Buchla Ziggy: the complex oscillator gets a friendly standalone synth

It’s been decades in coming: what if you took the best parts of the classic Buchla complex oscillator with its, well, ziggy waveshapes, and built a friendly compact synth around it? It’s all that modular fun, but in a package that lets you tweak right away without connecting a single patch cord.

Etsuko’s Eterna for monome norns, an elegant 6-voice slice instrument

In its bones, Eterna for monome norns returns to some of the original success of monome: doing imaginative, intuitive, musical things with slices. A single audio file transforms via 6-voice sampler/sequencer and 12-page interface into everything from delicate ambient textures to detailed grooves.

Peter Kirn - December 26, 2025

The low pass gate, now in stereophonic sound: Make Noise unveils DXG

It’s about time the glorious low pass gate, that staple of West Coast synthesis, got a stereophonic treatment. Make Noise just added to their stereo range with the DXG Dual Stereo Low Pass Gate and Mixer.

Peter Kirn - January 8, 2024

Audulus 4, iOS and Mac modular, gets major update and Buchla-style complex oscillator

Peter Kirn - December 28, 2022

Noise Engineering’s plug-ins are a dirty habit, start for free, and they keep coming

Peter Kirn - April 7, 2022

AAS’ elegant Multiphonics CV-1 software modular now has more filters, Low Pass Gate

Peter Kirn - October 14, 2021

Erica’s Pico System III is a tiny, 450 EUR West Coast modular rig

Peter Kirn - September 16, 2019