3D Printed Train Whistles Sound Out at Full ScaleThe age of steam is long gone, but there are few railfans who don’t have a soft spot for the old rolling kettles. So you’d best believe when [AeroKoi] talks about 3D printed train whistles, that’s steam whistles. Generally speaking, Diesels have horns.
You would not expect printed plastic to hold up to live steam– but that’s why [AeroKoi] uses compressed air. Besides, it’s a lot easier to both justify and maintain an air compressor than a boiler in the shop. At least some hobbyists say it doesn’t make a huge difference with brass whistles, so it should be good enough for plastic. What’s interesting is that even with 120 PSI blasting through them, these multi-part prints held together and sounded amazing.
[AeroKoi] does demonstrate there was a learning curve to climb before he had a good whistle design, and shows you what features worked best. He shared two successes on Thingiverse: A 6-Chime whistle from the Sante Fe Railroad, and a Northern Pacific 5-chime whistle, both 4″ in diameter and printed in vertically sectioned parts. The Northern Pacific is not to be confused with the totally different Union Pacific Railroad, whose famous “Big Boy” also had a whistle feature in the video — though evidently he’s not as happy with it, since he did not share the design.
Those are all North American designs, but there’s no reason this technique wouldn’t work to replicate a more European sound; one of his early experiments was kind of going in that direction already. Of course if you want a perfect replica, the old ways are the best ways: cast brass and live steam. We’ve had a few articles about train whistles in the past, one of which was a doorbell. 

This kalimba is also a synthesizer – and combines the feel of an acoustic instrument with digital synthesisSuperbooth is well underway, and here’s one of the wildest new synths being demoed at the event. Bastl Instruments – the company known for its playful approach to synth design – has unveiled Kalimba, which is basically exactly that: a Kalimba-inspired synthesizer combining a familiar interface with digital synthesis.
Put simply, the unit’s 12 velocity- and touch-sensitive tines, when played, are captured by microphones and touch sensors, which then feed into the internal six-voice synthesis engine, driven by FM synthesis and physical modelling.

READ MORE: This crazy synth has a single button – but four billion sounds

The result of three years of development, the Bastl Kalimba is designed to be a synthesizer which responds as expressively as an acoustic instrument. There’s also a built-in accelerometer which affects the FM synthesis engine when you physically tilt and rotate the unit. Neat, right?
Kalimba also features touch points on the front panel for creating pads, pitch slides, timbral modulation and more. There are also two function-assignable touch points on the back of the device.

Kalimba also comes with loaded with an arpeggiator with five modes, even a built-in layering looper, plus a host of presets, custom scales, octave shifting capabilities, and a range of effects, including reverb, delay, bit-crush, overdrive, filters and modulation.
As you might expect, the unit has a built-in speaker for standalone playing, but also has USB-C for MIDI and charging, as well as a stereo output, TRS MIDI input, analogue clock input and another mini jack socket.
“Kalimba has been one of the most challenging development projects Bastl has endured so far,” the company says.
Credit: Bastl Instruments
“We have spent more than three years developing this instrument, exploring different casing shapes, tine lengths, materials, internal designs, features and visual directions. We couldn’t be more grateful and proud of the entire Bastl team for what they have accomplished and how much heart they’ve put into this project.”
In terms of availability, Bastl Kalimba is live on Kickstarter, with a number of pricing tiers available ranging from €389 to €550.
Bastl Instruments is showcasing the Kalimba at Superbooth at booth O385.
Learn more at Bastl Instruments. Back the project on Kickstarter.
Credit: Bastl Instruments
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Nektar Panorama CS12: Reaper & Fender Studio Pro support In addition to its Logic Pro and Cubase/Nuendo support, Nektar's Panorama CS12 now boasts integration with Cockos Reaper and Fender Studio Pro / PreSonus Studio One.

