What’s new in the DIY world of Music Thing’s Workshop System

It’s a Very Workshop System Jamuary. Music Thing’s patchable music lab-in-a-lunchbox has proved that small-batch personal hardware can attract a select, dedicated community sharing great stuff with one another. Let’s catch up with what’s been happening in that magical village of synth wonder in the past year. Don’t forget, the ideas and code here are all open — meaning this could inspire more.

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

monome and RNBO now play together – with a free drum sampler patch

The iconic monome grid just got native support from Cycling ’74’s RNBO, the patching tool for exporting Max sounds on other hardware and software environments. There’s a fun, free example patch to get you started, too.

Peter Kirn - October 11, 2024

mlre is an expanded version of the classic monome mlr, focused on performance

Peter Kirn - August 3, 2022

Streaming Saturday: Catch flash crash, full of live coding stars, and Scanner on Bandcamp

Peter Kirn - October 16, 2021

monome, the grid that launched them all, gets “new and the same” edition; preorder now

Peter Kirn - June 15, 2021

Here’s some lovely music in the woods, on monome norns arcologies and more

Peter Kirn - June 14, 2021

Don’t miss the gorgeous, shuffling loops of glia [bandcamp picks]

Peter Kirn - February 5, 2021

monome’s alternative musical world: a hands-on creative expedition with norns and grid

Andreas Roman - May 8, 2020

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