West Coast, with penguins: Aaltoverb on Linux; Aalto 2 coming soon

Madrona Labs’ patchable West Coast synth is one of the most playable, exploration-friendly, unique instruments around — a piece of software to last. And it comes with a reverb companion, now on Linux, too as a free demo you can beta-test. The big news: Aalto 2 is coming this fall for macOS, Windows — and Linux, too.

This free Ableton Extension slices up chunks of audio for Move, Live

MID continues to make cool stuff for Ableton Live, with a special emphasis on Ableton Move. Ever wished you could quickly chop up a track or other longer material into bar-aligned loops — especially for easy triggering on Move? Move Loop Slicer does just that, and it’s free now.

Peter Kirn - July 17, 2026

There are already some great uses of Ableton Extensions, and more coming

The Ableton Extension SDK has only just been launched to the public, but there are already plenty of useful and fun Extensions to try right away. And that means even before you try hand-coding or vibe-coding your own, you might already find a reason to grab the beta and start extending. I’ll round up some of the best early resources.

Peter Kirn - June 12, 2026

Ableton Extensions will let you code your own tools and actions for Live

Peter Kirn - June 2, 2026

Reason 14 beta: new Track Panel, reverb, Dark Mode, more

Peter Kirn - April 8, 2026

Move 2.0 adds Audio Tracks with clip warping, live processing; more

Peter Kirn - February 10, 2026

OB-Xf, free and open-source Oberheim-inspired synth, is now in beta

Peter Kirn - January 2, 2026

FL on the Web: hands-on, Image-Line tells us what it all means

Peter Kirn - December 22, 2025

Fruity Loops Web! FL Studio arrives in a browser beta, with full compatibility

Peter Kirn - December 15, 2025