These retro and SGI-inspired Ableton Live themes will make you smile

Deafman’s set of retro themes for Ableton Live, originally inspired by Silicon Graphics workstations, impressed when I first wrote about them. This summer, Clem has a bunch of updates: improved themes, a theme editor, a new pack, updated fonts (with Retina and bold versions), and easy installers. It’s a one-stop makeover kit for Ableton Live. But it’s more than that: it’s a mood enhancer. I smiled, like, literally.

Radio Shack’s TRS-80 now has polyphonic MIDI and a tracker

The Tandy Corporation-manufactured, Radio Shack-sold TRS-80 computer debuted in 1977. But now you can now add full polyphonic MIDI support thanks to George Philipps and Michael Wessel. And it’s already transformed into a serious live instrument and production tool. Assembly cost: about $35. The TRS-80: a tool for the 2020s.

Peter Kirn - June 2, 2025

Unofficial “Move – Extended” hacks extra powers for Ableton Move, free

It’s unofficial. It’ll void your warranty. But – that adds to the fun, right? Move-Extended gives you a companion website for Ableton Move that adds new features, including sample reverse, a Drum Rack Inspector, Macro editing for synths, kit slicing, chord kits, and MIDI import. It’s free, open source, and fully documented.

Peter Kirn - May 30, 2025

Benn Jordan’s AI poison pill and the weird world of adversarial noise 

Peter Kirn - April 15, 2025

Worlds of sound from hacked hard drives, piano-triggered modular

Peter Kirn - February 7, 2025

Maker Monday: Autodafe put VCV Rack in a Eurorack module, via RasPi

Peter Kirn - January 6, 2025

This is a bound book you can build into a complete modular system

Peter Kirn - December 17, 2024

The yellow plastic case of a Roland P-6 pocket drum machine opened up, revealing the factory PCB board and mods with speaker and amplifier circuit.

Hack a Roland P-6 pocket sampler with its own amp and speaker

Peter Kirn - December 16, 2024

Ableton Move guide: tips, tricks, questions answered, hacks

Peter Kirn - October 18, 2024

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