Sender Spike releases DR.89, a FREE Roland TR-909 drum machine emulation for Windows
Developer Sender Spike has released DR.89, a free Roland TR-909 inspired drum machine plugin for Windows. If the name Sender Spike sounds familiar, that’s because we’ve covered a few of this developer’s plugins recently, including the SN Zero hybrid FM synthesizer, the qb (Kyubi) multimode distortion, and the filter.tank dual filter. SN Zero is one [...]
View post: Sender Spike releases DR.89, a FREE Roland TR-909 drum machine emulation for Windows

“Uncompromising in sound and workflow”: Polyend unveils Drums, a kitted out drum machine that might just rival the TR-1000Superbooth 2026: Polish music tech brand Polyend has unveiled Drums, a new drum machine that might just rival the Roland TR-1000.
Combining analogue voices, digital synthesis, samples, advanced sequencing and more in a single unit, Polyend Drums features eight tracks, and is built to feel “immediate” the company says.

READ MORE: This crazy synth has a single button – but four billion sounds

“Drums is a return to the fundamentals that defined Polyend from the beginning,” says Polyend CEO Piotr Raczyński. “We wanted to build the drum machine we would want to use and own ourselves. Something uncompromising in sound, materials and workflow.
“Like our earliest instruments, Drums is made in small batches, with close attention to every detail, and built to stay relevant for decades.”
Credit: Polyend
Built around a single-piece aluminium body with custom metal knobs and high-end components, Polyend Drums is made to feel expensive, and bears a price tag to match at $2,699 / €2,699.
At the heart of the machine lie four analogue voices based on modern SSI chips, with each combining dual analogue VCOs, a dedicated noise source, and an additional digital oscillator for hybrid layering or FM modulation. There’s also a multimode analogue filter and VCA to shape each voice.

Elsewhere, Drums features an instrument library of more than 40 instruments, each with its own “sub-mode mutations” – offering producers hundreds of sounds to experiment with.
“Designed for performance”, pattern switching on Drums is described as “instant”, with kits changeable without stopping playback. There’s also a X0Y fader which allows you to blend between two versions of a kit or pattern.
Credit: Polyend
The onboard sequencer is described as Polyend’s “most advanced and intuitive sequencing system so far”, with deep per-track control per track, as well as probability, micro-timing, parameter locks, pattern chaining, generative tools and multiple track play modes.
The unit can hold up to 64 patterns, 64 sound kits and 48 songs with arrangement options, catering to everything from “short loops to full sets”.
Internally, Drums runs on a dual-core main CPU, with auxiliary processors handling peripherals and analogue control. And on that note… the drum machine also has comprehensive I/O, with eight individual audio outputs for separate processing and mixing.
Polyend Drums is available now for reservation with a fully refundable $500 deposit. Final retail price will be $2,699 / €2,699. Learn more at Polyend.
Credit: Polyend
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Unusable Engineering Curves & MembranesCurves & Membranes is a one-oscillator mono synth built around Bézier wave shaping, orbital modulation, and a membrane-style filter model. The idea was not to make a synth that does everything, but to make a smaller instrument where the few core parts actually behave in interesting ways. It is monophonic on purpose. I did not want to lower oversampling or update rates, because I did not want to compromise the sound. I also did not feel any need to add more oscillators when the one that is there already does enough interesting things on its own. The smaller structure also makes the interface easier to grasp, and to me the limitation makes it more attractive, not less. The oscillator uses a repeating single-cycle Bézier waveform. You shape it by moving handles and midpoint rather than selecting from a fixed set of waveforms. From there, the synth runs two modulation concepts in parallel: an 8-slot wave preset bank with slew and clocked stepping, and independent orbital modulators for each point and handle. In the filter stage, 32 membrane lanes react to LP, BP, and HP actuator points in parallel, with damping, tension, width, emphasis, and keyboard tracking changing the response. A big part of the point is that the sound and the visuals reflect the same thing. The oscillator shape, the modulation movement, and the filter behavior are all part of the same core idea, so what you see on screen is not just decoration pasted on top. It works especially well for bass lines with movement, expressive mono leads, and long evolving drone material. You can keep it simple and musical, or push it much further with wave sequencing and orbital motion. Even with a lot of movement, the synth is designed to stay pitch-stable and playable. There are no preset system included. The thinking there is simple: if the interface is clear enough, you should be able to make your own sounds without starting from a giant preset browser. Randomization is also a big part of the workflow. The modulation systems are built to make exploration fast, not precious. Highlights: One-oscillator mono synth. Bézier single-cycle oscillator. None, Clip, and Fold wave distortion modes. 8-slot Wave Preset Bank with slew. Internal or host-clocked wave sequencing. Independent orbital modulators for each point and handle. 32-lane membrane filter with LP, BP, and HP actuators. Direct interface with no hidden panels or secondary pages. Videos Full walkthrough: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GgsCDjBzLlk Sounds / patch ideas: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jo4qDD3YghU Read More

