It’s a new golden age for synth lovers, past meeting the future and so on. At least, we have a stunning number of wonderful toys. And the DIY community is coming up with a number of particularly special creations. Take the terrific open source PreenFM, an original, 6-operator FM synth that’s entirely open source hardware […]

Sleek and black, sporting a high-resolution jog wheel, the MTRX-8 is a futuristic sequencer the likes of which you probably haven’t seen in hardware before. Even though it’s the product of a boutique DIY maker – France’s Fyrd Instruments, aka designer Julien Fayard – it’s eschews the usual homebrewed, retro aesthetics. And it’s not expensive, […]

Augmenting keyboards with additional expression is a tradition that goes back nearly a century. Inventors have tried keys that bend and wiggle, add-ons from pulleys to ribbons, wheels and pressure sensors, and more – anything to extend the piano and organ beyond their on/off playing methods. But now, the Web has accelerated the ability to […]

If Push’s whites have been giving you the blues, everything’s better down where it’s wetter. And while some readers happily dove into the Live 9 waters right on release, recent bugfixes have made this software significantly more mature. (Uh, read: yeah, some stuff was rather broken for a bit there.) First off, just for fun, […]

I was one of a handful of editorial contributors to the HUGO BOSS-sponsored Red Never Follows project. The exhibition presents twenty creatives at Saatchi Gallery in London, celebrating HUGO’s 20th anniversary, later this month. Here is the full text I wrote for the catalog with added illustrations, as I think it gets to the heart […]

If computers are compact and $25, we’re talking a very different world of music hardware. Armed with the popular Raspberry Pi, Servando Barreiro has made an incredibly-affordable, ultimately-customizable rig with free software and the open source community. Oh, and he’s made the KORG monotron polyphonic – after a fashion. See video at top for some […]

I heard David Zicarelli once describe Max as a blank sheet of paper – a canvas on which you can imagine any musical creation. Until now, though, there’s been no way to touch those creations directly – other than with a mouse. Mira is a lovely solution to that idea. As users “patch,” visually creating […]

A color grid you can carry in one hand, with physical controls and full RGB – and the option of wireless and batteries, so you can walk around while adjusting lights or projection? Oh, and it’s modifiable, available fully made or as a kit, and completely open source hardware? Yeah, that sounds about perfect. On […]

There are stompboxes. They are — for lack of a better word — foot worthy. You can step on them, in a way that is less possible with a computer. (Well, sure, somewhere amidst an endless spinning color pinwheel you may have wanted to step on your MacBook Air, but then thought better of it […]

And they say computer technology for music is “disposable.” Csound has a direct lineage to the very first digital audio synthesis ever to run on computers, counting decades of history. It remains an elegant way to make any instrument, event, or musical creation you can imagine, all with a free tool. And now, a Csound […]