What's New?
A round-up of some new musical things that have piqued my curiosity recently
Happy Friday folks and it’s been awhile since I’ve written a newsletter post, so here we are, the sun is shining out there today and I feel full of the joys of Spring - ok it’s not here yet but there you go.
Not musical but I have been enjoying using an app called Craft recently, that helps me take notes, stay on top of tasks and wirte journals, in which I capture the things I have seen on a daily basis. So it is handy for keeping on top of stuff for Modulations.
ModCaf
I went along to ModCaf last night after missing one or two recently for various reasons. The turn out was tremendous and there were some new faces too, which is very good because people come and go but we tend to retain a core group of people.
The music was great too but I didn’t take many notes nor photos sadly but what I do want to do is promote the upcoming events and the two new venues.
Monday 26th January - Shoreditch, Old Street Records
Friday 6th February - Petworth, which will be the second one, having started last month
Thursday 19th February - Aldershot, as Ben put it last night, “The OG", the best”
Will I be going to all of these? I hope so. Will I be performing or doing something at any? Probably not for the moment, as I’ve nothing setup but read the SeqTrak news further on, I may do something with that? I could showcase some iPad stuff at some point based on the videos I am doing at the moment.
SeqTrak 2.0
There were a flow of rumours coming out of the mill, that the SeqTrak was being discontinued by Yamaha. It is not the case, for it is still very much a current product and hot news!
Seqtrak OS 2.0 has just been released and I’ve come across some very informative videos on this, as you can watch below.
I’m excited about this, because previously you were limited to one instance of each synth and one drumkit. Now you can have multiples and it will be far easier to map to the keys -I will be updating mine to test out with the Torso sequencer, the prospect of going ambient definitely appeals, as does the stacking up of multiple drumkits, such as techno drums and a percussion kit featuring many different timbres of tom drums.
Creator Studio
I already subscribe to Logic Pro for iPad for something like £4 a month or just under £46 per year and I was subscribing to Final Cut but I tend to use Lumafusion on the iPad most of the time.
So the new product being launched on the 28th January, is Creator Studio, that gives you access to a bundle of Apple products for £12.99 a month might mean I lose that cheaper sub for Logic Pro for iPad?
I’m in two minds over this one because I have a lot of subscriptions which account for a large slice of my monthly budget.
However I still don’t have Logic for my Mac - I really would like it, as I did have the trial version before and came close to buying it but because I had other more important spends to consider at the time, I decided to leave it.
I will give this some serious thought but as I am already feeling subscription fatigue, I might not.
There have been quite a few videos on this recently by various YouTubers, all with different views on things.
We will be getting some new features in both versions of Logic, the one for the Mac and the iPad alike, including a new Synth Player. This new AI tools will compliment the existing band of drummer, bassist, piano and keyboard players.
I’ve used these tools in the past and have had fun chopping sections, adding fills, key changes and all sorts to take my track well beyond the standard patterns the players will kick off with.
Here is an example from my back catalogue.
I want to do more tracks like this, as using these generative tools with a bit of a direction in mind, is an interesting way to compose music.
Playbeat 4
My good old friend Doug of Sound Test Room fame demonstrated a new pack for Playbeat 4 (Audiomodern) called Ribbons which is based on various Modular synth recordings.
I shall pick this up and feature it on a video at some point.
Spacestrip
Gavinskis Tutorials bought to my attention the other day, a new channel strip style plugin for iOS which has been available for desktop for a little while already.
Lattice
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/lattice/id6756826552
Late last year I came across GridStep which I’ve yet to feature in any of my jam/demo videos but it’s on the list for one in the next few weeks.
Lattice is also a sequencer and I have just bought it this morning, it’s designed to help you discover drum grooves, so it looked really interesting and is on an introductory price for the moment at just over £3
Lots to cover in the coming weeks
This newsletter honestly only scrapes the surface because there are a load of new plugins, apps and hardware products, not to mention great firmware updates for existing gear, as per SeqTrak - There are plenty of things to be excited about in this space for 2026.
I will be trying to put out a newsletter like this most Fridays and the demo videos I’ve put out this week will continue. My plan being to start with a constructive jam to open each one up and then some chat after that, because some people might only want to watch/listen to the first bit and skip the last section if not really interested in the technical stuff - but you are though aren’t you?
Have a great weekend and see you soon.