Lunacy Audio has launched its TIDES Botanical Loop Lab, an instrument that lets you craft your own playable loops, pads, sweeps and impacts. It features an extensive collection of organically-inspired samples, sound effects and deep-sampled instruments. These can be blended to create unique sounds. The company says TIDES is one […]
Hivetune has announced its ENS-86 vintage chorus plugin, built to recreate the warm modulation of classic analog bucket-brigade device circuits. Inspired by the chorus section of legendary ’80s synths, ENS-86 captures warmth but without limitations, for modern flexibility and deeper sound-shaping control. Features The free version contains classic factory presets, […]
The M-VAVE FM-1 customisation landscape unveiled another hill reachable via a separate, slightly treacherous path, as the developer of the Serum wavetable synth — Steve Duda of Xfer — has posted a message on Reddit outlining his plans to bring a stripped-back version to the FM-1. Suggesting it will be […]
In a world of AI, and an ongoing phenomenon of firmware hacking and modding aided by such technology, companies are now setting out their stance on custom firmware — or staying publicly silent while people develop firmware for their products regardless. The biggest ongoing scramble, started this summer, is that […]
Musician and composer Matthew Herbert has recorded an album made entirely from samples of everyday food (and other) items commonly requested by food banks, such as pasta, cereal, tinned fruit, nappies (diapers) and toilet roll. Herbert has had a longstanding interest in food and the systems that underpin it. This […]
I’ve always been fascinated by turning the raw data from everyday sources into some form of music. You take a source which has nothing musical at all about it — could even be fairly mundane outside the particular realm in which it exists — and turn it into sound, possibly […]
Excite Audio’s Bloom series expands with the launch of the Ensemble Mallets tuned percussion plugin. It turns loops, one-shots and phrases into a ready-to-play mallet instrument, and contains a rich collection of pianos, vibraphones, marimbas, glockenspiels and bells. You can play anything from solo voices to high-energy sequences and full […]
As I’m clearly not fully attuned to Teenage Engineering‘s promotional methods, I’m not sure exactly when the “Life Is Fantastic” (so the email told me) EP-35 amplifier dropped, but there were rumours and leaks a week or so ago, and now it’s in their store. With the company already saying […]
Akai has launched the MPK Mini Plus II 37-key mini controller keyboard, four years almost to the day since the original Mini Plus II came out. Apparently it offers “everything you never knew you needed from a MIDI keyboard controller“, which I hope isn’t speak for “we ran out of […]
If you’re a fan of the early ’90s authentic video game sounds and music, you’ll probably enjoy this video and project from SoundFontGuy (SFG). He’s recorded a full album of retro game inspired music using Sony’s PS1 as source and inspiration. Ideologies: An Erbalta Tale is an album of 24 […]
Bluezone Corporation has released its Cinematic Fear sound pack featuring atmospheric sounds, drones, textures, transitions and impacts. Royalty free, it’s designed for music producers and soundtrack composers for films, TV series and trailers — anyone who wants slightly edging, unnerving sounds. Think unsettling textures, ghostly atmospheres, and sound effects that […]
Stagebox Software has just released its free software emulator of the 1987 Yamaha VSS-30 sampling keyboard. The cheap, toylike keyboard was really a beauty of a synth, offering up crunchy 8-bit goodness of whatever audio you fed in through its mini microphone. Perhaps maligned at the time, it now produces […]
Imaginando has announced its COLAPSO atomic synth plugin, so called because it models what happens when an excited atom collapses — an electron falls to a lower energy level and releases the difference as light, one sharp line at a wavelength only that element produces. This synth effectively plays the […]
UJAM has released its free DETUNICORN hypersaw synthesiser just in time for spooky season. The plugin produces large, detuned hypersaw sounds associated with hyperpop, digicore and dance pop. It draws on the supersaw popularised by synths such as the Roland JP-8000 and Nord Lead. DETUNICORN builds on this, offering additional […]
The speed of development of firmwares for the FM-1 is galloping along faster than many of us can keep up with. There are now well over 100 custom builds, and that’s just the ones found on the main listing sites with likely more dotted around GitHub and the Internet. Now […]
AtomoSynth has announced the new Mochika X7, a rebirth of the classic Mochika sound combined with extensive modulation capabilities and a new ‘modulatable’ onboard delay effect. Available as both Eurorack and standalone desktop version, it features the classic square and saw analog oscillator, noise oscillator, and “always in tune” digitally […]
Yamaha has expanded its line of CK series stage keyboards with a 76-key version: the CK76. In 2023, Yamaha launched the 61-key CK61 with semi-weighted keyboard, and the 88-key CK88 with fully weighted keys. Now, the CK76 offers a middle-ground size — 76 keys is highly useful and adequate for […]
Roland brings the classic JUPITER-8 to life in modern, compact form with the launch of the JUPITER-08 as part of its Boutique line of synths. It strives to recreate the classic synth, featuring refined voice allocation and pitch behaviour with enhanced polyphony (32 voices) and genuine vintage-inspired character. JUPITER-08 is […]
Roland has expanded its Boutique collection of instruments with the launch of the n/vision wavetable synth, combining classic wavetable synthesis with advanced Roland technologies. Ideal for rich sounds and evolving textures, it mixes both direct hands-on control and deep menus for further sound design. Users can blend, shape and set […]
Arturia has launched a 49-key version of its MiniFreak algorithmic synth — the 37-key version having launched in 2022 and version 5 of the firmware dropping last month. The 49 key MiniFreak features semi-weighted keys — so a heavier feeling than the synth keys of the 37-key model; whether you […]