mastodon 4.8.0-nightly.2026-10-06Musician and journalist. I make cdm.link, a home for electronic music and expressive technology, work on the #meeblip synthesizer, and I'm a composer / media artist / DJ and activist. Lebanese-American heritage, based in Berlin.
Vintage Max patches revived: free downloads, gallery and examples, and a conversation between @Leafcutterjohn@mastodon.social and Suren Seneviratne aka My Panda Shall Fly.
Wonderful to see this media archaeology project, expanding on the vast treasure trove that is Suren's Missing Music.
Two massive breakthroughs this week, all thanks to work by Dr. @ka@mastodon.online (alongside Ibrahim El Khansa): an open archive of Arabic tuning *and* an open-source, cross-platform MIDI plug-in for intonation. First look:
https://cdm.link/digital-arabic-maqam-archive-and-open-source-midi-plug-in/
Birds on guitars, in the zebra finch sound art of Céleste Boursier-Mougenot, and other gems of his work:
https://cdm.link/birds-on-guitars-celeste-boursier-mougenot/
tbd 16, the open groovebox, got support from @nlnet@social.nlnet.nl, a terrific organization with a long history of supporting the open internet.
That's not even the only NLnet-funded project at #superbooth either! I just added all of these to the top of my to-do list for this weekend:
https://nlnet.nl/events/20260507/superbooth/index.html
Updated that story to make this all clear:
https://cdm.link/dadamachines-tbd-16-a-groovebox-thats-compact-capable-and-open-by-design/
An additive and mono percussive synth for Ableton Live that do way more than just kicks and toms.
Hands-on with Rawton Forge Rupture 2 + Impactor.
https://cdm.link/impactor-rupture-2-by-rawton-forge-for-ableton-live/
DeafMan transforms Ableton Live with custom colors and a deep, interactive theme editor- the first of its kind. It can change how you think about color in your sessions and give Live a complete makeover.
https://cdm.link/deafman-transforms-ableton-live-colors-themes/
How about a truly open groovebox? Out of the box, it's already a powerful sequencer with multiple engines. Then, customize Engines, even Apps, with a free and open SDK and GPLv3 firmware. It'll run Doom if you want. And a lot more.
499EUR incl. VAT. Tons to cover here, so here we go:
https://cdm.link/dadamachines-tbd-16-a-groovebox-thats-compact-capable-and-open-by-design/
Synth Days in Kyiv: inside the wartime Ukrainian modular scene. Special guest story by Kaximia.
"Preserving inner balance and humanity becomes an important task."
https://cdm.link/inside-the-ukrainian-modular-scene-during-war/
@oleksiy@sonomu.club and others make celebrity cameos over at NU31...
Y'all want the new Boards of Canada so bad you crashed Warp's server.
Maybe this is a good sign for slow-moving music, attention spans, and physical media. But don't just hit refresh; there's a beautiful audiovisual tidbit to enjoy already...
Detroit legend John Jammin Collins -- @undergroundres icon, soul of Detroit, and even Submerge techno museum tour guide -- has passed:
https://cdm.link/john-jammin-collins/
Condolences to the whole community.
Zebra 3 arrives for Mac, Windows, and Linux -- u-he calls it a "wireless modular."
First look -- splines and physical modeling always make me happy, of course.
https://cdm.link/zebra-3-is-here-a-sprawling-semi-modular-plug-in-that-runs-deep/
Free BEAST Repeat for @Ableton Live is so good, you’ll switch genres to IDM:
One more video from my recent release, Cyclamen. This one is intended to be viewed vertically so you can chill out on your phone, which I sort of enjoy. I mean, or for folks with a rotated HDTV...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4EgG_-zlP0U
(ps, what peertube instance are you folks on? now tempted to start one...)
Okay, I scrolled down and this is definitely *not* an Ableton account.
This is why companies should hire me, and then I'll tell them to claim their userid on the fediverse and don't cede it to fake accounts or exclusively make an Elon Musk-owned dumpster fire their primary channel. Ahem.
You know where to find me! I invoice in any currency you like :D (actually this advice I will seriously, seriously give for free!)
Here, enjoy the vintage logo:
Ooh, so CDM is now weeks into a pretty ugly DDOS -- standing up to it but each time I block an IP, it hops to a new one. Just hitting GET for every single file.
If anyone in my friends list is particularly adept with this on nginx, I'm all ears!
