Ekssperimental Sounds Studios analog-style wonders for Reason: hands-on

It’s a portal into a wonderland of retro-inspired gear, all in Reason. Sweden’s own Erik Karl Stephan Söderberg built EKSS as a one-man passion project, building Rack Extensions that ooze personality—that boutique hardware feeling, but all in the box. Come with me down the rabbit hole, including Erik’s fantastic new FreakShift effect and drum step-sequencer.

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

Sequential Prophet-5 gets an official software remake by GForce — tested

Following GForce’s official renditions of Oberheim instruments, now we’re treated to an official Sequential synth in plug-in form. This Prophet-5 combines painstaking recreations of the various revisions with new features like MPE, a dual-layer architecture, and lush effects. I’ve been testing it and got some behind-the-scenes details from the devs. It’s such a total pleasure to bring that Sequential sound into the box.

Peter Kirn - June 16, 2026

Turn Ableton Push 3 into a single expressive percussive surface, free

Peter Kirn - June 15, 2026

There are already some great uses of Ableton Extensions, and more coming

Peter Kirn - June 12, 2026

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

Peter Kirn - June 10, 2026

Unfiltered Audio Battalion drum synth, FX in VCV Rack are a revelation

Peter Kirn - June 9, 2026

Chaotic vocals, polyrhythmic grooves — meet the every something plugins

Peter Kirn - June 3, 2026

Ableton Extensions will let you code your own tools and actions for Live

Peter Kirn - June 2, 2026