Roostbox - Play a groovebox like a game (Free iOS app)

video upload by e y l v y

https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/roostbo...


Roostbox is a groovebox that looks like a retro arcade cabinet and plays like one. It makes techno and other electronic music live, by hand: fly a ship through a beat, ride the faders, flick the stick, and every gesture you make is recorded and loops with the beat.

It is a different way to play electronic music live. There is no step grid to program and no timeline to edit. Everything on screen is a control, you play it with two thumbs, and the loop keeps what you played.

Two kits are in the box, and everything is free: both kits, the whole performance surface and the AUv3 plugin. No purchase, no account, no ads.

Play it standalone on iPhone or iPad, or load it as an instrument inside AUM, Loopy Pro, Cubasis, Drambo or Logic Pro for iPad.

TWO KITS IN THE BOX

SPACE: fly a ship through a beat. Where the ship goes picks the groove: four-on-the-floor, backbeat, offbeat, broken, sixteenths. The cockpit page holds the mixer, a stick for filter and grit, overdrive, pump, tape, delay, reverb, crush and a DJ filter. A 303-style acid bass and a drum synth make the sound.

PLIVKA: a four-track techno box. Kick, bass, snare and hat, each with a pattern control and a hit control, laid out over five pages: Rhythm, Sound, Perform, FX and Mix. The bass line is a Turing machine that mutates as much or as little as you let it.

UNDER THE HOOD

- Euclidean rhythm generators, a Turing machine sequencer and a trigger sequencer drive the patterns.

- A drum synth and a 303-style acid bass synth make the sound. No samples.

- Every fader move is recorded as motion and loops with the beat. Undo and redo if you change your mind.

- Scenes: snapshot the whole kit and switch on the next sixteenth, beat, bar or pattern.

CLICK FOR MORE »

Plinky 12 Chords, Blocks and Syntakt: Polyrhythmic Arps

video upload by Making Sound Machines

"In this video, Enrica and Roland from Making Sound Machines play a melodic house track, performing live with the built-in polyphonic arpeggiator.

Plinky 12 sends a MIDI clock signal to the Elektron Syntakt, synchronizing the tempo between both devices. Syntakt is a fantastic hybrid digital-analogue drum machine and provides the beats you hear in this clip. All synth sounds are produced with Plinky 12's internal synth engine.

Plinky 12's internal sequencer advances through a harmonic progression, while Enrica performs on the touch surface, editing the polyphonic arpeggio. First she extends the length of the loop, leading to great polyrhythmic shifts over the 4/4 house beat.

As the track progresses, Enrica taps the surface to add or delete notes in the arp pattern.

Roland operates a second Plinky 12, the Blocks panel to the left. It is configured to send MIDI messages from an XY surface to Plinky 12 Chords. This allows him to change the sound parameters remotely while Enrica performs on Chords at the same time.

This track was composed for a live set at Club Synth, an event our friends Stijn and Priscilla from This is Not Rocket Science are hosting and organizing quarterly at Ruigoord near Amsterdam. Thank you for inviting us and putting in the hard work to create such a lovely event!

CLICK FOR MORE »

The Next FM-1? Ambient Drones on a $35 Cardputer

video upload by substatica drones

You can find the on M5Stack Cardputer Amazon. See the M5Stack label for additional posts.

"Could the $35 M5Stack Cardputer be the next FM-1? With open-source firmware, this tiny computer can become an experimental music machine capable of generating rich ambient drones. Diviner is one such firmware, a Daedric / Lain-core skinned companion firmware for the M5Stack Cardputer ADV, booted by the Launcher. Sixteen "rites" across four domains — sound, sight, the wired, and wards — in one blood-and-ember aesthetic, with a hand-rasterised Daedric glyph font.

Diviner Firmware - https://github.com/numbpill3d/cardput...

The Cardputer-Adv is a card-sized, versatile programmable platform powered by the Stamp-S3A module with ESP32-S3FN8 core processor. With its 1.14" LCD display and an intuitive 56-key keyboard, the Cardputer-Adv offers easy interaction and seamless command entry for a wide range of applications.