It's an unexpected mobile sampling renaissance on now, despite everything. And the handheld, almost gaming-like new entry from Casio will make you wish for a trip to Japan.
https://cdm.link/casios-sxc-1-coming-to-japan/
Hoping to follow up with this team. I love the design -- some unique ideas there
Play together with Ableton Live: how Circle of Live sets up for improvisation. Let's break down the rigs used by Clark, Rival Consoles, and Sebastian Mullaert -- and look at some other live sets and resources.
https://cdm.link/play-together-with-ableton-live-circle-of-live/
And yeah, this is very much *not* limited to Live -- as we saw over the weekend with more Link clients (and with MIDI, basically, uh, everything)
Owen Lake and the Tragic Loves have the cutest dinosaur music video:
https://cdm.link/owen-lake-and-the-tragic-loves-have-the-cutest-dinosaur-music-video/
Electro-country infused with original instruments -- Electrobass, Electrosteel, and Vocodec. Jeff Snyder (of Snyderphonics, Princeton U) and Anica Mrose Rissi remind us that digital can still go handmade and country -- and Lydia Ricci brings the whole thing to life with toy dinos.
VDMX 6.3 adds expressions, plugin templates to beloved Mac visual tool:
Oh and nothing to see here, just driving a 4-display video wall off one Mac and a $120 adapter from Amazon...
Absynth 6.1 is out.
As usual, Absynth is deep once you dig in. So here's a detailed explanation of how LFO phase and retriggering works in 6.1 (including a v1 feature come back to life!), what auto trigger is, and how the audio modulator works.
Devious Pocket: standalone, simple digital vinyl from any turntable. All enabled by the open-source @NAPframework@mastodon.social
https://cdm.link/devious-pocket-standalone-simple-digital-vinyl-from-any-turntable/
What if DJing could get back to its roots -- like, turntables -- with something that wasn't expensive and proprietary? And you could still show up with just a USB stick.
The problem with the current tech scene can be summed up by the question from the interviewer at 5'16", asking Jobs, hey, why did you model the iMac after the computers in The Jetsons and not 2001: A Space Odyssey??
Uh... here, while I ponder an answer, step into this pod for me, ok?
You can now get eight of UA's best plug-ins free, on top of the (existing) free LUNA DAW. Mac/Windows:
https://cdm.link/ua-explore-free/
A breakdown of what's in there and how you might use it, beginner, teacher, or advanced.
Bastl’s new Déjà vu is the 4HP module for when you need to fader stuff:
https://cdm.link/bastl-deja-vu/
I really appreciate the clever design here. Via a set of switches and extra jacks, this little module can do more than you think. Also, cats. Smart stuff from our friends in Brno.
Lebanon’s musicians are a model for action — they deserve more support now.
There are fresh nightmares from the past 24 hours. But that should not be a sign to stop giving -- least of all when music efforts were translating into real results on the ground.
https://cdm.link/lebanons-musicians-deserve-support-now/
That can include our larger music, music media, and music tech circles. It could make a huge impact.
It's steppy. It's snappy. It's glorgy. It's a really ingenious way to deal with modulation and change.
@Tomavatars@mastodon.social MSteppySnap for Ableton Live makes modulation playable, maleable.
Rafael Anton Irisarri on the architecture of loneliness and the physics of sound.
https://cdm.link/rafael-anton-irisarri/
Plus some bowed bass and the joys of Expertsleepers Augustus Loop, too... photo Iulia Alexandra Magheru.
ImagePlot, “vintage” 2010s tool for image visualization, is back, free. @levmanovich@threads.net and why we should bring back cultural analytics...
https://cdm.link/imageplot-vintage-2010s-tool-for-image-visualization-is-back-free/
Liquid and hypnotic, Sinevibes Duality is a different breed of vibrato.
More: https://cdm.link/sinevibes-duality/
(speaking of Ukrainian tech!)
Try sonifying data free, with the MFA Datafree MIDI Generative Tool for Ableton Live.
I did a step-by-step walkthrough on how to use freely accessible temperature data from @openmeteo@fosstodon.org ! Here's the last week or so in Berlin.
More:
https://cdm.link/sonify-data-in-ableton-live-with-a-free-midi-tool/
Gives me some ideas for more to do with Open-Meteo, too.
Turn up Jaymie Silk's 2-volume Reclaim the Music and Transform Ur Mind:
Hey, so anybody else out there using CrowdSec?
Attempting this via nginx ... at least I do see most of the bot/attack traffic that's been slamming CDM last months (which I've been manually blocking) has come from known IPs.
CrowdSec config though is... not n00b-friendly.
It's summer (or winter, depending on hemisphere), and that means you deserve to take a break and listen to some quality Final Fantasy soundtracks in acoustic cover form.
FFIX flamenco!
