Workshop Notes: December 2025
Now you can play a Workshop System in your browser
Last week the Workshop System turned one year old. I planned to write a big review of the year and all the ace things that happened (Mylar’s video, Suren’s first gig, Ronnie’s workshop in the church, Sound on Sound, the BRIT school, Denmark Street, all these program cards), but there are too many new things happening to waste time looking back. Onwards!
Blackbird is the deepest and most 🤯🤯🤯 program card yet. From Dune Desormeaux (of Goldfish and Sheep), It’s a complete recreation and expansion of Crow, a eurorack module from Whimsical Raps and monome. It lets you control the Workshop Computer from other computers in interesting ways - using Max/MSP, or the live coding environment druid, or using monome’s norns device. You can create program cards using Lua. Learn more and download Blackbird here. I need to dust off my elderly DIY Norns and spend some time with this.
Unexpected end of year surprise: Vincent Maurer has just created Patch Notes, which includes an almost complete emulation of the Workshop System that you can play in your browser. It is work in progress, but what work, and what progress! Full of treats: the guitar icon launches pedals, the keyboard connects Midi to Computer, there are even program cards in there. INCROYABLE.
If you’re new to the Workshop System and you’ haven’t yet spent many hours rolling your own program cards using Chris Johnson’s Utility Pair , get over there now.
I was grinning all the way through Sound Bureau in a basement vinyl bar in Streatham, South London a couple of weeks ago. Four very experienced improvisers using Workshop Systems in duos and a quartet. They all used clusters of devices around their systems — Tansy played the contact mic with nylon cord and a bow, Phil had a little noisebox, Jon used three handmade pedals. They played quietly through individual speakers, so it felt like an acoustic set, like chamber music. Half the joy was watching the musicians listening, communicating, thinking. Thank you all. Sound Bureau is back on 9th December, without Workshop Systems, but with tap dancing.
Assembled Workshop Systems are now for sale at the legendary SchneidersLaden in Berlin, which makes me extremely proud. You can also buy them at: Signal Sounds in Glasgow and Perfect Circuit in Burbank (which are both equally legendary in their own way).
This is a simply brilliant analogue patch from Vincent (again!) on the discord, turning the system into a chaotic, self-playing, great-sounding, extremely tweakable kick/snare drum machine. He chains three modules (Stompbox, Amplifier and Stereo In) to create enough white noise for the snare drum, triggered by some 🤯 clock divider business using the Ring Mod and a slope. It slips between doof doof doof and weirdness very pleasingly. I made a quick demo video.
The ESP program card by Ben Regnier is a digital recreation of the External Signal Processor from a Korg MS20 (used by Goldfrapp on vocals and Aphex Twin on drums). Includes pitch tracking, envelope tracking and an extra bandpass filter. Demo video. Read more and download the ESP card here.
Also from Ben, Vink is a patchable dual delay program card inspired by the Dutch composer Jaap Vink who died in 2023 and specialised in intricate noise loops. It helps you set up playable, meditative, noisy systems of filtered and ring-modulated feedback. Download it here, or watch me playing it for 12 minutes here.
Upcoming Music Thing events:
In late February & early March 2026 I’ll be in Toronto, Canada for several events, including Dyski’s first full residency outside Cornwall. I’ll share full details in the next email, or join the Dyski mailing list to hear first.
On December 7th I’ll be at Goldsmiths Electronic Music Studio in South London, for a full day workshop with students.
On January 17th I’ll be in Cardiff for a Music Lab event with teenagers, do get in touch if you’re around that weekend and have an idea.
On February 7th I’ll be at SchneidersKeller in Denmark Street, London, for a hand-on modular-for-beginners workshop using a dozen Workshop Systems. If you know someone modular-curious who might enjoy it, send them my way.
On 13–15 March, the brilliant Loula Yorke will be hosting Dyski’s first Weekend Modular retreat, a two day residential event in Cornwall for anyone interested in exploring modular music-making. It will include plenty of Workshop Systems, of course.
I took some lightly modified Workshop Systems to the Dyski Radio Music residency in Cornwall last month, set up with Chris Johnson’s AM Coupler program card and a cheap wire antenna. The system broadcasts medium wave radio pretty well across a room. You can broadcast weird jingles or sounds from the system, and sweep the broadcast frequency to move sounds to handheld radios around the room, which is what I’m doing in the picture above.
I enjoyed this lengthy but unhelpful WS-related Reddit thread: Can I make an album with only this?
Some recent albums (and other music) made with Workshop Systems:
Space Wolf and the Caves of Kratan by Caddow, making good use of the Noisebox card.
Tapes by Lazenbleep, single takes recorded live using Sheep and Teenage Engineering OPXY
I can Hear The Universe Breathe by Professor Whom, featuring the Backyard Rain card.
Finally, Borg is an “insane dialogue between two mountains( and a drum track)”
That’s it, email me if you have questions or ideas,
Tom