Advanced Audio Features
Equipped with high-quality audio components, the Cardputer-Adv includes an ES8311 codec, a precision MEMS microphone with a superior signal-to-noise ratio, an NS4150B amplifier circuit, and a 1W speaker output. For enhanced audio flexibility, it also features a 3.5mm headphone jack for external audio devices.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
00:00 - Intro
00:01 - M5Stack Cardputer Adv Stamp-S3A with ESP32-S3FN8 3.31" x 2.13" x 0.78"
00:06 - M5Launcher Application Launcher
00:12 - Diviner Firmware A Daedric / Lain-core Companion
00:16 - 5 audio/video related "rites" (16 in total)
00:21 - DRONE Generative drone box
00:28 - 5 drifting voices, resonant LP, wind, bells, dark delay
00:55 - Toggle wind level boost (N)
01:37 - Toggle bell level boost (B)
02:00 - Scale modes (1-6)
02:26 - Root note (A-K)
02:59 - Octave down/up (Z, X)
03:26 - Light and drift (Arrow Keys)
03:35 - Toggle hold/flow (Space)
05:49 - SEQ Groovebox with kick/snare/hat/acid
06:04 - BEAT C expression bytebeat livecoder
06:17 - WIRED Ambient digital visualizations
06:52 - VISIONS Ambient organic visualizations"

GENE 616 - First Look

video upload by Gene Synths



GENE 616 is an all analog, stereo polyrhythmic drum machine with two independent CV / Trigger sequencers.

The upper sequencer controls the Bass Drum Generator and Oscillator 1, a Synth Drum voice with a unique architecture which can produce almost any frequency, multiple waveforms, sweet and soft or totally untamed and unhinged, and is CV controllable over a wide range of pitches, timbres and decay times.

The lower sequencer controls the Snare Drum Generator and Oscillator 2, which is the same type of Synth Drum voice but with slightly extended high frequencies.

CLICK FOR MORE »

"holic" v0.1 | M5Stack Tab5 Drum Machine & Sequencer

video upload by alloutofsync

"Meet holic, an experimental drum machine built on M5Stack Tab5. Inspired by the playful workflow of the Pocket Operator PO-32 tonic.

A 16-step sequencer with four drum tracks, controlled entirely by touch. Build rhythms with kick, snare, hi-hat, and noise.

The drum sounds are synthesized in code and prepared at startup. Create four patterns and switch between them at the next bar. Edit steps during playback, mute tracks, and play sounds live.

Retro LCD visuals and small animations react to the beat(not yet). Designed for portrait use, with audio through the headset output. This first proof of concept explores how a touchscreen can feel like an instrument.

More informations about:
M5Stack Tab5
https://docs.m5stack.com/en/core/Tab5"

You can find the M5Stack Tab5 on Amazon

A small monster from Berlin

video upload by TheGrimRapper

"Dark beats and slightly ridiculous music tools for Halloween.

Monster Maker is a browser beat machine for dark, Memphis-inspired beats, built just for fun. It's free and will stay free.

Have a play:
https://thehumants.com/monster-maker/

Runs in desktop Chrome, Edge or Brave.
For personal, non-commercial projects and experiments.

Questions or feedback:
thegrimrapper@thehumants.com

Keep cookin'."

Additional details via the developer:

"You can build a whole track in it: lay down drums and 808s, play or draw melodies with the Horror Keys, record your voice and chop your own samples. There's a song arranger, mixer, live vocal FX with a talkbox mode, tape echo, reverb and a step-sequenced glitch rack. MIDI keyboard input and clock sync are in there too, and you can record or render the result to WAV.

I also added a few skins and hid some Easter eggs. Curious if you'll find them."

WMDevices Introduces Modbox MKII - In Depth Overview / Tutorial

video upload by WMDevices

"In this video, Alex walks through every mode and shift function on Modbox MkII. He also covers clock and reset assignment, switching outputs between unipolar and bipolar, and resetting the module. There are patch demos for each section, ending with a patch that uses the entire module.

Modbox MkII carries on the legacy of the original Modbox, a collaboration between WMD and SSF. It keeps everything from the original, including the three-phase LFO, the skew LFO, and the sample and hold, and adds much more. The three-phase LFO morphs smoothly between waveforms, has adjustable phase spread, and gives each output its own independent frequency ratio. That makes it work like three separate LFOs, with phase modulation and frequency spread modes on top. The skew LFO adds phase offset and log/exponential shaping. Both LFOs can be clock synced and reset, with beat-synced behavior that keeps the frequency knob full of sweet spots. The sample and hold now includes track and hold and a Turing Machine-style looping mode with adjustable length and probability."

