Allright! Reason Studios just announced Reason 12.6 and the two big things here are offline mode (allowing you to make beats fully off the grid… or you know, in places with bad or non-existent wifi) and native support for Apple Silicon M1/M2 processors, promising huge performance improvements on modern Macs.

Although Reason runs well with Rosetta on Apple Silicon computers, it adds an overhead that reduces performance. It may also create unwanted behaviour when using the Reason Rack Plugin since the host needs to run in Rosetta mode. This update removes all that friction by finally being able run natively on modern Macs.

Read about the release over at ReasonStudios.com

The open source and cross platform (Linux / Mac / Windows) DAW Ardour just upgraded to version 7.4, bringing some new features along with bug fixes. Of the few DAWs I’ve tried running under Linux, Ardour sure looks the most polished and I’ve been wanting to give it more of a real go soon.

New features in Ardour 7.4 is:

• Support for MIDI subgroup busses
• Support for the Lua DSP processor (downmix 5.1 audio to stereo)
• Added a volume control to the clip picker
• Added a preference item for the PPQN value in exported MIDI files
• Added an option to use a neutral color for new tracks & busses

Now as for improvements and bug fixes you can see the whole list on their what’s new page, but there’s been improvements in handling Faderport8 and Ableton Push 2 as well as a lot of UI-fixes and VST/VST3 bug fixes.

Ardour is free to download and use if you can compile the source tarball on your own machine, but for those not so tech-savvy there’s binaries for Linux, Windows and Mac available for purchase (either a pay-what-you-want starting at $1/mo or single payment from $45). Demo versions that goes silent after 10 minutes are available for those wanting to give it a go as well.

Download Ardour at Ardour.org

The popular tracker Renoise (and the companion sampler sequencer for other DAWs, Redux) now features native support for Apple M1 with the ability to load intel plugins via a plugin bridge and Rosetta as well as Metal based GUI rendering for MacOS. Happy times for tracking on a modern Mac!

Besides M1 Renoise now have 32 and 64 bit ARM Linux builds optimized for Raspberry Pi 3/4, which made my mind start to wander off wondering if it’d be cool to build a little tracker-specific box…

Other features with the 3.4.0 version includes WASAPI audio device support (Windows) and Ableton Link.

The tracker is free to try out (as far as I know it just limits exporting if you don’t buy a license) and I’d highly recommend anyone either having a tracker background to try it out to see where trackers are in 2022 or for the first time to have a go at something more alternative to the classic DAWs.

Read more on Renoise.com

Native Instruments‘ latest addition to the Maschine family is dubbed Maschine Jam.

The main things that differs the Jam from their previous Maschine hardware controllers (Mikro/Standard/Studio) is the multicolored 8×8 click-pad matrix and the eight dual-touch strips designed to help you control scenes, groups and patterns, play around, step sequence and mix/match clips live. It’s primarily built to be used with Native Instruments’ own Maschine software but it comes bundled with Ableton Live templates as well.

According to NI themselves the Jam is aimed at people that want to get going quickly: sequencing, improvising and jamming to build up a track, prepare an arrangement or create a live performance.

Besides the controller and Maschine software you get 29GB of sounds, Native Instruments’ Perform FX (designed for the Jam but will work with other Maschine controllers) as well as Komplete 11 Select which in itself contains 11 instruments and effects (including their classic Massive synth).

The “Lock” feature seems pretty cool – basically you lock the current setup and sounds in a sandbox allowing you to tweak and test everything however you want, whenever you want to go back to the original sounds you just unlock it. Also, personally I’ve grown to like hardware controllers with touch strips instead of classic knobs – especially when controlling effects like you probably will with the Jam (just let it go to instantly remove an effect can be really handy).

Read more @ native-instruments.com (€399 / USD$423)

Watch the Maschine Jam in action here: