Disqus - Latest Comments for Enkerli

Re: Spring cleaning: free up space by deleting duplicate plug-ins

Enkerli — Mon, 27 Apr 2026 20:05:39 -0000

Interesting and potentially useful.
Had been trying to do much of that cleanup using a variety of methods, including Pluginfo and “KVR Studio Manager”. Sounds like I did a decent job since the large majority of the dupes it moved to that /tmp/removed_plugins folder were CLAP (that I want to keep; maybe “skipclap” isn’t the way to skip the CLAP filtering).

Sometimes, I really wish pluginmakers improved their game, in terms of installation and mainenance. In terms of these diverse versions, there’s quite a few installers out there which will force some of them on you every time you update.
Which is just one of many issues with plugin installers and managers and authenticators…
Some use “tricks” that would be considered “dark patterns” in many circles.

And it’s notoriously difficult to get rid of some things.

Which is where your posts about spring cleaning may come in handy. Tips and tricks on keep things in check, say with NI products or (even worse, in my experience) Waves.
Even an indication of which plugins allow heavy content to be offloaded to another drive.

With prices going way up (first for RAM, now for storage options) and the simple fact that Apple devices make it very difficult to work with external storage, guidance would be appreciated.

In fact, a kind of cautionary tale…
Because of the overwhelming amount of space taken by my plugins (and, especially, their samples), I recently tried working from an external SSD as my primary drive. It was working well enough for a while that I started installing all sorts of things, such as a significant part of Komplete 13 Ultimate (even though I almost never use any of the sample-based stuff) and EastWest’s ComposerCloud+ (got a one-year sub during end-of-year sales). Thing is, the experience started degrading radically after a while. Didn’t fully investigate. Just thought about getting back to my normal setup (M1 MacBook Air with 1TB). This weekend, the drive became corrupted.
Thing is, because the external SSD’s 2TB was much more than what my backup drives had as free space and because my cloud backup never worked properly… I ended up losing some data. Nothing tragic. The main stuff I worked on during that time was an AUv3 plugin I’ve been vibecoding using Claude Code… pushed to a GitHub repo (CC0 1.0 Public Domain Dedication).
https://github.com/enkerli/DrawnQurve
The last thing I tried before the SSD failed was to apply a redesign… generated by Claude Design (mainly in a single prompt).
Reestablished the local setup and was able to reach my goal (without relying on the stuff in the .claude folder on that SSD). Turns out, you can now use Webview UI in JUCE so Claude Design’s JavaScript can be used almost as-is. https://uploads.disquscdn.c...
All this to say (!), glad some people are paying attention to the fact that we don’t have unlimited storage and that plugin cruft ends up being an issue, for some of us. At this point, I’m having more fun with my plugin and app (~~84KB~~ around 75MB each) than with dozens of plugins costing me much more in storage and/or license.

Re: Y’all want the new Boards of Canada so bad you crashed Warp’s server

Enkerli — Thu, 23 Apr 2026 12:42:36 -0000

(Sorry, briefly slipped back into childhood.)

Same. For other reasons, though.
The Norman McLaren Building would be 70, this year. Some of what was created there has been a significant part of my childhood. Now that it’s located on the FIJM site, two sources of my childhood creativity are found in the same spot. Only need a screening of Il était une fois... La vie and a Goldorak game night to tie loose ends.

Re: Native Instruments issues a statement; likely closer to acquisition

Enkerli — Thu, 19 Mar 2026 06:36:27 -0000

While Nestlé still has some ice cream brands, maybe NI would fit more with bouillon cubes?

Among the “multiple parties with deep roots in audio and technology”, there might be quite a few ties to AI-based initiatives, undertaken by established players in possibly-misguided efforts to “remain relevant”.
I mean, wasn’t Roland among the first #MusicTech players to explicitly push a “never AI” narrative?
> Roland Corporation today announced Melody Flip, an artificial intelligence-powered melody-generation application, created in collaboration with Sony Computer Science Laboratories.
https://www.synthtopia.com/content/2026/03/18/roland-melody-flip-promises-to-make-ai-your-composing-partner/

Besides, “audio and technology” is quite a wide umbrella… with its own history of acquisitions (cf. Harman). It’s hard to tell if alignment around audio tech benefits products used by musicians and other musickers.

