"Unlike most FM synthesizers that are very clean and digital, the vintage FM chips within MEGAfm have very characterful tone allowing a broad sound palette ranging from beautiful plucked strings to growly distorted bass lines."
"Welcome to Bad Gear, the show about the world’s most-hated audio tools. There are electronic musical instruments with a clear purpose: analog synths deliver classic tones and social media swag, plugins and workstations are great tools if you actually want to make money and Eurorack is still a healthier form of escapism than buying pills at a gas station.
Today, however, we are going to talk about The Force. The mission of this unholy 2019 lovechild of an MPC and Ableton incarnate was nebulous from the beginning and since then the machine was so profoundly transformed by a slow yet steady stream of updates that it is hard to tell whether it is still worth using it in 2026 - or if it ever was."
Chapters:
00:00 Intro tune
01:04 Overview Force
01:50 Differences to MPCs
02:33 Concept & Limitations
02:58 MPC & Ableton Compatibility, Connectivity
03:33 Touch Screen
03:49 Expandability
04:02 Rear Panel
04:25 What else? (Pricing, Thanks,...)
04:56 H*te Screen
05:20 Jam 1 ( 2010s Rave Music )
06:11 Jam 2 ( Downtempo )
07:13 Finale ( Micro House )
07:44 VERDICT
09:03 Patreon Vocoder Shoutout (Waldorf microQ)
"Make Noise’s new module GTE converts a fluctuating voltage into discrete triggers — a surprisingly flexible way to generate rhythm and melody without programming a single step. This video features three patches: hands-on drumming, generative drum sequencing, and slow evolving melody from a faderbank. Patch notes included.
00:00 twist to fill
02:44 auto-fills
05:18 harmonic drift
NOTE: Make Noise did not send me this module, nor did they sponsor the video."
"Today I want to show you a simple trick I've been enjoying a lot to make sounds that are more to my taste with that SDS8 I've been given by one of my brothers a few years back: you can trigger two voices at once using a splitter or mult!
This opens up the sound design palette quite a bit and I prefer to have less sounds in number to make them sound better (or at least to my taste).
Have fun!!!"
00:00 Intro
01:39 SDS 8 Basic operation
03:33 How to trigger two voices at once
06:45 SDS 8 goes Jungle!
08:29 SDS 8 goes Eurorack
"The Groove Synthesis 3rd Wave is a 24-voice wavetable synthesizer with real analog filters, three oscillators per voice, and a 6-stage wave envelope that can independently sweep each oscillator through 64-position wavetables. It's built as a modern successor to the PPG Wave 2.2 and 2.3, carrying the original PPG wavetables alongside 56 high-resolution modern wavetables, analog-modeled waveforms, and — as of OS 1.8 — a built-in sampler. In this review, I go through every major feature of the 3rd Wave in detail: the four oscillator types (PPG legacy, modern user wavetables, analog-modeled, and samples), the dual filter architecture (4-pole analog low-pass plus 2-pole zero-delay state-variable), all four envelopes, the four LFOs, the 16-slot modulation matrix, 11 built-in effects, the arpeggiator, the pattern-based sequencer with parameter automation, 4-part multitimbral layering and splits, the Wave Maker custom wavetable tool (including Serum wavetable import), unison with chord memory, MPE support, and more.
Whether you're considering buying one, comparing it to other hardware wavetable synths like the Waldorf Iridium, Modal Cobalt, or ASM Hydrasynth, or just curious what a modern PPG-inspired instrument sounds like in 2025/2026, this is the full picture. I cover every section of the signal chain with sound demos, explain what makes the wave envelope system unique, show how to build patches from scratch, and give my honest take on where the 3rd Wave excels and where it falls short. Timestamps for every section are below — jump to whatever interests you."
"Following up on my previous improvised jam (Torso S-4 Explorations Vol. 30), this video is a dedicated deep-dive tutorial and demonstration of the newly revamped MOSAIC engine introduced in the 2.2 beta firmware update.
The Torso S-4's granular engine has received a massive overhaul, and in this guide, I break down exactly how it works so you can get the most out of your sound design sessions.
What I Cover:
• Detailed Scan Mode and Parameter Walkthrough: An in-depth look at how the different scan modes behave under the 2.2 beta firmware, and at the interface changes and new parameters.
• The 'Fox.wav' Demo: To clearly demonstrate these technical changes, I put the engine to work using a single vocal sample (the legendary 'fox.wav' sample from CSound history), allowing you to clearly hear how each parameter shapes the texturing, time-stretching, and cloud generation.
Whether you're looking to update your hardware or just curious about the direction Torso Electronics is taking the S-4 sampler, I hope this helps guide your workflow!
"Arp Of Darkness firmware v1.4.0 is here, and it's a significant one. Three new features that change how you interact with the Arp Of Darkness on the fly — here's what's new.
CV Keyboard Mode — Hold the High C (Shift) button at boot and you drop into a full monophonic CV keyboard, complete with gate output and portamento via the pot. No need to swap firmware just to play a few notes. It's the same keyboard mode from Shroud Of Turing, now living inside the Arp Of Darkness.
Remix Buffer — A short dual-tap of Octave Up + Octave Down shuffles your note buffer order on the next clock. The notes themselves stay the same — only the sequence changes. It's a quick, surgical way to break out of a pattern without losing the phrase you built.
Auto-Remix — Want the buffer to shuffle itself? Auto-Remix does exactly that, automatically reshuffling every 2, 4, or 8 loops. Activate it queued (waits for the end of the current loop) or immediate (fires on the next clock) — your call. Deactivate with the same dual-tap that triggers a manual remix.
Together, these features make the Arp Of Darkness significantly more alive in a live performance context. You can let it breathe and evolve without ever stopping the clock.
Full documentation + free firmware download: https://www.flatsixmodular.com/firmware
Each module in the Nocturne Alchemy Platform shares the same hardware — so if you own any FlatSix module, this firmware is already yours. Swap away."
