Your next design project or album cover can pick up trendy letters from independent designers – all while helping get meals to those in need.

This labor-of-love, free and open-source software synth has gotten a whole lot more love – with new filters, features, modulation, and content. Surge is a must-have on Mac, Windows, or Linux, and keeps getting better.

It’s cute and small, it’s affordable, and now it’s getting more packed into it, in collaboration with boutique maker Noise Engineering. Here’s a look at what’s new in Arturia’s free 3.0.x firmware update to their MicroFreak synth.

“This stompbox provides some of the most over-the-top, insane distortion tones in the world” – or, you know, some people are insanely over-the-top distorted enough to think it’ll be inside a vaccine.

The wonderfully mysterious analog LYRA-8 synthesizer world now has an unofficial digital cousin – and it’s free-or-pay-what-you-can for Pure Data (and cross-platform AU and VST).

Polyend’s beloved Tracker finishes out the year with a pitch-perfect update – and homebrew gaming. And there are updates for their Preset module for Eurorack and the brilliant Medusa synthesizer hardware, too.

Love eye candy? Love patching together node-based tools – but don’t want to give up serious JavaScript coding for AI and 2D and 3D graphics and augmented reality? Nodes might be for you. Free, Mac/Windows/Linux. This tool is now coming into its own – and just as winter 2020, amidst bringing a world of hurt, […]

Who said 2020 was devoid of holiday spirit? Nerd Santa Claus* came through, at least, because Bastl Instruments have made a quirky, sexy good time in the Kastle Drum, a drum-focused follow-up to their adorable Kastle.

Live visual software makers have made Black Friday a kind of ritual, too – which means now is probably the best time to get that VJ license you’ve been wanting. (Bonus: in 2020, you alone may stand between a viewer and an abyss of boredom in a livestream.)

We’ve got the season of the virus lockdown to get through – stocking up on some music-making joy seems a very good idea. To try to cut through the noise, here are some of the most appealing deals in one place. This post will be updated continuously through the week. And yeah, there’s actually too […]