Now, it does make sense that a large part of the ongoing discussion of private equity (PE) would focus on the distance between a company’s mission and the financial incentives of its backers. In healthcare, media, and education, there’s reporting around the perverse incentives for PE firms wreaking havoc on communities, particularly in the United States. Part of this has to do with the community roots for such endeavors. Large swaths of “Arts & Entertainment” would also belong to this community-rooted world.

#MusicTech, though?

There’s a sense that corporate ownership of synth manufacturers and plugin dev shops needs to come with the right credentials. Similar effect in the movie industry or in game studios.

However, it’s difficult to assess how much of the financial sustainability of a given business in this space comes from “deep roots in audio and technology”.
Especially since many of the issues with these companies emerge from management decisions, internally.

Re: The developer of Tweakbench wants to remake the DAW without linear time

Enkerli — Sat, 14 Mar 2026 21:08:07 -0000

For me it was reliable, but with an experience that I would say feels aggressively alpha-ish!

Right. Wonder if that overall experience will improve, in the future.
People interpret “alpha” to mean different things. To some, it’s “nearly feature-complete“ and is mainly distinguished from beta by instability.
To me, coming from user-centric design, alpha is more like a prototype, allowing for significant improvements in the overall experience and maybe even a “pivot”.
Thing is, Noemi’s probably closer to the former, which goes well with “(Be patient; document and report bugs. Be the sort of person who likes living dangerously and enjoys crashes.)”. Rutledge likely has a definite idea in mind and Noemi will follow a specific trend.

Giving 0.9.1 a very quick try, it feels like these tools which require you to get into somebody else’s brain. Actually, Bespoke is similar in this way, especially since terms like “instruments” may not mean what you think they mean. (Interesting that Challinor’s dayjob is “Creative Lead on Patchwork music tools in UEFN/Fortnite Creative”, after working on many Harmonix titles.)

At this point, we have so many of these modular/node-based environments and systems. It gets overwhelming. While each of them has its strengths and weaknesses (obviously), there aren’t that many differentiating factors in core functionality. (Same issue as with DAWs.) Few of them would qualify as “user-friendly”. And, given some current trends in vibecoding, it’s not always so clear that using these is much easier than creating our own “bespoke” tools.

Of course, musicking tool creation requires inspiration and some of these tools can be truly inspiring. It’s just that the “option paralysis” aspect becomes stronger each time one of these comes around.

Re: The developer of Tweakbench wants to remake the DAW without linear time

Enkerli — Sat, 14 Mar 2026 20:29:55 -0000

Interesting context to think about Plg. As much as I enjoy that environment, wouldn’t have thought to mention it.

It’s indeed featureful and crossplatform. The fact that it runs on iPadOS as AUv3 has been a source of pure joy, for me. The classic “gamechanger”. And the community is among the most welcoming ones around. The development/improvement pace is rather quick, especially in context. And given the sheer number of Puredata patches out there, there’s a lot of value in building on others’ work, which isn’t possible for any new system/environment.
At the same time, there are many niceties that Plg (or Pd) can’t provide. MPE support, for instance. It also ends up being quite “coderly”, in its own way.
Also, despite the wide range of Pd code out there, I haven’t had any luck vibecoding Plg patches (except for PdLua). Of course, few systems allow for direct vibecoding, at this point. Unless they’re based on mainstream languages like JavaScript, C++, Lua, and Python. Which means that it might end up being easier coding a JUCE plugin than creating a Plg patch, when “all you have is LLM-based”.

Re: Bitwig Studio 6 is out of beta, and the “workflow update” is worth the wait

Enkerli — Wed, 11 Mar 2026 13:15:49 -0000

Useful writeup, “as per usual”.

> Gain, pressure, and expression on notes continue to make this the MPE-based editor to beat
Interesting take! Especially if, as memory serves, you initially described Live’s MPE-based editor as leapfrogging the competition.

> Sonic State and the iconic Nick Batt run down what’s new with guest Dave Linnenbank:
Nice shoutout to Batt!
Linnenbank’s an effective rep, typically. Especially in pre-recorded tuts.

