Music tech Software Tech
OB-Xf, free and open-source Oberheim-inspired synth, is now in beta
Here’s a good way to start 2026: the folks at Surge Synth Team now have their free and open-source OB-Xf synth in beta status in nightlies, with 1.0 just around the corner. And that means this long-running project is just about ready for primetime, bringing a fully open instrument inspired by the 1979 Oberheim OB-X. […]
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A poetic, open-source video made on 1979’s Apple II+ and BASIC
It might trigger a flood of grade school memories or open a world of computing you never got to experience. But either way, “Jed’s Other Poem (Beautiful Ground),” a music video coded in Applesoft BASIC, is itself “vintage” now. At 20 years old, it’s a window into a time when open-sourcing a music video was the thing to do.
A 1970s DIY modular from Elektor Magazine just got reborn
Erica Synths is reimagining a modular synth you’ve probably never heard of. In the late 1970s, Dutch publication Elektor Magazine put out something it called the Elektor Formant as a series of DIY kits. That modular system is getting a full reimagining and reboot from Erica Synths.
Peter Kirn - August 14, 2025
DIY + Unusual Gear Modular-Analog Music tech Tech
Radio Shack’s TRS-80 now has polyphonic MIDI and a tracker
Peter Kirn - June 2, 2025
DIY + Unusual Gear Motion Music tech Software Tech
Harvestworks, NYC arts center founded in 1977, threatened by US funding cuts
Peter Kirn - May 7, 2025
DIY + Unusual Motion Music Tech
Working with Alan Parsons, PSP recreates Frequency Translator
Peter Kirn - January 20, 2025
Music tech Software Tech
Minimoog’s missing link: how an icon was born in summer of 1970
Peter Kirn - December 20, 2024
Gear Modular-Analog Music Music tech Stories Tech
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