This crazy synth has a single button – but four billion soundsOne of the wackiest synths to come out of this year’s Superbooth is the Cyma Forma RND, which boasts a single large button on its front face and not much else in terms of controls.
But don’t be put off by its somewhat limited user interface; though it’s a synth designed to make you “stop playing, start listening”, the RND is actually surprisingly capable…

READ MORE: Reel is a $10 app that turns your iPhone into a 4-track tape recorder – and it’s already hit No.1 on the App Store

Developed in collaboration with French musical artist Bambounou, the Cyma Forma RND has a singular button, but there’s loads going on behind the scenes.
The RND is built around eight different synthesis engines: subtractive, FM, acid, noise, speech, Karplus-Strong, supersaw and additive. With each push of the button, four of these are layered and run their own unique sequence.
Each time the centre button is pressed, each of these parameters is randomised. “Press again. It’s gone, forever. Something new exists in its place,” says Cyma Forma.

The synth also comes with five filter types plus a reverb effect. It’s not entirely clear how the user is supposed to play with these, but the unit has a surprisingly comprehensive I/O setup – with four-track audio output over USB-C, four-channel MIDI in and out, 9 MIDI modes, MIDI clock in and out, analogue sync in and out, and a stereo mix output – so we’d imagine the answer lies there.
Also a benefit of the above I/O is while the synth is billed as ‘press once, previous sound gone forever’, you can record any sound into a DAW while you have it.
Credit: Cyma Forma
The number of parameter combinations resulting from the eight synth engines isn’t quite infinite, but for all intents and purposes, it’s close, with over four billion sounds available…
Availability & pricing
The Cyma Forma RND is available to preorder now, priced at $150 / £111. Shipping is expected in late June. You can also buy a flex case for an additional $66.
The RND will be available to check out at Berlin’s Superbooth this week, at booth Z245.
Learn more at Cyma Forma.
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Polyend Drums hybrid drum machine Polyend's latest release Drums features eight tracks designed for creating percussion using analogue voices, digital synthesis methods or sample-based instruments.

Reel is a $9.99 app that turns your iPhone into a 4-track tape recorder – and it’s already hit No.1 on the App StoreIf your voice notes app is overflowing with half-finished hooks, synth jams and “don’t forget this riff” recordings, this might be the iPhone music tool you’ve been waiting for.
Built by Bristol-based developer Tug, Reels is a tape-style 4-track field recorder for iPhone designed to make capturing ideas feel fast, tactile and weirdly addictive.