> people who were curious about Bitwig in the past often found this version to be easier to migrate.
Useful anecdata!
Wonder if Bitwig GmbH has been gaining the signals it needs.
Dedicated BWS users have been… an interesting group. The company obviously broadens its reach. And we’re going through an interesting moment in DAWful history. (And an extended moment, at that.)

Also thinking about what BWS6 might mean in terms of getting a broader base for Grid users. Despite your recent claims about the best Grid training coming from LOBOTIX, people like Polarity have done a lot to let BWS users “appropriate” the Grid (making it their own and ensuring it’s appropriate for their needs). While BWS6 is light on Grid improvements, there’s a whole connection between automation, modulation, and modularity.

In my own case, v6 hasn’t been reason enough to stick with Bitwig. My update plan lapsed before the first beta for BWS6 came out and I only renewed “at the last minute”, during the end of year sales. Meanwhile, I’ve been mainly in Logic Pro… and mainly creating my own hosted tools, through Plugdata or vibecoding. I still use BWS to test VST3 versions of what I create (and, potentially, CLAP). Yet the one feature I wanted from Bitwig is in the “too little, too late” category: scale support.
I mean, I’m glad it’s there, I guess. Can’t hurt. Yet it’s way more limited than it could be, especially when there’s a first-party device which already allows you to define custom scales (just… not across tracks and devices).
Now that Logic Pro has (some limited) improvements to its chord-awareness features, scale-awareness feels like “table stakes”.
Plus, Bitwig should be at the forefront of building flexible tuning systems in an inclusive way (not based on a mindset about their existence in certain traditions… especially not one which excludes many musics of this world). It’s easy to add MTS-ESP support thanks to CLAP plugins from the Surge team. Yet I come to expect better support from the Berlin-based DAW-maker.

Re: What happens when AI-synthesized vocals meet choral notation?

Enkerli — Tue, 10 Mar 2026 21:41:46 -0000

Today’s post about Dorico reminded me of this video…
Which may require an update now that Dreamtonics has added choir support to Synthesizer V.
https://dreamtonics.com/choir-voice-collections/
Did get the first collection. Haven’t had much time to play with it. My first experiments have been quite satisfying.

Sure, scorers may want to wait for a solution geared towards them (like Cantai, when the Dorico version officially comes out).
For choirs, though, there’s a whole lot to be said about using those voices directly. Even without staff notation.

There’s a limit to what any notation system can do. “In this day and age”, the very idea of notating things to get them performed by humans is even easier to question. Especially for voice.

Re: Polyfold from Manifest Audio lets you paint with polymetric patterns

Enkerli — Fri, 27 Feb 2026 07:49:09 -0000

Reminds me of Bitwig Studio, in several respects. At one point, every seq is like a crab ?
Most interesting to me is this list of patterns.
Wonder how hard it’d be to vibecode it in a pattern curation (and generation) app.

Re: Inside the new modules in the free AAS Multiphonics CV-3 v3.1 update

Enkerli — Thu, 26 Feb 2026 21:50:26 -0000

MTS-ESP!

I’m actually not a huge fan of VCV Rack. The fact that it supports MTS-ESP is still an important one in the “Pro” column.

Re: Laurie Spiegel’s Music Mouse is available now from Eventide

Enkerli — Thu, 26 Feb 2026 07:37:11 -0000

Possibly. Especially if Spiegel’s ok with it.

Will follow this DPF development process.
https://github.com/falkTX/MusicMouse

Re: plugdata, cyclone get major updates — free stuff for patchers and end users

Enkerli — Tue, 24 Feb 2026 07:49:28 -0000

While you end on setting people apart, and address some tensions, much of this post and these releases are about bringing people together.

Patching things up, so to speak.

Not sure what proportion of CDM readers can fully recall the parallel histories of Puredata and Max, from direct experience. It does make sense that you’d pay such close attention to the proprietary environment which has been part of the Ableton stable for several years. Cyclone is indeed an important part of that connection between the two environment, as a kind of “compatibility layer”.(Glad you name people involved in Cyclone, over the years.)
The Cyclone documentation is worth perusing. For instance:

Cyclone is not in much active development these days and the main goal is to maintain the library, and fix bugs (hence avoid including newer things).