Video Chapters
0:00 Intro
0:26 The original Modbox
1:07 Three-phase LFO: phase spread mode
2:14 Frequency and waveform
3:17 Spread knob
4:22 Shift functions: output attenuation
5:16 Output ratios
7:14 Phase modulation mode
9:43 Frequency spread mode
10:20 Three-phase LFO patch example
11:16 Skew LFO
12:44 Skew LFO phase and shape
13:42 Clock sync
15:00 Reset
16:15 Assigning clock and reset
17:36 Beat-synced LFOs
18:43 Synced LFO patch example
19:46 Sample and hold
21:02 Sampling external sources
22:14 Track and hold mode
23:27 Turing Machine mode
25:18 Unipolar and bipolar outputs
26:29 Resetting shift functions and the module
27:15 Full module patch example
28:26 Outro

"Modbox MKII is a deeply modulatable dual-LFO and multifunction tool. The Three Phase oscillator generates three interrelated outputs across phase, modulation, and frequency-spread modes. The Skew oscillator delivers a continuously morphing ramp / triangle / saw with curve warping and a beat-locked rhythmic LFO when clock synced. Add a three-mode sample & hold with a 32-step probabilistic Turing-style sequencer, an analog noise source, and full V/Oct calibration, and you've got a complete modulation lab in a single Eurorack module. Patched in seconds, explored for years."

CLICK FOR MORE »

Audio Computer Loom demo

video upload by Starsky Carr

"Audio Computer's LOOM is a four-track multi-loop time stretcher built for textural soundscaping - and this is the near-final prototype, shown to me at Synthfest UK 2026 by Ben from Audio Computer. It's not out until next year.

If you know Audio Computer, it's probably from Beat Friend, their brilliantly odd drum machine. LOOM is something else entirely: load four sounds - from stereo mics, line in, or your own files - then slow them to an absolute freeze, run them backwards, and melt the lot into a soundscape.

What's in it:

Four tracks, each with its own pan, FX send and LFO routing
Four time-stretch algorithms: tape, blur, pristine and beats
"Pristine" does extreme slow-down with virtually no artefacts
Three LFOs - volume, pan and stretch - with selectable shapes
Triforce FX unit: dual reverbs, bit crusher, low-pass filter
Headphone jack on board, with battery power and stereo mics planned
Save the whole thing as a patch and come back to it later

The pitch is a self-contained field soundscaper: unplug it, sit it on the piano, press record, play a few notes, put the headphones on and stretch it into something else - no preamps, no DAW, no setup."

SynthFest 2026 Walkthrough

video uploads by Molten Music Technology

"I visited SynthFest for the day in Sheffield and these were the bits of synth and modular that caught my attention."

You can use the player controls to skip around once started.

Playlist:

1. SynthFest 2026 Walkthrough

Sound On Sound magazine brought back SynthFest this year to delight us with synthesisers, modular and electronic music technology. It was filled with gear, seminars and a good dollop of community. Here's my walkthrough of the main expo in the hope of giving you some of the vibe of this fabulous show. Check out my handful of other videos getting closer in on some of the interesting bits that caught my attention. https://www.synthfest.co.uk/

2. SynthFest 2026 Noise Lab Beat Designer

To go along with their Drum Designer module, Noise Lab has come up with a fully featured drum machine called Beat Designer. https://www.noiselab.se/

3. SynthFest 2026 Orbiton

A remarkable new prototype instrument called Orbiton. It uses these twangy lamellas to physically modulate the sound. Currently the sound source is a DSP internal synth, but the intention is to be able to use the lamella vibrations as oscillators as the instrument develops. https://orbitonsynth.com/

4. SynthFest 2026 Delia Derbyshire Day

Grabbed a few moments at the Delia Derbyshire Day booth who are using Delia's legacy to empowered women in electronic music and technology. This was juston the Insta360 camera so the video and audio are a bit ropey, but it's a wonderful charity who deserve a shout-out. https://deliaderbyshireday.com/

5. SynthFest 2026 Half-Time Modular 8TR, 2TR and a Looper

Half-Time Modular are released a stereo, 2-track recorder module that will capture your performance at the touch of a button. Very neat in 2HP but also useful as a 1U tile. They also had a prototype looper - one to watch out for. https://www.halftimemodular.com/

