Peter Kirn

A reminder in that story of how disconnected people are from Iran and ... some brief notes on what you can do, even if right now it seems very few packets are getting in or out.

From Tehran's Bernisaun, dreams, cortisol reduction, and analog rituals - CDM Create Digital Music In dark times, music and sound can go from seeming irrelevant or empty to becoming a lifeline. The artist Bernisaun from Tehran has been brewing music that can, in his words, "engineer the frequency o...

Sounds from Tehran -- to reduce cortisol and "backup your dreams."

Thanks @bernisaun.bsky.social

Well, whatever happened here happened here. @voxglitch.bsky.social @vcvrack.com

Absolutely -- though there's overlap. I think the ethics require a better common understanding of exactly how LLMs generate their outputs -- and indeed, the big tech is capitalizing on even some fairly tech-savvy people not understanding that at all.

It's not the only issue, but it matters.

I'm curious then -- since I was just scanning some of the latest data science research on this. Have you looked at that research?

none of it remotely says "we don't need programmers anymore"; I haven't heard that from even total AI advocates, *provided* they have engineering experience ;) but...

There's another possibility, too, which is that the code will work just fine, but we need to ask ourselves whether every single tool needs to be a product. That sort of has always been the case, just now ... amplified.

oh yeah, and this! Different issue.

It's weird, this all makes me want to get back into coding ... minus AI.

But yeah back to the original issue -- we really need to arm people, including those solo devs, with an understanding of what these tools mean and how you make the code work.

Well there's a better term for that, anyway -- "broken"

And it isn't necessarily "vibe coding" so much as "firing engineers" or failing to hire them in the first place.

Sorry, now I'm talking about our world in general more than music per se :D

Yeah, and I worry that people will pour marketing money into that. (actually here's a weird precedent for that: 1980s vinyl releases. When you have the capacity for vanity releases, terrible things happen.)

Very different from Max or Pd, where you can open the patch, and people don't do that.

Theoretically, what I just said should appeal to people who are really into using AI, too. Plus AI is just such a huge category, going back to the beginnings of computer music. It feels like we need to have a more robust conversation than we're having now, which will take some work.

Yeah, this is where we actually need a *lot* more proactive action. So that means talking more about how tools like Claude Code actually work, finding ways of measuring the outputs, and identifying software that crosses the line into plagiarism or threatens quality.

Yeah my spidey-sense is also set off by plug-ins. But while some devs are very loudly *not* using AI (which I'll share), effectively what we're really evaluating is who is reviewing their own code, etc., carefully. So everything changes but also nothing changes. Just a *lot more* of the same.

No, I think you have a point -- meaning we have to be really careful with the stuff we test.

It'll really mean building a relationship with the tools and not trying to cover everything, because most devs I've talked to are using some AI assistance in their coding now.

I don't want to suggest there is a technological solution all the time; there really isn't. But Iranians deal with an unprecedented level of internet shutdowns. So this is one small thing you can do.

The bigger thing is just to actually acknowledge this is the reality for so many right now.

Conduit - Join the internet freedom movement. By running a Conduit Station, you immediately help people in censored countries access the free and open internet around the world.

Internet has again plunged to near-zero in Iran. First and foremost, that means our friends and colleagues are out of touch with loved ones.

Because of the outage, it may not look like it's working, but you should try running Conduit on a spare phone or computer; it helps.

Now meshes, video, and more can go 3D inside Ableton Live: SenSei update - CDM Create Digital Music EboSuite and SenSei, live visual add-ons for Ableton Live, got some nice updates this week. SenSei, the tool that puts the power of Unreal Engine inside Ableton Live, gets a particularly major expansi...

Updates to @ebosuite.bsky.social and the Unreal Engine-powered SenSei.

This already compelling tool gets better with type and video features on the EboSuite side and 27 3D plug-ins for SenSei.

Essential mix: let an hour of tilde's music energize you (then nerd out!) - CDM Create Digital Music Glitchy but driving broken beats are what's for dinner. Hannover's tilde (~) is a font of knowledge on topics from Pd/plugdata to Bitwig Studio Grid FX to mixing and mastering. And those skills transl...

So much goodness here -- and plenty of skills sharing, too, from courses to @bitwig.bsky.social and #plugdata grid freebies.

Enter the world of @tildesounds.bsky.social -- had this mix on repeat all week.

and it is even a W3C recommendation! (though stalled at that status!)

looks cool but very, very proprietary! guess the question is whether you can get the spare parts there...

we could just change the name :D
I mean, think about it -- you'd never want to have a home without them!

In her own words: watch a free documentary on Éliane Radigue - CDM Create Digital Music Éliane Radigue in full, uninterrupted motion, is breathtaking in her thoughts. So it's wonderful that the filmmakers behind the documentary short Échos have put that film up for free to honor her memo...

Must-watch from end to end... really poetic. Thanks @scannerdot.com !

I'm like a hair-trigger away from leading a little weekend hackathon to work on this!

This will be followed by phrases like "bring back blogrolls" which will instantly date me... but yeah.

Substack’s moderation battle: all the latest news Hundreds of writers protested Substack’s handling of Nazi newsletters.

And yeah there is a *huge* reason to worry about dependence on Substack. The Verge has done a great job reporting on this:

www.theverge.com/24040685/sub...

I'm not going to judge anyone there -- more like it then makes it even clearer to me that people don't feel there's an alternative.

Recommendations - Ghost Developer Docs

The ongoing dependence on Substack and Patreon is obviously partly because of reliance on recommendations for growth.

Ghost has a terrific alternative, based on the open Webmention:
docs.ghost.org/recommendati...

But we need more easy implementations that use that openness.

enjoy, @isotonikstudios.bsky.social ... really oddball KORG phase8 + MGenBend mashup:

Curve time with Tomavatars' MGenBend for Ableton Live Suite: hands-on - CDM Create Digital Music Escaping the rigid, repetitive grid helps to make gestures the way we would on instruments. I've been talking to Tomavatars as he developed this one, and the MGenBend Max for Live Device lets you crea...

Let’s get wonky and bend space-time / pitch-time / make splines. There's some @drewdaniel.bsky.social Hit 'Em in here, too.

@tomavatars.bsky.social beautiful, polyrhythmic and polymetric MGenBend -- another cure for overly-linear, repetitive sequences.

And then there's whatever this is, but yeah even with those 1024 steps, you can create short patterns, mix them with long patterns, etc. Building on my phase distortion + LPF + OBJEQ modeled filter recipe from yesterday...

Polyfold from Manifest Audio lets you paint with polymetric patterns - CDM Create Digital Music A 1024-step, multilane polyphonic sequencer sounds overwhelming. But the latest Manifest Audio polymetric sequencer, Polyfold, offers a palette of various patterns and shapes that you can deploy acros...

I normally stay away from complex sequencing tools, but @manifestaudio.bsky.social has really hooked me with this one. It's such a beautiful way to escape overly repetitive grids. The key is understanding how much Noah has built in there so you can do that while staying in the flow. Review:

I'm tempted to make a Curie AI. "Curie: It'll probably kill you"

Way to name your product "Einstein" so it makes people look dumb when they try to argue with you, too: "Einstein is symptomatic. I doubt we’ll be talking about Einstein, as such, in a year."

Okay Dr. Hawking.

Anyway let's use AI to replace (checks notes) Advait Paliwal