Maybe the story has changed, more recently.
(The [coll] object is interesting. Would have to check the specifics yet there were important caveats to the way it handled certain things which are part of “the Max way”. Made for some weirdness when trying to adapt Max lessons to the Plg context.)

So, yeah, there’s a whole side of music history which came from MSP’s time at IRCAM.

It’s also possible to focus the Puredata history with important chapters on Plugdata and heavy/hvcc.
And so much of those chapters are about shared efforts. The Discord group for Plg is so welcoming and it’s obvious that the scene is about enabling others’ actions.
It’s about “playing well with others”. And creating playflows… in a playground… that you can bring with you.
Those parts of the “patch once, play everywhere” quest also include things like libPd, MobMuPlat, PdParty, RjDj…
Playing Pd on Organelle, Bela, ORAC, Patchbox…

Sure, there was such a thing as Pluggo, on the C'74 side. And there’s RNBO.
Now we have a way to compile plugins through hvcc.

There’s a whole side about UI, here. At this point, DSP and MIDI processing can be done efficiently in so many ways, without requiring to get “close to the metal”. Part of what has been changing, through both Plugdata and Heavy, has to do with designing interfaces. As dismissive as some devs can be of design, there’s a depth of the work to be done on Human-Centred Design which requires other skills. The visible part of that work comes in GUI elements. And a lot of efforts have been on that side of things, in both Plg and hvcc. Fortunately, that work is often informed by something deeper, which touches on usability, accessibility, localization, and an overall experience. These releases may even be the tipping point to get a critical mass of design-minded people on board.

Interesting you’d talk about vibecoding, here. Patching is often recognized as more approachable than text-based coding, despite the fact that things get remarkably complex rather quickly. (`Spaghetti code” is an understatement, in this context.) And LLMs are notoriously bad at producing patches, whether in TouchDesigner, Max, or Puredata. The same tool which can create a full app in C++ within seconds struggles with creating the simplest of patches. Scripting languages tend to have the best LLM coverage, for a number of reasons, and it’s often easiest to vibecode in JS or Python than in anything else, even if you end up converting to another language later.
Thing is, there are scripting languages we can use in these patching environments.
In Plg’s case, that’s PdLua. Which even works to automate aspects of patch creation, in Plg. (Somewhat similar to JS in Max.)
Will have to test this out on iPadOS, now that Schoen et al. have solved file management issues. Having an AUv3 plugin in Loopy Pro which runs Lua for both audio & MIDI? Peak playfulness.

Re: Laurie Spiegel’s Music Mouse is available now from Eventide

Enkerli — Wed, 18 Feb 2026 19:23:57 -0000

Instabought… and did expect a plugin.

It does have some advantages over Tero’s webapp. And the price is right (with that code). In a way, the tribute to Spiegel’s work is probably more important than having that app in our setup.
Still, would be so neat to have this as a plugin. Especially in hosts like Loopy Pro.

Re: Native Instruments statement on continued support for customers and partners

Enkerli — Fri, 30 Jan 2026 07:15:12 -0000

The phrase “business as usual” for Native Instruments GmbH feels a little out of place — insolvency proceedings come with restrictions.

and

This statement fails to acknowledge a level of disappointment and anger from NI’s customers and partners.

Well put! (The whole piece is as useful a writeup as can be, in context.)

It does sound like comms people at Native Instruments GmbH hadn’t prepared for people’s reactions. Since the proceedings have both been a long time coming and constitute a slow process anyway, one would think that any business in such a situation would at least have some plans in place to soften the blow before any leak (from official documents) instead of doing damage control after the fact.
With all the flak that flacks are getting, this is a job at which they excel.

While I personally don’t have much affinity towards NI/iZ/PA/BW products, I’m finding it quite easy to empathize with people who do care about any or all of these. Even if the situation doesn’t change much in practice for a long time, the uncertainty is quite a bit factor. Bigger than that, though, the lack of transparency implies a lower level of trust. Which could have broader implications throughout the #MusicTech scene. Much harder to trust other players when there’s an accumulation of cases demonstrated low trust and low trustworthiness.

On a non-business note — archiving. This Bluesky comment hit me. We’ve talked a lot about archiving and updating, from the updates to Absynth 5 to artists like My Panda Shall Fly working with outdated tools. I think we’re all aware that software in general is ephemeral, and people across generations are getting enthusiastic about archiving and maintaining tools — beyond what vendors alone may decide to do.

