I love free synths for two reasons. First, they’re free. Second, they’re often perfect for some simple, fun inspiration without knob overload. KeyToSound’s new REMEDY soft synth sounds great, and has just enough control to be a fun instrument to drop into your session. Highlights: Two oscillators, with mix, Pulse Width Modulation, FM Modulation 5-voice […]

It’s like mastering engineer: the game. Craig Harris has a great review for IGN of the new GBA Bit Generations series in Japan. Soundvoyager has you don headphones and play using your ears: There are various different game styles in Soundvoyager, but they ultimately boil down to “find the center channel.” In one mode, you’re […]

Ever since I first spotted the Edirol R-09 SD-based flash recorder at the NAMM show, it’s been an absurdly hot item. There are some 50 comments going on that item, largely from people wanting to know how it is. Only problem: I don’t have one. While I talk to Edirol about that, here’s an early […]

Let’s talk truly retro instruments for a moment: a violin owned and played by Beethoven himself is featured in a new recording by violinist Daniel Sepec. (The pianoforte is vintage, too; an 1824 model played by Andreas Staier.) Beethoven’s violin used for first time in recording [CBC Arts, Canada] Beethoven, Sonaten für Klavier und Violine […]

My colleague David Holloway has a nice piece for Keyboard Magazine on the Fairlight CMI, the ground-breaking keyboard / digital sampler. (The Fairlight is roughly tied with the Synclavier for first digital sampler, depending on how you count.) Fairlight’s Peter Vogel [Keyboardmag.com] Creator Peter Vogel talks about the (now-obvious) revelation that it might be easier […]

Soundflower, the excellent free utility from Cycling ’74 for routing inter-application audio on Mac OS X, is now Universal for Intel Macs. Cycling has also put up new suggestions for how to make it useful: Access your iTunes library via your cell phone, thanks to DittyBot. (Since this is Create Digital Music, just load up […]

For those of you anxiously awaiting new software to ship, here’s the latest on our radar: Digidesign has announced Pro Tools HD 7.2 is shipping immediately, bringing new video support (QuickTime features and AVID integration), a new signal analysis/metering plug-in, and features for multi-channel field recorders. That’s all well and good, of course, but what […]

You’ve seen the Disney version of going inside the computer and seeing what happens, via Tron. Adam Marks has created an interactive art piece that visualizes the functions of actual computer software; in the samples below, code operating in Firefox. calltrace At the center of the work is Valgrind, a Linux-based debugger and profiler. Call […]

MOTU has released a Universal Binary of their flagship DAW, Digital Performer 5.1: DP 5.1 Universal Binary (Intel Mac) Update Now Shipping [Free update, via MOTU.com] Thanks to John Molloy for the tip! Previously: Digital Performer 5 First Look: Instruments, Productivity Boosts, Scoring Features Now we just need Max/MSP, Reaktor and lots of other Native […]

iZotope has updated their awesome vinyl simulation plug-in with support for Intel Macs, Windows x64, and Pro Tools 7 (though it will still support Pro Tools 6.1 and later). If you haven’t yet got this on your system, now’s the time: using 64-bit processing (hey, it requires a lot of bits to simulate those old […]