Workshop Notes: June 2026
Birds, grids, disintegration loops, films, drums, radio, glitches, a surprise endorsement and a London meetup this month.
I’m writing this in the Tate Modern because, unlike the Music Thing Shed, it has air conditioning. There is a lot going on.
The first London Workshop Meetup is on 30th June in the evening at SchneidersKeller on Denmark Street. I’ll be there with program card mastermind Chris Johnson, plenty of systems, lots to talk about. Come down and say hello. Leave your email here for full details.
Monome × Workshop System continues: MLR is the classic sample-cutting instrument from this video of a monome grid prototype from 2007 and being played by Daedalus here in 2010. Now it’s on Workshop Computer as MLRws, created by Dune Desormeaux with a host of supporters and testers in this thread. It does many things that I assumed were impossible. Of course it works with a monome grid, but also has an intense standalone mode that needs nothing but a Workshop Computer and a blank card. Download MLRws.
Legendary English gear shop Soundgas now sells Workshop Systems alongside £22k vintage synths, which makes me very proud: “Think of it as a modern compact Synthi AKS to take wherever you go… The perfect modular synth for electronic music makers and sound designers who don’t ‘do’ modular… this little beauty punches well above its size/weight sonically.” Find a Workshop System dealer near you.
In just the last four weeks, Joep Vermaat has released three program cards that feel like future classics.
Tesserae is an arpeggio sequencer inspired by Laurie Spiegel’s Music Mouse. Video | Download.
Motorik is essentially a Hallogallo generator (such a brilliant concept) Download.
Degenerator is already a hit, a “gnarly, wonderful self-overwriting looper” inspired by William Basinski’s The Disintegration Loops. The video above is Laurent Hilairet in France playing his Serge system through it. Šarūnas Kas made good use of Degenerator while playing live on Radio Vilnius this month, and Bay Mud in Canada just released his ace four-minute demo video. Download Degenerator
I’ve updated the What would someone like me do with a tiny modular synth? zine with more pages, better words and a few patch ideas. Physical copies with systems from Thonk, or you can read the pdf here.
I’m in awe of Simon James’ work in Shoreham, a few miles down the coast from where Workshop Systems are made in Brighton. This month: “Young artists from Shoreham gathered field recordings from around Shoreham Port and will use instruments like the Workshop System to manipulate them - stretch, fragment, layer, slow down, speed up, twist, smudge, expand to create a soundscape for an upcoming exhibition.” Simon’s Instagram with a short clip of those field recordings running through RYK’s B77 loop recorder program card.
Do you have a Workshop System or Computer that you haven’t built yet? If you need any help or support to get started, drop me a line.
Chat Card by incomputable is a very playable version of Software Automatic Mouth, a speech synthesiser for the Commodore 64 from 1982. The card comes in a sensible web MIDI version but also the pleasingly bonkers keyboard version above. Download Chat Card
Upcoming events:
Dalston: 16th June: Phil Durrant will be playing Workshop System at Cafe Oto. Phil is sowari on the Discord, and often shares details of his live setup. Book here.
London: 30th June: Workshop meetup SchneidersKeller on Denmark Street, details above.
Yorkshire: 3–5 July: Mylar Melodies is hosting his first Dyski Weekend Modular workshop in Yorkshire, with a bunch of Workshop Systems to play. Book here.
Suffolk: Saturday 11 July: I’ll be joining Loula Yorke for Patch & Score: a one day workshop, improvising live electronic scores to analogue experimental films. No experience necessary. All technology provided. Sound-curious visual artists welcome. Book here.
Cornwall: November 2026: Last year’s Dyski Radio Music residency at the Housel Bay Hotel was extraordinary. We’re almost certainly doing it again, sign up for the Dyski mailing list to get details first.
Host a workshop yourself: If you’d like to host a build or play workshop near you, or have another idea you want to try, please get in touch.
Even more new program cards…
Grains by Vincent Maurer is an extraordinarily deep and great-sounding granular looper and sample player with a nice demo video, full of blissful moments like this one. Try Phil’s video for a very different take on the same card. Download Grains.
DivCom by Olivier Divmod is at completely the other end of the spectrum, a tribute to the arcane Serge NCOM module. I love the range of ideas this month, from shiny and digital to raw analogue emulations. The original NCOM was two logic chips and a couple of op amps. Download DivCom
Wild Pebble by Adrian Vos is a quirky generative sequencer inspired by Jonah Senzel's wonderful Pet Rock. Download Wild Pebble.
drumdrum by Moses Hoyt is a DFAM-style percussive drum sequencer that can be played with a web interface or monome grid. Download drumdrum.
Computer Grids by Phil Miller is a straightforward-but-useful port of Mutable Instruments’ Grids, with an awesome gong-based demo video. Download Computer Grids.
Glitch by Andy Jenkinson is a clocked breakbeat slicer and beat-repeater a bit like my favourite old Ableton plugin. Video | Download Glitch
You can download all the latest cards and follow and test work in progress cards on Discord.
See you next month,
Tom