Maybe we don’t want to get into the whole debate about “digital locks”. In which case, we can still discuss issues surrounding abandonware, especially with software-dependent hardware.
“Archiving” some of these NI products may eventually involve keeping an old computer around just to run them. If so, that’ll further distance #MusicTech from other tech industries where cybersecurity may make updates required. Legacy systems can be really cool and fun, when handled properly, off-grid. Things become tricky when musickers want to collaborate.

Because such large portions of the NI catalogue and its partnership ecosystem revolve around Kontakt, there’s a whole story to be told about futureproofing soundware. Converting sample libraries to different formats may be an important practice. When technically and legally possible.
Legal regimes may differ, here. Yet some regulation exists in at least some jurisdictions to explicitly allow people to retain material that they own.
As Decent Sampler keeps improving, it may become a viable solution for some usage patterns. It already offers support for useful standards like MTS-ESP and MPE. And its licensing terms might be much more palatable than Kontakt Player’s. However, it does drop support for legacy systems (for instance, future versions won’t support Windows 7).
There might not be any easy solution, when it comes to futureproofing soundware. Maybe because it’s too isolated a part of the industry?

(And that’s long before we get to discuss who benefits from digital locks .)

Re: Native Instruments GmbH is in preliminary insolvency

Enkerli — Thu, 29 Jan 2026 06:22:27 -0000

Also puzzled by ROLI, over the years. More relevant to me than NI. Because MPE.
The storyline with Ultrahaptics buying Leap Motion to form Ultraleap and then ROLI merging with Ultraleap… Add Sensel and Modal to the mix and you’d have a recipe for an even weirder puzzle.

Sometimes, I wish Kirn (or somebody with enough “industry insight”) could draw a map of diverse players in this whole scene.

Back to ROLI specifically…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3I_Uk4gaLvk

Re: Native Instruments GmbH is in preliminary insolvency

Enkerli — Thu, 29 Jan 2026 06:13:43 -0000

On the approach taken by a variety of Private Equity firms in the US, thought this Decoder ep was quite insightful.
https://www.theverge.com/decoder-podcast-with-nilay-patel/676106/bad-company-private-equity-megan-greenwell-book-interview
Almost makes me want to read Greenwell’s book.

Are those PE ways affecting #MusicTech? Surely. Though, maybe less than in some other sectors, like health and education. In a way, because there isn’t enough money in our little niche.
At the same time, there’s a broad situation which does affect us, which involves a variety of financial systems, including PE, VC (very different from PE), speculation, conglomerates, consolidation, etc. For a seemingly random example: we rarely talk about BandLab.

For NI’s PE story, specifically… In some ways, it’s isolated enough a case (despite the whole “soundware ecosystem”) that it’s difficult to draw patterns through #MusicTech. Even if it ends up being “sold for parts”, it doesn’t mean much about Arturia or Beatport (LiveStyle).

Re: Logic Pro 12’s new harmonic intelligence and Chord ID: hands-on

Enkerli — Wed, 28 Jan 2026 21:00:46 -0000

PS — if you were wondering if there was a way to route MIDI into the Chord Track, people have developed a workaround to make that happen!

Thanks for that link… thought it still sounds as clunky as the one which appeared “in Scaler world”, when Logic Pro 11 came out.
For one thing, this solution doesn’t keep harmonic rhythm.

Which further reinforces the need for standardization.

Though “The MIDI Association” isn’t a standards body like ISO or national organizations, one would hope that they’ve considered such options. Especially when it comes to transmitting digital information between musical instruments using an “interface” of some kind. In this case, using MIDI to transfer chord information.
The “Universal MIDI Packet” part of MIDI 2.0 probably has affordances for this kind of thing. Yet, as with anything related to MIDI2, extra work is needed to make it useful… and none of that work has been bearing fruit in the last six (6) years since official adoption.

___
By the by, I’m among the people who enjoy using these chord tracks, even with the Session Players we already had in LP11. Noodling around from a café, an arbitrary chord track performed by a couple of semi-generative “players” is the kind of casual musicking that just about anyone can enjoy without overthinking things.
Got several other semi-gen (smidgen) tools that I like, including an app called “Piano Motifs”. The key, as in so many things, is in curation and audition. You try a few arbitrary things, you pick one up, and you run with it. Even if it only ends up being a fun moment, that’s “participatory culture”.
Music isn’t merely a spectator sport.