READ MORE: Ninajirachi still doesn’t have any “professional” music gear

Aimed at musicians, DJs, songwriters, podcasters and field recordists, Reel strips mobile recording back to the essentials.
Big transport buttons mirror a traditional tape machine, while a chunky jog wheel lets you scrub through recordings at variable speed like you’re handling actual tape. Record, rewind, overdub, loop, punch in and out – it’s all designed for muscle memory and immediacy, with an interface that’s made to feel “just like tape”.
The app supports up to four tracks at 32-bit float and up to 96 kHz, allowing for archive-quality recordings without clipping concerns. Connect a class-compliant USB-C audio interface and Reel automatically routes stereo input pairs to tracks on first connection, so you can start recording almost instantly.
It’s also refreshingly free of modern app bloat. There’s no subscription model, no account setup and no mandatory cloud features – unless you actually want it. Instead, Reel is designed as a quick-capture tool for everything from hardware jams and DJ sets to field recordings, vinyl archiving and tracking live instruments on the move.
Credit: 24bit Studio
Recordings save locally by default, with optional iCloud Drive sync and easy export as AIFF or WAV files via the iOS share sheet. Stems can be AirDropped into your DAW, sent to Dropbox or fired into a group chat in a couple of taps.
There’s more. Reel continues running in the background, meaning recordings won’t stop if you lock your phone or switch apps mid-session – something anyone who’s accidentally lost a great take will certainly appreciate.
Describing Reel as a “pocket swiss army recorder”, Tug says the app was built as an alternative to traditional DAW workflows.
“Whip it out in the field for a quick capture, or hook your hardware setup up to your phone and hit record for proper multitrack,” he explains. “The whole idea is to keep the limitations of tape, make it feel as nice as hardware, and not make you learn anything to get going.”
Reel is available now via the App Store as a one-time purchase priced at $9.99/£9.99/€9.99. The first 500 buyers will also receive “Founder” status, unlocking lifetime access to future premium add-ons and beta features. And it’s already taking off; at the time of writing, it sits at the No.1 spot on the UK App Store Top Paid Music chart…
Learn more at Reel Audio. 
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Everything you need to know about Superbooth 2026Superbooth is returning to Berlin for another weekend filled with music tech galore. Heavy hitters such as Korg, Moog, and Novation will be on site, but there will also be offerings for more niche companies pedaling their latest secrets to get that extra bit of magic in your tracks. Read on for all the information you need to make the most out of your time in the synth wonderland.

READ MORE: Ableton Live 12.4 has arrived – here’s everything you need to know

Background
Superbooth was first held in 2017. It was launched by instrument makers SchneidersLaden, growing from the Musikmesse show in Frankfurt.
When and where?
7-9 May at FEZ Centre in Berlin. Head to Superbooth’s website to purchase tickets. The convention is open to the public for any synth nerd to join in on the fun. Three-day tickets are €100 and single-day tickets are €41.
Who’s there and what’s happening?
Superbooth is a trade show similar to the NAMM Show (National Association of Music Merchants), with a greater emphasis on synths and production gear. Tech brands often announce new gear at Superbooth.
Some of the brands making an appearance are Elektron, Arturia, Teenage Engineering, Korg, Polyend, Novation, Sequential, and Roland. Modular lovers can check out products from Make Noise, Buchla, Tiptop Audio, and Intellijel. The Superbooth site features the full list of exhibitors, so you can know exactly what you want to play with while you’re there.
In addition to showcasing products, there will be workshops where attendees can have some fun working directly with the new gear. Some of the individual workshops are sold out, though, so check out the full schedule to see what’s still available. 
For some dancing in between all the exploring, Superbooth programming also includes live performances from Monolake (aka Ableton co-creator Robert Henke), DJ/producer Polygonia, and Rødhåd’s WSNWG project featuring Lady Starlight.
Get your tickets for Superbooth 2026 at the event’s official website.
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“Who cares if you layer two kicks if it sounds great?”: Collect 200 talk synths, samples and letting the strongest parts of your tracks speak for themselvesWorking between LA and Toronto, producers and musicians Stevie Appleton and Nick Henriques have a refreshing approach to producing with the software and hardware they have access to. They often start the songwriting process with a live jam, then refine the arrangement as they go, being guided by feeling rather than convention. When it comes to mixing, they keep it natural, sometimes replacing MIDI parts with real synths, and a beloved vintage bass guitar.

