Peter Kirn

Video guide to accessibility in Ableton Move, Move Everything - Andre Louis - CDM Create Digital Music Unofficial screen reader support in Ableton Move may be new, but it's already a revelation. Andre Louis, a visually impaired musician and technologist/artist extraordinaire, takes us on a tour of Move...

Who should watch this: everyone. Sighted people, to understand these needs. Move fans, to check out Andre's awesome demo of Move Everything features. Sighted developers of hardware and software, to understand needs of the visually impaired.

oh yeah! will have to catch up with it asap!

Here are community-led efforts in Lebanon supporting the displaced - CDM Create Digital Music With an unprecedented minimum of 300,000 people displaced in Lebanon, community-led efforts are again working to provide basic aid. These often overlap with the very music and creative communities I'v...

I've assembled a list of ways to give to community-led relief efforts in Lebanon, including those serving migrant workers. Particular paying attention to making international donations easy. This comes thanks to input from folks I know on the ground.

I don't know about that. I think the design craft stands out in this world, too.

But yeah, either nail it or go full jank. Just not generic. We can spot your slop.

Yeah! Ooh yeah and this is topical for me, including my ongoing struggle to spell it -- get ready for my new effect,
Opthalmologist
Opthtamologist
Oplthlamologie
can be a plug-in suite... now the kind of people who will get the joke are the people who don't use LLMs oh wait this works!

If Sasha *does* start turning to vibecoding, I am risking entering the russian federation and personally going to his house to tell him to stop.

Well, if you want to send some subtle clues you *aren't* vibecoding, uh...

warmplace.ru

There's this approach!

That was like me in high school only … the opposite (well what is “the correct answer” anyway ?)

I do imagine my claim isn’t so out there, though. The Clarke Calculator influenced the slide rule. HP when they introduced early calculators marketed them as slide rules. And the TI devices have a lineage to the HP. (HP also begat Apple, of course)

So the Clarke design’s DNA survives.

How the Clarke Calculator has given rise to today's power grids (Bild: ABCDstock - stock.adobe.com) Clarke Calculator is a smart invention that facilitates electricity distribution over long-distance HVDC or HVAC transmission lines. Wondering about Clarke Calculat...

Yeah looks like we should just find a better diagram or details from the patent and make one! Found a little more description here, and it sounds amazing:

news.pcim.mesago.com/how-the-clar...

That same claim basically everywhere though — that this enabled power grids as we know them.

This is worth saying, as I think we've lost something not just with AI but with physical devices for spatially understanding concepts -- which has history back to ancient math. And Clarke also famously worked through brain puzzles for fun. Part of the purpose is to sharpen our own minds.

Clarke's original patent illustration, showing the rotating device against grid paper with projections of hyperbolic calculations

Speaking of graphing calculators, the forerunner of the modern digital device was a physical invention by Edith Clarke, one of the big names in 20th-century engineering and math.

It actually could do a lot of what that TI-8x could do!

www.invent.org/inductees/ed...

...and this can be really gnarly:

Making music on the TI graphing calculator - and a TI-inspired plug-in synth - CDM Create Digital Music Time to dust off that TI-82, TI-83, or TI-84. The graphic calculators that a lot of us used in school can become ingenious chip synths and even run trackers. And that translates to a surprisingly powe...

Insta-favorite. Punch in an equation, then hear it rendered in a surprisingly powerful synth engine.

Plus more on how a real TI-82 or later can be a synthesizer.

If anyone following me has a platform / knows a journalist covering the region, Ayman is making himself available to talk, including connections to other people on the ground working with the forcibly displaced.

And then -- this.

The best way to learn Bitwig Grid, Serum 2 is in Japanese from LOBOTIX - CDM Create Digital Music LOBOTIX is another reason to have hope in musical imagination. Even without speaking a word of Japanese, these are instantly some of my favorite tutorials. Here, these cover the spectral synthesis mod...