Re: Logic Pro 12’s new harmonic intelligence and Chord ID: hands-on

Enkerli — Wed, 28 Jan 2026 20:32:14 -0000

(I would be really interested to see new interfaces built around other musical systems!)

Same!

In fact… There’s a whole lot about #MusicTech chord notation which is ripe for “disruption”. In
One obvious issue we can call #xkcd927 . Just about any piece of software (and any book, video) using chord notation will adopt different names for the same structures. And, in many ways, there aren’t that many different chord structures around. Sure, people get used to translating in their heads and there’s a lot to be said about ways chords get interpreted on the fly.
It’s just that… Yeah, it’d be nice to have a shared system to input or read chord “symbols”.

(Spent some time trying to figure out some of these things, through vibecoding. Left it there as a CC0 Public Domain web-based “ chord dictionary ” which I occasionally use for other things, such as a simple webapp to figure out fingerings on the Exquis or Plugdata objects which generate chord progressions based on a corpus of Jazz standards . Some of the best sources I’ve found were a JavaScript library… and older material about iReal Pro.)

Another issue is that there are multiple approaches to understand harmony. Chord tracks in DAWs rely on “pitch classes” from 12TET. That’s convenient in many ways and MIDI itself is focused on the same ideas. Yet there are many other approaches… including some which would do a whole lot more to help with “voicings” and voice-leading.
Many people “out there” (on YouTube, say) will stop at “inversions”. (And they rarely mention something as well-known as “figured bass”.) Here and there, there might be an explanation of “Drop-2 voicings”. If you’re lucky, there could even be something about playing chord shapes on a grid controller, instead of the typical pianocentric setup.

So, if we were to integrate a variety of approaches to chord notation, it could capture things from so-called “Western” contexts.

Re: Native Instruments GmbH is in preliminary insolvency

Enkerli — Wed, 28 Jan 2026 06:19:44 -0000

Since 2021, Francisco Partners had a majority stake in NI and remains the parent company. There’s probably more to say about how NI got here — both as part of industry trends and its own unique story — but that can wait for now.

It can.
We’ll read that story carefully. Maybe not as a cautionary tale. At least as an inspiration to take other paths.

Chances are, a significant part of what ended up shaking the foundation was happening during the company’s “heyday”. Because “Success hides problems”. Many people have been discussing NI’s deep issues long before FP got involved, in part because they were noticeable at many levels among consumers. Not quite “death by a thousand papercuts”. More of “if they treat us this way on the simple stuff, trouble lies ahead”.

So that (back)story of the relatively slow decline of a “flagship #MusicTech business” will surely make for an interesting read.

Even if, by some stroke of luck, the next chapter is one of rebirth.

(A surprising turn of events, in recent #MusicTech history, is Aodyo being reborn. That company’s lower profile means that it made less waves in the niche media system around music technology. Still an interesting story, along with Artiphon’s and ROLI’s. Even Denise Audio’s and Soundspot’s. Many stories, in such a small village.)

Re: As much triggering as you can handle: Noise Engineering Multi Repetitor

Enkerli — Mon, 26 Jan 2026 07:25:41 -0000

eventually all things will adapt Euclidean generators

Godfried Toussaint would likely be proud.
Wonder what Clarence Barlow would have said.
We could still ask Lescabettes and Milne.

(Sparing you from a tirade about pluridisciplinary work on rhythmic patterns from “around the World”. And from my own “Playful Mad Scientist” work from last Summer, vibecoding an iPadOS and macOS plugin to explore, sequence, and generate rhythmic patterns. Called it Serpe («Système d’encodage de rythmes et phrases exploratoires», “Sequence Editor, Rhythmic Pattern Explorer”, Serpens Examinans Rythmos et Paternes Encodatos). Told ya, Playful Mad Scientist.)

Re: Laurie Spiegel’s Music Mouse, the Mac’s first instrument, in Eventide reboot

Enkerli — Sun, 25 Jan 2026 20:52:52 -0000

Precisely.