READ MORE: Sound, science and structure: how Max Cooper unravels the cosmos

Having racked up over 17 million streams to date, thanks to their creative approach, we catch up with them to hear about their process and what their plans for live performance and a second album look like.
Hi Stevie and Nick. You work together as Collect 200 but you both have long careers as songwriters and producers. How did you come to collaborate initially?
We were familiar with each other’s work in the dance space and had been trying to get together, I suppose, to write something for someone else. But we met at Miami Music Week and spent nearly a week hanging out before writing our first song, which happened to be Mixed Emotions, on the last day of the trip.
Image: Press
Your single Goodbye is the latest in a series of releases since last year that have racked up an amazing 17.5 million streams. There’s clearly a market for uplifting, feel-good music – but what else do you attribute this success to?
Quite honestly, the music is extremely authentic to both of us, written more off a certain feeling rather than aiming at ‘catchy’ or a commercial route. There’s a chance that some people are seeking more and more of that these days in a world where you can press a few buttons and it generates a song. We like to think this music feels very human, which is a crazy thing to need to explain!
Your debut album, Everything Will Be Alright, is out now. What is the concept behind the album and can you share a little about how you approached it as a project – how it came together?
The album really felt like a journey of discovery and optimism to us. A lot of the songs were written about some harder times that came good, some new beginnings, even about the project itself. But deep down, we had a sense that things work out the way they are supposed to in life, and that sentiment fit with the energy of the music so well.
You are planning your debut live shows – can you share any details about what we can expect to see and hear from them?
We play live as a duo using Ableton and adding live vocals, keys, loops and FX. So it’s definitely quite far from a DJ set, but we like to keep the energy pretty consistent, bar a few breaks in the set to make it feel more in the lane where you can just vibe and flow with it. We’re very happy with the energy the live sets have been bringing so far.
Image: Press
Tell us a bit about your studio.
We work both independently, between LA and Toronto, and of course together. The workflow is great, there’s a really solid crossover in our skill sets. Stevie is more on the musical side; he has lots of vintage synths — a Prophet 6, Juno, plus guitars. Nick has a great studio in Toronto, and that’s where the records end up being finished.
What’s your latest gear or plugin purchase?
One of the secret (or not so secret) recipes was buying a 1968 Hofner bass. It immediately works, with few FX needed – it’s so round and warm. It’s been the backbone to the feel of the album, actually. A great plugin we’ve been using on our drums is Orion by Cradle, which is perfect for glueing drums together.
What’s the best free plugin you own?
For sure I’d say the Softube Saturation Knob. It adds nice subtle analogue weight to the sound and is especially good for bass – it instantly glues it together.
Image: Press
What’s been the biggest investment in your career/studio?
Vintage synths for sure. At the end of the album process, on a lot of the plugin synths, we then replace them with Super6, Prophet and Juno 106. We’ll do a lot of passes messing with LFOs and cutoffs. It’s very fun and you know what you have is a one-of-one. There is a BBE Sonic Maximizer and 2 classic blue stripe Universal Audio 1176 compressors at one of the studios we use in Toronto, and a lot of the records on the album have had stems run through those to put that final polish on them. I think we need more of those.
Your tracks all lock into a really infectious groove. Do you get that from playing live instruments, from samples or quantisation? Or some combination of all the above?
We use a lot of dusty drums samples that have little swing moments in them that really bring songs to life. On top of that we will play some live guitar and keys without quantizing too much to leave that slight human error in timing. On top of that, the natural grooviness is something that we go to when writing, so a lot of it comes from the ‘jam’ at the beginning of the songwriting process.
Image: Press
Your mixes sound rich and full and yet there’s space in there – they don’t sound overcrowded. What techniques do you use – maybe with regard to EQ and compression – to achieve that effect?
We like to approach the mixes by trying to do the least amount to achieve the best result. We really believe in simple, broad movements when it comes to EQ, reverb, and saturation – less is more. Pick the things in the record that are confident and allow them to be confident while having the rest in support of them.
How do you see your sound and studio evolving in the next two years?
For the second album which we’re currently writing, our dream was always to have live strings, horns and drums. It will likely come at the end of the writing process, but we’re 100% going to find the best place to capture that authentic vintage soul sound rather than imitate it with samples and plugins. Basically it’s a case of making our own samples!
Do you have a dream piece of gear?
In the dream studio, we’d have a perfectly mic’d up drumkit and percussion rig going through a Neve console, with perfect vintage mics set up and ready to go. I think drums are such a crucial part of any mix, especially in our world. And having access to layering dance loops with something like that 70s drummer sound would be everything to us.

