Cook every day: read Suzanne Ciani’s 1976 Buchla Cookbook, for free

In 1976, Suzanne Ciani reported back to the USA’s National Endowment for the Arts with a report on her compositions, in the form of a modular cookbook. Now you can read her notes and follow along using entirely free software, complete with sound examples. I love overusing the cookbook metaphor, maybe just because food is […]

Impactor, Rupture 2 by Rawton Forge are perfect percussion synths for Live

That’s it. Rawton Forge has nailed it. With the new Rupture 2 on the kick and bass drum synthesis side, and Impactor handling general-purpose percussion synthesis for kicks/toms/tonal, you have an ideal floor-rattling, punchy, snappy synthesis duo for Ableton Live.

Peter Kirn - July 31, 2026

With Latent Terrain, crack open AI and explore neural synthesis in Max

“I’m not particularly interested in typing prompts to make stuff, I’m interested in breaking them and dissecting them,” writes Jasper Shuoyang Zheng as he introduces Latent Terrain. Now using an intuitive, elegantly designed open-source Max external and UI, you can play the weird world of neural audio codecs like an instrument, transforming your own sounds into new textures.

Peter Kirn - June 17, 2026

Synplant’s new PhenoType tech uses neural nets for more alien patches

Peter Kirn - June 10, 2026

Unreal Engine 5.8 is a major audio release, despite Epic staffing cuts

Peter Kirn - June 1, 2026

New, free TechAudioTools lets you get serious with Unreal’s MetaSounds

Peter Kirn - February 12, 2026

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

Peter Kirn - January 7, 2026

SuperSonic: SuperCollider synth is fun, playful, colorful, free, in any Web page

Peter Kirn - November 15, 2025

Boards of Canada played in lightbulbs: restored 1959 PDP-1 performance

Peter Kirn - October 13, 2025