Synthtopia

Audio Damage has introduced AD-202, a single-oscillator monosynth inspired by the Roland MC-202 from 1983. Like the original, it features one VCO with saw, pulse, sub, and noise running into a 24 dB ladder filter, one envelope, one LFO, and little else. All main controls are on the front panel, and there is exactly one path from a knob to a sound.

Melbourne Instruments let us know that they have extended the warranty on the motorized rotary controls in every product it makes – NINA, DELIA and ROTO-CONTROL – to 10 years. Our contact told us that the interesting part is why they can do this: there’s no contact anywhere in the control assembly. Torque passes from the motor through a magnetic field, rather than a gear train, and the position is read optically, with nothing touching.

VIDEO Developer Robin van Soelen let us know about gesture.live, a free, browser-based applications that turns your webcam into an instrument. gesture.live lets you play with hand gestures through your webcam. Use you left hand to play chords and the right hand to play melody, bass, drums or FX. Check it out and let us know what you think of it in the comments!

Hagai Davidoff has introduced Spectdrum, an audio effect for Mac & Windows that can take any sustained sound and turn it into a rhythmic groove. Spectdrum works by splitting the incoming audio into four spectral bands, and opens and closes each band in time, driven by its own independent step sequencer of 1 to 32 steps. You can lock the sequences to a grid, or let them run polyrhythmically.

This video captures a live modular performance by synthesist and sound designer Martha Bahr, aka Panic Girl, at Modular On The Spot Munich. Bahr’s performance, The Day The Earth Stood Still, was recorded at MOTS Munich on July 8th, 2026. It features a Moog Mother-32, a small Eurorack system and an Erica Synths? Echolocator. Modular on the Spot (MOTS) is a series of free, outdoor modular synthesizer performances.

Plaits Palette is a free, browser-based tool that lets you easily create your own custom firmware for the Mutable Instruments Plaits. The Mutable Instruments Plaits, originally introduced in 2018 for Eurorack systems, is a digital macro-oscillator module that features multiple synthesis models, including virtual analog, wavetable, percussion, speech.

Liljeholmen DSP’s TRUMSYNT-16 is a VST/AU drum synthesizer, percussion sequencer and sequenced percussion synthesizer designed to run one instance per drum voice. Its synthesis engine combines two oscillators with noise and click layers, a switchable low-pass or high-pass filter, drive stages and six independent decay envelopes.

Integra-7 Editor, also called i7Ed, is a third-party native editor for the Roland Integra-7 sound module. It communicates directly with the hardware over MIDI/SysEx and provides access to parameters that otherwise require navigation through the module’s front panel. The editor supports Linux and Windows and provides access to Studio Set settings, all 16 Parts, PCM and SuperNATURAL tones, effects, Master EQ, and system settings.

Dusk Audio has released Tape Echo 2, a free three-head tape delay and spring reverb plugin that models the tape transport, record and playback chain, tape aging, regeneration, and mechanical behavior of a tape echo. Tape Echo 2 is a free, unofficial copy of the Roland Space Echo that they say is modeled from the record head through the output amplifier. Its three playback heads share a single ‘motor’, with their positions determined by fixed mechanical ratios.

The classic Roland TR-808 Computer-Controlled Rhythm Composer is getting a new lease on life, after 46 years, with a third-party, open source firmware update. SuperOS-808 is a free alternative firmware for the TR-808 that adds a wide range of capabilities, including: Patterns extended from 32 to 64 steps (four sections instead of two). Sections 3 and 4 default to zero length, so stock-written patterns behave identically.