Music tech Reviews Software Tech

Making music on the TI graphing calculator — and a TI-inspired plug-in synth

Time to dust off that TI-82, TI-83, or TI-84. The graphic calculators that a lot of us used in school can become ingenious chip synths and even run trackers. And that translates to a surprisingly powerful graphing calculator-inspired synth — one that instantly became one of my favorite plug-ins.

The best way to learn Bitwig Grid, Serum 2 is in Japanese from LOBOTIX

LOBOTIX is another reason to have hope in musical imagination. Even without speaking a word of Japanese, these are instantly some of my favorite tutorials. Here, these cover the spectral synthesis modes in Serum 2 and the modular capabilities of Bitwig Grid (and Vital and PhasePlant and more). And thanks to 2020s tech, we get her in the form of an anime character.

Peter Kirn - March 5, 2026

Music Music tech Software Tech

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Essential mix: let an hour of tilde’s music energize you (then nerd out!)

Glitchy but driving broken beats are what’s for dinner. Hannover’s tilde (~) is a font of knowledge on topics from Pd/plugdata to Bitwig Studio Grid FX to mixing and mastering. And those skills translate to some genius grooves. Listen up to this full-power montage of all original music.