The developer of Tweakbench wants to remake the DAW without linear time

The Digital Audio Workstation can never quite escape the timeline and its roots in multitrack tape. Tweakbench’s new Noemi, which entered alpha last month, starts from scratch. What if music in the DAW could constantly evolve and change? What if the DAW were non-deterministic?

Envion: a free, open, algorithmic drum composition environment in Pd

It all starts with the envelope, so that even a few milliseconds of sound can generate “thousands of sonic trajectories.” Built entirely in the free, open-source Pure Data, Envion is a deep compositional playground. You can think of it like an algorithmic drum machine. Emiliano Pennisi shares his creation with us.

Peter Kirn - October 24, 2025

Swimmer is a weird and wonderful modulation source for Ableton Live

Mudjaq’s Swimmer is a rare, deep-sea creature, trawled up from the depths of the Max for Live world. This is not your general-purpose modulation source. Think of it like an idiosyncratic Eurorack module — a source of specific gestures and a beautiful, briny gift from the ocean.

Peter Kirn - August 20, 2025