detroit’s own history.

No, you should not update to Big Sur right now. And yes, it is too early to judge M1 Apple Silicon-based Macs or even to ask if your favorite software is optimized yet. But that doesn’t mean there isn’t reason to be optimistic – if you can also be, you know, patient.