A new Bucket Brigade Delay chip just dropped, the first in decades

Wake up! A new BBD just dropped. It’s an analog delay circuit, but a new-generation design — the first such genuinely new chip design in decades. And that means you could argue the biggest announcement of this year in music technology is the smallest. Meet the SSI2100 from Sound Semiconductor, coming soon to music gear new you.

The making of Sequential’s all-analog, polyphonic, expressive Fourm

Sequential’s new Fourm is a 4-voice polysynth with an all-analog signal path and polyphonic aftertouch and a price under a grand. To pull it off, Sequential designed an all-new expressive keybed and adapted their signature analog circuitry from the Prophet-5 (and Prophet-10). I spoke to Sequential about their instrument and the engineering that made it all happen.

Peter Kirn - September 23, 2025

Roland’s Tadeo Kikumoto on 808, part by part: the ukiyo-e drum machine

You think you know the 808? Listen to how Mr. Tadeo Kikumoto, Roland’s lead developer at the time, talks about what went into the machine. That walks through origins, from kick to claps, in this excerpt from the book Inspire the Music: 50 Years of Roland History, thanks to publisher Bjooks.

Peter Kirn - August 8, 2025

You should know James West, the Black inventor of the electret microphone

Peter Kirn - January 15, 2024

Finally, a silly synth so small you could swallow it (but please don’t)

Peter Kirn - December 19, 2023

The Commodordion: 8-bit instrument made of taped-together C64s and floppies

Peter Kirn - October 24, 2022

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