6. SynthFest 2026 MidiCake Una

Una is a sort of build-a-band, hardware interactive composer that responds to what you play and jams around it. https://midicake.com/

7. SynthFest 2026 Rides in the Storm Rhythm Rides

Rides in the Storm were showing their not-quite-working drum machine Rhythm Rides. It's a massive source of modular drums, pattern generation and percussive grooving. Should be running at Superbooth next year. https://rides-in-the-storm.de/

8. SynthFest 2026 Bradshaw Instruments Drumkid

Sample-based drum module that's a whole kit to play with and includes lots of probabilistic messing about. https://bradshawinstruments.myshopify.com

9. SynthFest 2026 CLIP Photon Smasher

CLIP are a community-led project that brings people together over the generation of sound, and making and listening to music. They had two different Photon Smashers to show us. https://www.clipsoundandmusic.uk/

10. SynthFest 2026 Ian Helliwell

Discovered a superbly dressed man, showing some wondefully put together boxes, making some fascinating noises. That man is audio/visual artist Ian Helliwell. https://www.ianhelliwell.co.uk/

11. SynthFest 2026 F*ck With Sound

F*ck With Sound were showing three modules including a Ring Modulator, Distortion and Spatial mixing thing. https://www.fwithsound.com/

12. SynthFest 2026 Wonkystuff FluxMEMORY/h

Wonkystuff has pulled the FluxMEMORY out of the AE Modular format and put it into your hand. The handheld FluxMemory/h gives you four sample playback heads that you can mix and mess with. https://wonkystuff.co.uk/

13. SynthFest 2026 Eternal Research Demon Box

Strange triangulaar box that feeds of electromagnetic fields and outputs MIDI notes and other bits of data. https://eternalresearch.com/

14. SynthFest 2026 Transistor Sound Labs Bitloader

Bitloader is a sample-based drum module that's the perfect companion to the Stepper Drum which been in development for a very long time. However, Nina seemed to think that January could be the moment to get both of these modules released! https://www.transistorsoundslabs.com/

See the labels below for additonal posts on each.

A $60 Elektron Machinedrum?! (M-Vave FM1 Hortator)

video upload by AutoHot

You can find the M-VAVE FM-1 on Amazon.

"M-VAVE FM-1 running the Hortator custom firmware! Can a $60 groovebox sound like the legendary Elektron Machinedrum? Here is a raw techno sound demo.

With the Hortator firmware, the M-Vave FM1 turns into a powerful 8-track drum machine featuring 45 drum engines — including 21 models inspired by the Elektron Machinedrum.

In this first live jam session, I explore punchy kicks, FM textures, and industrial electronic grooves built entirely on this compact synth.

🔗 Get the Hortator Firmware:
https://deadactive.github.io/hortator/

🎛 Gear & Details:
• Synth: M-VAVE FM-1 (FM1)
• Firmware: Hortator Custom OS
• Style: Hardware Techno / Industrial Jam"

M-Vave FM-1: Turning the synth into an Elektron Machinedrum! Hortator firmware review
video upload by AutoHot

"An Elektron Machinedrum for pennies? New Hortator firmware for the M-Vave FM-1. Eight tracks of drums, inside the M-Vave FM-1. A stunning Elektron Machinedrum-style drum machine from the M-Vave FM-1: Exploring the Hortator firmware. 45 drum engines in three banks: 21 measured from the Machinedrum (13 TRX, 8 EFM), 10 modern, 14 classic. 151 factory presets, 128 user slots. The Elektron spirit is definitely present in this firmware.

Transforming the budget M-Vave FM-1 synthesizer into a full-fledged drum machine in the style of the legendary Elektron Machinedrum!

In this video, we explore the alternative Hortator firmware from DEADACTIVE. It completely transforms the functionality of this small synthesizer, turning it into a powerful 8-track drum machine similar to the renowned Elektron Machinedrum, with authentic electronic sound and flexible control.

Hortator Architecture and Sound Engines:
8 drum tracks inside the compact M-Vave FM-1.
45 Drum Engines in 3 banks:
21 engines lifted from the Elektron Machinedrum (13 TRX models and 8 EFM models);
10 modern engines (Modern);
14 classic engines (Classic).

CLICK FOR MORE »

ORRERY Generative Modular by RedtailWorks, ORRERY - by Recluse Studios, and ORRERY by Kepler

video upload by RedtailWorks

Three different apps based on celestial mechanics. Above is RedtailWorks ORRERY Generative Modular posted just today. No additional details are provided.

