The Crystal Method Composes Score for … Your Morning Jog?

Technology is creating some unusual new opportunities for composers. Aside from producing music for video games, we can now get inside your head while you’re working out. (Well, okay, we could do that before via, erm, Walkmans and such, but now it’s more interactive.) Electronic duo The Crystal Method has produced a continuous album called […]

Mactel Watch: Peak, Rapture, Melodyne, Digi Tools All Intel-Native; MacBook Pro Music Impressions

Early 2006 brought us the blockbuster Intel Mac ports — Logic, Live, Reason, and (most recently) Pro Tools LE — but now, finally, plug-ins are flooding in with Universal Intel versions. Just in over the last week: BIAS Peak 5.2 brings Intel-native support to the old standby Mac audio editor. With Soundtrack Pro now available […]

Videoblog of the day: Ticklebooth

Ticklebooth is a charming collection of personal vidcast and miscellaneous video links – both amazing and terrible – from around the web. Choice cuts include, Otafuku Rex – Do Me, Zioni – Soo Tall, classic Michel Gondry, Ratatouille (new Pixar trailer) and Monalisa Descending a Staircase:

New Prototype Controllers for Ableton Live; Brushed Aluminum with Knobs, Joystick

Looking quite handsomely like 70s stereophile equipment, a couple of prototype Ableton controllers have shown up on the website of Kenton, the UK MIDI manufacturer: Kenton Electronics MIDI Controllers; AB mini (shown left) and AB DJ (right) Via Gearjunkies, who I swear are wired directly into some sort of psychic network that tells them when […]

What's New and Cool in Jitter 1.6: OpenGL 3D and Video Goodies, More

As reported on CDMusic, Max/MSP/Jitter is in beta on Mac for version 4.6 (Max) and 1.6 (Jitter). Intel Mac native support is just half the story; Mac and Windows users alike have a whole bunch of goodies to enjoy in Jitter:

What’s New and Cool in Jitter 1.6: OpenGL 3D and Video Goodies, More

As reported on CDMusic, Max/MSP/Jitter is in beta on Mac for version 4.6 (Max) and 1.6 (Jitter). Intel Mac native support is just half the story; Mac and Windows users alike have a whole bunch of goodies to enjoy in Jitter:

Finale 2007 Announced: Intel-Native, Parts Linking, Video Scoring, Sibelius Leapfrog Continues

Rivalries are good: they keep software developers competitive, leapfrogging each other in features. They keep the pressure on, and having seen what happens when one company gets a monopoly (Microsoft Office, I’m looking at you), progress generally slows. Notation users have benefited from the Finale/Sibelius rivalry, and that competition continues to produce better and better […]

Build a Gigging Small Form Factor PC for Music: How-to and Why

If I can do it, you can do it. Over on the just-launched Create Digital Motion, I describe assembling a custom PC from a barebones Shuttle case, with photos of each step. To keep that from getting boring, I dropped it all into the fantastic plasq app Comic Life to make it into a how-to […]

Modified Musical Commodore 64s Live Happily Alongside Classic Roland Gear, Modern Computers

Thanks to the release of the Prophet 64 music production cartridge for Commodore 64, a lot of C64 music makers have been hanging out on the Prophet 64 Yahoo Group. There are some really talented hackers and case modifiers building beautiful custom computers out of vintage Commodore machines. Last week, we got to see Traktor […]