Barry Vercoe, who made coding sound accessible to all, has died

Barry Vercoe, composer and music scientist, founded MIT’s electronic music efforts and helped shape the Lab’s efforts in digital synthesis and machine listening and learning. But his biggest impact came outside the academy: as the inventor of Csound, he took the original innovations of Max Mathews and made them accessible to everyone. The live coding scene that followed has transformed the practice of coding sound into a new form of musical performance.

The best free tools for working with modular synthesis and music

Patching for the people – there’s no reason cost or access has to keep you from the powers and fun of modular synthesis and music making. VCV Rack’s launch this month got lots of attention, but there are other options, too. Here the latest, best picks.

Peter Kirn - December 7, 2021

Prototypes are free, open-source plug-ins – use them for sound, or to learn Csound

Get a free algorithmic bass drum generator, a lo-fi modulator, a massive granular workstation, for free – and that’s just the beginning.

Peter Kirn - February 12, 2020

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