Directly below is Recluse Studios' Orrery from about two months ago. You can find Kepler's Orrery in previous posts here dating back to 2007. As always, dig and explore.

Orrery by Recluse Studios First Look

video uploads by Recluse Studios

https://reclusestudios.net/orrery.html

"Orrery is a generative music environment where wires carry theory, not audio. You don't write every note — you set the rules, and the machine obeys them forever. Gravity becomes a tonal center. A wormhole becomes a canon machine. A supernova becomes structure.

This is the celestial canvas playing a real piece: three minutes born from a single brief — start in A minor, move to E phrygian, end in D lydian. Bells, soft pads, percussion. No supernovas. One wormhole. All sounds generated in-engine.

Orrery is deterministic by contract: the same file, the same seeds, the same performance — every time, on your machine, offline. No black box, no cloud, no subscription. The composer stays the composer. The machine does the paperwork.

Built by Recluse Studios.

#GenerativeMusic #Orrery #MusicTech #RecluseStudios #CompositionTools" Playlist:

1. Orrery - First Look
2. Orrery - Ouroboros

This is the celestial canvas playing ouroboros — the first demo, and the one that shows what the clock really is. A single voice walks D, F, A, C, E while the tempo itself orbits: 40 bpm, up to 280, and back down, forever. Because the clock's own rate is fed back into the clock. The snake eats its tail.

3. Orrery - Canon in Em

This is Orrery's celestial canvas playing Canon in Em — a strict three-voice canon in E minor, doing exactly what the docs always promised. One theme, eight bars, an original line. It enters, and two wormholes swallow every two-bar phrase and return it unchanged, on time: the same melody at +2 bars, and at +4 bars, forever. Pachelbel's ground, translated — i, v, VI, III, iv, i, iv, v — in natural minor, where the dominant stays minor and the cadence stays modal. 80 bpm. Four minutes. No scenes, no supernovas, no shortcuts: the form is the canon.

4. Orrery - Undertow

One static texture, three rhythms braiding against a bar.
The piece: a Glass-style additive ladder climbs D5→D6, a tresillo thumps on the grid, and a 2-in-7 euclid pattern laps at the beat but never quite lands — the one voice that refuses the bar. The polyrhythm is the entire form. In the middle section the ladder learns to breathe — ties, rests, an accented held apex — before the machine returns, unchanged.

GRAVITY IS A CHORD.
WORMHOLES ARE CANON MACHINES.

You drop bodies into a sky and wire their ports together. A clock keeps time. A key holds the tonality. A progression walks the changes, a voice-leader smooths them, and a gravity well bends everything nearby toward its centre. Wire a body's output into another's input and the second one starts listening.

Beads sit on the wires and do the arithmetic — scale, offset, clamp, curve, lag — so a die roll can drive a filter sweep and a slow contour can nudge a whole section. The machine has no opinions. It has a clock.

See https://reclusestudios.net/orrery.html for additional details.

Korg MS2000R Lives Again! | All 10 Demo Songs (No Talking)

video upload by Autodafe

"The Korg MS2000 and MS2000R are classic virtual-analog synthesizers from the early 2000s, known for their distinctive digital character, hands-on controls, vocoder and motion sequencing. The MS2000R is the rack version of the keyboard model.

This open-source project emulates the original hardware at a low level, running the original H8S/2350 firmware and DSP56362 code rather than recreating the synth engine from scratch. It includes a standalone application with the full front panel, plus VST3 and Audio Unit plugin versions.

In this video I’m using the standalone version and playing all 10 factory demo songs in sequence.

No talking — just the demos.

00:00 - Demo Song 1
00:48 - Demo Song 2
02:56 - Demo Song 3
04:30 - Demo Song 4
06:19 - Demo Song 5
07:33 - Demo Song 6
08:57 - Demo Song 7
09:39 - Demo Song 8
11:14 - Demo Song 9
12:32 - Demo Song 10

GitHub:
https://github.com/Tuth/ms2000r-emu"

CLICK FOR MORE »

TinyGreg added a sampler to the Elektron Model:Cycles (and a lot more) | Model-TG

video upload by TinyGreg

"A laid-back walkthrough of Model-TG, my free, open-source firmware additions for the Elektron Model:Cycles (OS 1.13). Everything the Cycles already does still works; this adds a full Sampler machine and a pile of new features on top.