What’s a music production myth you think needs debunking?
We’re pretty focused on not mixing the record like dance records, not scooping out a lot of the low mids, so that it sounds good on a DJ stage. For us, that’s where the warmth and the ‘hug’ as we like to call it sits. It’s a huge case of trial and error to get the balance, but a lot of mix engineers will just wipe out that frequency, and for us, that’s where a lot of the feeling is. We like to throw out a lot of “mixing rules”, and go 100 per cent based on feeling. Who cares if you layer two kicks if it sounds great?
Who gave you the biggest lesson in your career? Can you tell us about how it impacted you?
Someone said to us recently in this album 2 process, ‘the most important thing for us to do is follow our intuition rather than try and copy what we did in album 1, as tempting as it is’. It’s actually crucial, otherwise you end up not writing from the heart again, and lose what we believe the magic of the music to be. So with that in mind, we are going to be free in the writing and even in style, and go where the process takes us without comparing too much to our previous songs!
The post “Who cares if you layer two kicks if it sounds great?”: Collect 200 talk synths, samples and letting the strongest parts of your tracks speak for themselves appeared first on MusicTech.

Barry Diller trusts Sam Altman. But ‘trust is irrelevant’ as AGI nears, he says.Barry Diller defended OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, while warning that AGI remains an unpredictable force needing guardrails.

US Senator says crypto market structure vote could happen by AugustKirsten Gillibrand said that the US Senate had to address lawmakers potentially getting “rich off of these industries because of their insider status“ before any vote on the CLARITY Act.

Direct FDM Printing with GranulesThe idea of FDM 3D printing using granules rather than filament is an appealing one: rather than having to wrangle spools of filament that need to adhere to strict dimensions and cannot be too flexible, you can instead just keep topping up a big hopper with fresh granules. This is what [HomoFaciens] has been tinkering with for a while now, with their Direct Granules Extruder V7.0 showing significant improvements.
There’s also an accompanying article, with details of previous granule extruder attempts detailed on the same site. Many of the improvements here focus on making sure the granules melt properly before they reach the end of the extruder, with the auger screw helping to push things along. While this seems straightforward, there are many details to get right, with the previous v6.2 version having issues like the hot plastic backing up into the cold section and clogging things up.
For the test bench a Prusa Mk4 FDM printer is used, with the standard extruder swapped for the experimental extruder. On the extruder the cold, top part is water cooled to ensure it stays cold, with each turn of the wood-screw-turned-auger providing the right extrusion speed. As can be seen with the print tests, the results look pretty good despite the extruder not having been tuned yet.
If you want to give it a shot yourself, the article page provides files for download.

Shed Valley Labs Chief LP-2Chief LP-2 is a free, 2-channel audio looper for Windows, built for live performance. It pairs a precise audio engine with a fast recording workflow - tap a tempo, record a loop, and it locks to the bar automatically. Core features: - 2 independent loop channels with per-channel gain, mute, and input mute - MIDI learn on all controls - Direct Host VST-instruments (VSTI) and record the output as audio - Metronome-locked recording: loops snap to bar boundaries automatically - Count-in and fixed-length recording modes - Overdub with configurable decay - 1 mute group for instant channel muting - 1 programmable macro button (trigger multiple channel actions in one keystroke or MIDI message) - Per-channel VST3 plugin insert - Per-channel routing: choose any hardware input/output, with mono output option - MIDI clock master and slave (beta) - Chromatic tuner - Song settings save/load - Song templates (save/apply a default rig setup). Coming soon: Upgrade to the Chief LP-6, featuring 6 channels, 4 mute groups, 5 macros, A/B/C sections, and a built-in lyrics/chords screen. Read More