Re: Laurie Spiegel’s Music Mouse, the Mac’s first instrument, in Eventide reboot

Enkerli — Sun, 25 Jan 2026 10:01:11 -0000

I think if you look at the 1988 revision and keyboard shortcuts, this version is ahead of the browser rendition. I don't think you get the keyboard shortcuts

Well, actually… 😉
https://uploads.disquscdn.c... (Screenshot showing keyboard shortcuts in the sidebar of 'A partial emulation by Tero Parviainen of Laurie Spiegel's "Music Mouse - An Intelligent Instrument".'.)

Not quite sure what’s missing. Personally, my main issue is that it’s a webapp.
WebMIDI isn’t supported by Apple’s Webkit. So, on the Mac, it can’t run on Safari (which remains my main browser). Much worse, it can’t run on regular browsers on my iPad Pro (which remains my main musicking device). There’s an old “Web MIDI” browser… and the webapp produces the same error.

Basic thing is: that partial emulation isn’t a product.

Re: Jockey could be the custom OSC controller we’ve been waiting for (iOS, macOS)

Enkerli — Sat, 24 Jan 2026 11:12:37 -0000

Now with MIDI!

Re: Sting 2.1 makes the most fun pattern, arp, acid maker even more funner

Enkerli — Thu, 15 Jan 2026 07:50:52 -0000

By the way, if you’ve been jealously eyeing all the Max for Live stuff I write about, don’t forget you can snag an upgrade directly from Ableton to Ableton Live Suite 2 (including adding Max for Live via rent-to-own; see their shop:

Ableton Live Shop

Erm… Right, so… Useful info on the new 24mo. RtO (Splice-style?). Honestly didn’t know about it.

Thing is, I have indeed been getting something close to “jealous”, from your M4L coverage. And I don’t want Live 12 Suite. Especially since I’m spending more time in Max.
What I want is closer to Live 12 Lite + M4L. Or (something which will never happen), M4L devices in other DAWs. Wish I had kept my Max interest through the Pluggo times.

Re: Apple now has one creative sub for iPad, Mac — but keeps Mac app purchases

Enkerli — Tue, 13 Jan 2026 19:21:16 -0000

Got the notification from Synth Anatomy while I was teaching and my gut reaction, before reading anything about it: “Oh noes! They're pulling an Adobe move!”
Then, with the understanding that my previously-purchased apps are safe, I started to calm down.
Continuing to provide One-Time Purchase as an option is a huge differentiator from the ongoing Adobe models (Creative Cloud Pro as well as Adobe Express and all sorts of packages for enterprise). Given Apple’s longterm push for “Services” revenue, it’s a bolder move than one might imagine.

In fact, since both iPad apps were already subscription-based (50USD/yr each), it’s almost like expanding the bundle, if you already use Final Cut Pro and Logic Pro on iPadOS.

(Been paying for (and using) Logic Pro on my M1 iPad Pro. Haven’t regretted it. Haven’t paid for the iPad version of Final Cut Pro… though this might eventually change the deal, for me.)

Something to add: like other App Store IAP, the sub is shareable within a family, up to five people. If your household has two creative professionals using Apple devices, that’s a neat “value proposition”.
Similarly, there’s still a deal for students: 30USD/year (not shareable). As a teacher, I’d seriously consider encouraging students to get that, especially if the content is helpful. There’s a whole lot of material out there to learn how to use these tools… which are indeed used by pros. While it’s not as generous as Unity, TouchDesigner, or Unreal Engine, it’s a way to get your feet wet without overthinking it. (Max is fairly similar, though more expensive.)

(Speaking of education deals… Not sure the 200USD Mac-only Pro Apps Bundle for Education will remain unchanged. (Peter, is there anyone you can ask?))

Now, as for the bundle’s “affordances”…
First, the ability to “roundtrip” between macOS and iPadOS can become a bigger deal in certain situations. Having had the experience with the “iWork” suite for a number of years and with Logic Pro for 1.5yr, I feel it makes more sense on the creative side than on the “office productivity” side. Sure, there are limitations. Those are quite easy to accept when you can work on different parts of a creative project.
The fact that iWork apps are now Canva-like freemium? Y'know, it might actually work, with some people. Stock templates for Keynote are already better than those for the Microsoft equivalent. While it might not matter for the typical office worker, I know some learning pros who’d find it useful.
Add Pixelmator Pro and it does sound like a direct competition with Canva/Affinity. Yes, based on templates and examples.

