WORLD OF MUSIC ; PORTABLE KEYBOARD - Latest Portable Music Keyboards, Synthesizers and Music News

Different Instruments has introduced PartialString, a physical modeling synthesizer that generates sound by numerically solving the one-dimensional wave equation in real time.

Rather than relying on sampled sounds or traditional virtual analog oscillators, the instrument represents a vibrating string as a series of displacement points and computes the propagation of energy across the string. A virtual pickup measures the string displacement to generate the audio output.

The instrument supports up to 10 voices of polyphony, with the available voice count adapting dynamically according to CPU performance and the simulated string lengths.

Features:

• Finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) physical modeling synthesis engine
• Real-time numerical solution of the one-dimensional wave equation
• Models the vibration of a plucked string as a displacement grid in memory
• Virtual pickup generates audio by measuring string displacement
• Supports up to 10-voice polyphony
• Dynamic voice allocation adjusts polyphony based on available processing power and simulated string length
• Adjustable excitation position along the string
• Adjustable excitation shape
• Velocity-sensitive excitation
• Pickup position is continuously adjustable
• Pickup position can be modulated by an LFO
• Pickup LFO operates up to audio rates for AM-like sidebands
• Adjustable string decay
• Dampers can be enabled or disabled
• Piano-style damper behavior can be enabled so damping occurs when notes are released
• Long undamped decay supports sustained pad-like sounds
• Available for macOS, Windows, and Linux

PartialString is available now as a free download, with an optional pay-what-you-want contribution. The instrument is available in Audio Unit and VST3 formats for macOS, VST3 for Windows, and VST3 for Linux.

Chase Bliss has announced that they are no longer pursuing an v1.5 update to the CHOMPI sampling keyboard. The cute and colorful sampler launched by manufacturer Chompi Club in 2023 following a hugely successful Kickstarter campaign.

Effects pedal brand Chase Bliss acquired Chompi Club in 2025 with the intention of continuing product development and manufacturing Chompi itself, but has now made the decision to cease production of the instrument.

After merging with Chompi Club, Chase Bliss planned to produce a backwards-compatible Chompi with the same processor and slightly different hardware, meaning that owners of any Chompi would have access to the same firmware.

“That turned out to be a pretty bad idea,” Chase Bliss said, for reasons explained in a video shared on the company’s YouTube channel titled “We changed our mind”.

The announcement in the video is a little ambiguous, but what’s clear is that the company has shelved plans to develop and release a Chase Bliss-made Chompi or to work with Chompi Club on a second version.

“We are not working on that Chompi thing we described in the other video, or Chompi V2,” Chase Bliss founder Joel Korte said. “We’ll do one firmware patch for Tempo to address a few minor bugs but beyond that, nothing else directly in Chompi world is planned,” he added in the comments.

Appearing alongside Chompi Club co-founder Tobias Hendrickson, Korte told viewers that Chompi’s Tempo firmware – an alternative version of Chompi’s firmware released in March that fundamentally changed how the instrument worked, adding an arpeggiator and sample-slicing functionality – took longer than expected to develop and caused the team to run into the limitations of the device’s hardware and processing power.

“The manufacturing process was also turning into a bit of a puzzle, and so we found ourselves in the position of essentially recreating an existing product that was already maxed out,” Korte explains in the video description. “It would have been time-consuming, expensive, and limiting for future ideas. It just didn’t make sense.”

“We just can’t really do what we would’ve wanted to do on the existing architecture,” Korte added in the comments.

“For me, this is not in any way a sad thing that we’re reaching this conclusion,” Hendrickson said. “As it is now, Chompi is complete. I don’t know how excited I am about making another one that has to stick to those same constraints.”

Chase Bliss will continue to provide support for those that already own a Chompi, and as of the video’s publication, the company has 250 units remaining and there is still stock available on the Chase Bliss website.

Though Chase Bliss has made it clear that Chompi as we know it is being discontinued, Chompi Club’s Chelsea and Tobias Hendrickson will be remaining with Chase Bliss, and Korte says the engineering team is currently working on more than 10 new projects.

The company says that it is exploring the possibility of making the firmware open source, saying that it’s ‘the right move’.

Host Ziv Eliraz – in his latest loopop video – introduces his new project, the Synth Stand and Pedal Board Synthesizer.

“It’s a free web app, that lets people design their own 3D-printable synth stand or pedalboard,” he told us. “If they don’t have a 3D printer, they can take the files and print them with a friend or an online service.”

Features:

• Template library with various modifiable starting points
• Adjustable synth depth, angle, width, cheek thickness, base height, lip length and lip offset.
• Optional connecting rear stand with independent dimensions and angle.
• Tray, pedalboard and multi-structure “Mega Tray” modes to create infinitely wide trays.
• Automatically generated side cheeks, middle cheeks, beams, trays and connector parts.
• Single-beam, split dovetail and middle-cheek solutions for beams longer than the print bed.
• Custom infill patterns including waves, curves, hexagons, and user-supplied SVG artwork.
• Optional tray debossing, repeating SVG patterns and cable passthrough slots.
• Automatic plate packing, part rotation and multi-plate export.
• Joint-fit test generation for printer calibration and filament use estimates.
• Unique IDs printed in hidden locations in the part to help users locate the source file
• 3D previews of assembled stand (with configurable choice of coffee!)

“There will always be a free version” of the tool, notes Eliraz. “Perhaps paid features will be added in the future, but not in the short term.”

Watch the video, and then let us know what you think of the Synth Stand and Pedal Board Synthesizer in the comments!