Flash your own copy of Model-TG here (you need your own copy of the OS stock firmware:
https://tinygregaudio.github.io/Model...

Source, user guide and every button combo:
https://github.com/TinyGregAudio/Mode...

What's in it:
• A Sampler machine on any track: per-pattern samples, sample locks, reverse, a waveform view
• Seven playback modes: One shot, Loop, Slice, Granular, Stretch, Pluck and Wave (wavetables)
• Slice by equal size, transient or two kinds of manual chopping.
• Resampling of a track, the whole mix, or your computer's audio over USB
• Stereo samples, and uploading your own WAVs with Elektron Transfer
• A performance page with beat-repeat and 12 master FX
• Attack, Filter and Resonance on all the stock machines
• Slide trigs: glide any p-locked parameter from one trig to the next
• Scale Lock, a CPU/memory page, and lower CPU use overall

Thanks to drumkilla (elektron-model-tweaks) for the latching mute, trig preview and browser scroll tweaks, and to mischa85 for elektron-firmware-tool.

Model-TG is unofficial: it is not made, supported or endorsed by Elektron. Install it at your own risk, and back up your projects first. You can go back to the stock OS at any time. "Elektron" and "Model:Cycles" are trademarks of Elektron Music Machines.

#Elektron #ModelCycles #Sampler #Firmware #Synth #ModelTG"

Bent505 Circuit-bent 80s Drum Machine VST/AU

video uploads by atnr

Playlist:

1. Bent505 Circuit-bent 80s Drum Machine VST/AU
2. Experimental Beat w/ Bent 505, OP-1 field, and Modular Synth | Renew 2026-09-10 by atnr
3. Circuit-Bent Drum VST, OP-1 field, YAMAHA CS01 Electronica | Rest and Drop 2026-09-09 by atnr [previously posted]

"Bent 505 is a 16-part rhythm sampler featuring sounds reminiscent of 80s drum machines.

Control pitch, bit depth, sample rate, comb filter, and delay for each part to design everything from classic drum sounds to raw lo-fi and metallic tones.

Unpredictable sonic variations via Random, Jitter, and Destroy, plus MIDI note reassignment and 16 individual outputs.

Bent 505 Product Website
https://store.atnr.net/bent-505/?lang=en"

"Bent 505 is a 16-part rhythm sampler featuring sounds reminiscent of 80s drum machines. Control pitch, bit depth, sample rate, comb filter, and delay for each part to design everything from classic drum sounds to raw lo-fi and metallic tones. Unpredictable sonic variations via Random, Jitter, and Destroy, plus MIDI note reassignment and 16 individual outputs.

Key Features

Editable 80s Sound Samples

16 sounds reminiscent of 80s drum machines
Detailed editing of each of the 16 parts
Flexible MIDI note assignment
Lo-Fi Effects

CLICK FOR MORE »

Metasonix D-1000 Vacuum Tube Drum Machine

Note: links to listings are affiliate links for which the site may be compensated.

via this eBay listing

Additional Tone Tweakers Listings

"We’ve decided to sell our Metasonix D-1000, one of the rarest, most sought after and possibly weirdest drum machines ever. It’s estimated that only around 150 of these were produced.

'Unleash pure sonic chaos and analog character with the Metasonix D-1000—an unapologetically wild drum machine that ditches sterile digital precision for raw, tube-driven power; built around real vacuum tube circuitry, it delivers aggressive, unpredictable tones that range from deep, thunderous kicks to searing industrial textures, making every beat feel alive and dangerous; whether you’re crafting experimental electronic music or looking to inject gritty personality into your productions, the D-1000 doesn’t just make rhythms—it creates an experience that’s bold, tactile, and impossible to replicate with anything else.'

Tested and working fine - noisy and weird, just like it was meant to be."

CLICK FOR MORE »

ROLAND T8 BEAT MACHINE - Weird Enigma

video upload by Woody Piano Shack

https://www.patreon.com/cw/woodypianoshack
https://woodypianoshack.com

• Music theory and playing techniques
• Song breakdowns & piano arrangements
• Synth and keyboard tips and tricks
• Topics requested by members

Making a lo-fi track with just one cheap synth

video upload by vekoni

"I limited myself using only Stylophone Beat with Loopy Pro to make a chill lo-fi track. This little drum machine can also do neat bass sounds, which I've used to create a melody over the recorded beat.

