Audio Damage ShinRonin, now free, is a throwback to 2003 plug-in design

You wake up. It’s the year 2003. Some upstart software developer called Audio Damage wants to let you patch a combo filter-delay however you like, including ways that will break your ears. Ronin is reborn as ShinRonin, from a time when software developers let you run with scissors and do strange things. This is one […]

Juneteenth lineup round-up and Black Techno Matters scorchers

Juneteenth is about emancipation, and it’s expressed in musical joy across the USA today. Here are our friends from Black Techno Matters with their community calendar of events today — one might be near you — plus two recent releases you should hear wherever you are.

Peter Kirn - June 19, 2026

Pac-Man, Befaco RANDOM8, and more free modules of VCV Rack

Your sequencing gets upgraded — including cameos by Pac-Man and the LOGO turtle. You get even more secret weapons for drum synthesis. You get the hot new RANDOM8 collab from Befaco and Mylar Melodies, cloning their new hardware. There’s just so much goodness in VCV Rack that covering the free stuff has me dizzy. Here’s your June update, with some sound examples.

Peter Kirn - June 18, 2026

Kaximia on channeling aggression, soldering into survival; VCF giveaway

Kaximia - June 1, 2026

The joy of Splines, a module that can make anything from curves

Peter Kirn - May 26, 2026

The best long weekend music gear deals you can get right now

Peter Kirn - May 25, 2026

Free: 4ms VCV Rack ROMplers put gobs of drums under voltage control

Peter Kirn - May 19, 2026

Maggi Payne, photographing crystals, composing for Moog modular III, more

Peter Kirn - May 17, 2026

Make Noise and Tom Erbe have made a mighty morphing spatial Plexiphon

Peter Kirn - May 7, 2026