Framing this suite as including Freeform? Kinda clever. It’s not the “Figma-killer” people thought it could be. The context might help it a bit. Especially with templates and examples. I mean, it can take a long while to get to a point where it becomes a compelling solution. Lots of work to do to catch up with dominant webapps. Still, it’s not a totally insignificant move.

Then, the existing “Pro Apps”…
Really strange that MainStage for iPad wasn’t part of the announcement. (There were rumours, recently, that it might get a release.) Not only is it a very tight fit with the tablet form factor, this is exactly where complementarity between apps makes so much sense. Create a setup on your Mac (using first-party devices like Alchemy and Structure), perform with it on iPad, bring things back into Logic Pro…

Motion and Compressor? Not sure they’d be as useful on iPadOS, given remaining constraints on multitasking.

Improvements to Logic Pro and Final Cut Pro? Apart from beat detection, they sound like incremental improvements to the existing products… until we get tighter integration across the whole suite. (Released as a standalone product by another company, Chord ID could be “kind of a big deal™”. Apple’s recent track record with AI-based features makes many people skeptical… and the recently-announced Gemini deal likely has no relation to such a local feature.)

In the end, I’d personally be quite surprised if this lineup were to “light the world on fire”. There are web-based alternatives for several of these apps. (In fact, if it weren’t for Apple blocking WebMIDI in WebKit, there’s an artificial “moat” around Logic Pro for iPad.) Will it allow Apple to increase its “Services” revenue while adding something to its hardware sales? Maybe?

The other shoe to drop is improved Apple Intelligence. As cynical as we’ve become through Apple’s ill-advised announcements at WWDC 2024 and Image Playground disappointment, there’s still a chance that the company can make local GenAI come into its own. Yes, shifting the convos on environmental impact and on Intellectual Property.
(Dev-facing “ Foundational Models ” are possibly going to be a bigger deal, eventually. Less impressive than most LLM use. Potentially quite useful because “(Gen)AI as Normal Technology”.)

Did Apple pull an Adobe? Nah, not really.

Re: Max 9.1: new Ableton objects, vintage Jitter video FX, more

Enkerli — Sun, 11 Jan 2026 09:47:04 -0000

Decades in, Max remains one of the most interesting environments for creative computing.
Sure, 9.1 is a point release which packs quite a few new things. Enough so that one would expect a slew (up) of tutorials. After all, it came out close to a year after 9.0.

And Max 9 was quite a big jump. Enough so that it can get confusing when you try to follow learning material built for previous versions.

Really wish there were full series of interactive lessons about Max 9.

In fact, Max has such a long history (and such a generic name) that it becomes difficult to find the most appropriate documentation for it. Wading through discussions of Pluggo or HID integration (say, Wacom tablets), you may notice the “forest growth and decay” around Miller Puckette’s original system. Difficult to get a map of such a forest. You could spend a lot of time with Beap or Vizzie. You could focus on gen~ and RNBO. You could even just play with your own plugins and experience a very different DAWfree lifestyle than the one based on funky hardware.

Now, a difficult thing to do, in that forest, is connecting it to Vibecode City. Sure, you could leverage JS. Or even GLSL. What tends not to work, though, is get some LLM to output a patcher. In my experience, in either Max or Puredata, it’ll invent (“hallucinate”) objects, make the wrong connections between them, and confuse different versions of the same environment. Heard the same thing about TouchDesigner.
Sure, this might be a temporary issue, like the period of time during which chatbots were unable to do basic arithmetic. Still, it’s quite interesting to think through the LoCode/NoCode trend using node-based environments.

My biggest wish for Max 9.2 would be better onboarding. And that could come in the form of an interactive, LLM-powered solution. Either that or a map of the forest.

(Started dabbling into Max over the break, for the umpteenth time since weak IRCAM connections got me interested. While it never sticks with me, I keep gaining insight and inspiration every time I try. This time, my focus has been Jitter. Along with tools like Imaginando’s VS 2, it’s deepening my visual literacy.)