I was usually using the Beat exactly as intended: punching in notes with its built-in sequencer (which is quantized), then jam over it with a synth or a guitar (so basically it was a groovy metronome for me). This time I wanted to try something new and use it exclusively to create something "off the grid", so I've played the Beat freely and looped it. With the use of some great effects I managed to elevate the sounds of this unit."

Clave Euclidian Drum Machine by Oficina de Sonido

video upload by Oficina de Sonido

CLAVE. Euclidean Drum Machine - Quick Start

video upload by Oficina de Sonido

via Kickstarter

"Clave, Ecuclidean Drum Machine lets you intuitively play rhythmic patterns that complement and syncopate with one another. Prepare your compositions across 16 steps and 8 sample tracks by saving different versions or parts, and refine your performance with the included effects and filter. All in a single, lightweight, and portable unit. It comes with 5 factory-installed drum kits and has space for you to add your own.

It’s based on what’s known as Euclidean Rhythms, which describes the distribution of beat intervals. It sounds complicated, but that’s exactly what makes the system simple. The best part is that you’re not limited to using the automatic distribution system, you can also program it step-by-step, 'XOX' just like any other drum machine.

In our musical quest to create a hybrid sound that blends electronic music with organic rhythms, we have collaborated with percussionists, designed our own synths and drum machines, programmed digital instruments, and even built electromechanical percussions!

This campaign is to introduce our new drum machine to the world; we already have a couple of working prototypes. We need your support to be able to produce the first batch of machines. This is already our fourth project on Kickstarter—we hope we can crowdfund this one, too!"

You can find the user manual here.

P.S. They reached their Kickstarter goal in 24 under hours!

AE Machine | Architecture For Drums That Never Repeat & Oxide Virtual Tape Processor

video upload by Emiliano

"One practical note: listen to this on monitors or proper headphones. Most of what the machine does lives in the low end and in the stereo field, and laptop speakers will simply delete it. Loud is not necessary, full range is."

This one was spotted and sent in via Ivan Trajkovic aka deejayiwan. There are 21 videos in the playlist above. They mainly focus on AE Machine as a whole, but video 7 is focused on Oxide. You'll find the full video descriptions for the first and seventh videos further below. You can find full details on AE Machine at https://www.peamarte.it/ae - Oxide in chapter 52 of the user manual.

In short, AE Machine (estimated release date of October 2) consists of:

"Eleven synthesis voices built from scratch at sample level, five samplers, two free-running pads. A sequencer where a 16 × 16 Markov matrix decides which step may follow which, a note sieve that re-orchestrates the pattern when you transpose it, a chaotic modulation matrix reaching 271 parameters, morphing between any two presets, and a stem recorder that writes twenty-six files in one press. It runs in Max/MSP 9 on macOS and Windows, and playing it requires no paid Max license: an unlicensed copy of Max opens and runs the machine in full.

This is not commercial software in the ordinary sense. It is my working method, the environment I built night after night for my own music, packaged so that you can play it. When you get it, you are getting research: the reading, the listening, the failed versions, the decisions. The manual is a hundred pages and it is already here, whole, free to read. Trust your ears over any paragraph in it."

CLICK FOR MORE »

Yamaha RX21 - A Vintage Drum Machine that Promises Realism

video upload by Manitou Productions

"In 1985 Yamaha released the DX21 Digital Rhythm Programmer, promising the drum sounds were 'indistinguishable' from the real thing. We know better, don't we? That doesn't mean we can't enjoy the RX series of drum machines for what they are: fun and simple beat boxes that still have something to offer in 2026. Let's go!"

Chapters: 0:00 We don't want it that fast! 0:09 Titles 0:17 Intro 0:33 A quick look at the manual 2:22 Wedge shaped 2:36 Ins and outs 3:30 Adapter 4:04 Let's turn it on! 4:48 Sounds! 5:36 Some patterns 6:25 Tempo 8:41 Let's open it up! 9:42 Battery test 10:00 The button matrix 10:56 Cleaning the carbon pads 13:39 Partial reassembly 14:05 The circuit board 14:59 Adjusting volumes 16:52 Recording a pattern 20:27 Playing it through the Rev7 Reverb 23:17 Outro 24:22 Ivy's Corner