Bitwig's Grid makes more sense to me *in Japanese* than in a lot of other places. Amazing stuff, amazing music, go check it out. (PhasePlant, Serum 2, Vital, and more, as well...)

the live coding scene is 100% the thing that has made me most excited over the last couple of years: seeing people perform actually live music with computers, as free as jazz, freer, showing their screen, sharing what they're doing with an audience who understand what they're doing has felt so...

Sonification Tools for Ableton Live now has a synth that plays data - CDM Create Digital Music Sonification Tools v2 from Manifest Audio and Noah Pred can now sonify text, images, video, and OSC - plus it's got an all-new 8-voice polysynth that lets you play that data like an instrument. Noah a...

Like this?

cdm.link/sonification...

well, maybe get this alpha working first!

The developer of Tweakbench wants to remake the DAW without linear time - CDM Create Digital Music The Digital Audio Workstation can never quite escape the timeline and its roots in multitrack tape. Tweakbench's new Noemi, which entered alpha last month, starts from scratch. What if music in the DA...

It's like left-field Reason. Well, kinda. "rip random audio from youtube to a sampler via keywords or urls ... have a euclidian form generator train a markov chain to play your synths ... play with all 63,050,394,783,186,944-128 frequencies of full microtuning"

alpha preview:

@gundled on Instagram: "Fundraiser for displaced families in Lebanon The ongoing Israeli aggression on Lebanon has resulted in the internal displacement of thousands upon thousands of Lebanese and mi... 391 likes, 6 comments - gundled on March 4, 2026: "Fundraiser for displaced families in Lebanon The ongoing Israeli aggression on Lebanon has resulted in the internal displacement of thousands upon t...

If you are in Berlin, we have someone directing funds on the ground -- Thurs evening event (they head there Friday). You could easily leave your donation at the door if you're not feeling up to the event.

www.instagram.com/p/DVdhebBDlsL/

Lebanon Emergency Relief Arabic, Dutch, French, and Spanish below:

This is probably the easiest international giving route for Lebanon and displaced families -- recommended and verified now by multiple friends.

www.chuffed.org/project/1719...

Soroush Khazaei, audiovisual artist, killed in an airstrike in Tehran - CDM Create Digital Music People are not numbers, and so among the rising tide of wartime deaths around the world are some familiar faces from our communities. Soroush Khazaei was an audiovisual artist who gave generously to t...

These wars are claiming people from our community -- claiming our friends. Remembering Soroush.

Novation Launch Control finally brings back the smart, little encoder box - CDM Create Digital Music The best thing about Launch Control XL is that it has faders. The best thing about Launch Control is that it doesn't -- and fits into a small space. It really is that simple, if contradictory, thanks ...

Basically you don't have to read past the opening of this story. It's a Launch Control XL minus faders, which is actually pretty awesome.

I still love Mutagen. Thanks, RE, for allowing software to live forever.

#303day just ... reminded of abl3 in @reasonstudios.com with Ripley, Mutagen (discontinued), and Bassline Generator.

Michigan Synth Works has an open-source 303 processor and a new kit - CDM Create Digital Music Call it the Bride of x0xb0x. Michigan Synth Works today teased a new, Arduino-compatible, open-source 303 processor, plus a full DIY kit. They’re both affordable ways to build your own all-analog, mod...

The legacy of the x0xb0x returns! An open-source, Arduino-compatible processor (as powered 303, 606, and 909), plus an upcoming DIY 303 kit, from @michigansynthworks.bsky.social

#303day and some @adafruit.com memories...

featuring @shorefreak.bsky.social @martinic.com @cycling74.bsky.social and a bunch of Japanese cats we need to convince to migrate off the elonsphere...

On 303 Day, acid bassline love abounds, and some freebies, too - CDM Create Digital Music Roland is fairly quiet on this 303 Day, but in the maelstrom of terrible news, it was a relief to see the Japanese music community out in force. This is what we really strive for: a world where we can...

Here, have way, way too much #303Day stuff, including a free Max for Live instrument (and Max 303 patching tutorial), free sounds, discounts on plug-ins, a ton of players showing off the 303 and adjacent instruments (especially from Japan), a music mix, and a gorgeous music video.

Also curious to see how I did with the vague round-up of past tape pieces and who you'd add...