Ableton has been busy, and it looks like Live users could be very happy indeed when the beta starts, coming soon. (I expected we might see the beta at NAMM, but I’d rather wait if it means a more stable version.) Here are a few of the key features in the new release:

There’s virtually no new gear out of NAMM this year, it seems, but Roland does have one tiny, silver 4-track recorder (well, actually 2 track recorder, 4 track playback, with more “virtual tracks”): BOSS Micro-BR For those of you who like old-school multitracking to sketch out ideas but want to go digital, this could be […]

Processing is a tool we’ll be talking a lot about here on Create Digital Motion: it’s a fantastic, free environment with the ability to render visuals, 3D imagery, video, and (via extensions) multimedia and sound. It’s built entirely in Java, but while it’s a totally code-based environment, it’s designed to be friendly to non-programmers, and […]

Working with visuals means working with color, and if you spend a lot of time coding visuals in tools like Flash/ActionScript and Processing, keeping track of color and different color codes becomes even more vital. One of the first tools Mac users miss on Windows is the color palette. But I’ve become addicted to a […]

So, you decided to spring for that Intel Mac. And now you’ve got a plug-in that refuses to run, because it’s PowerPC-only, not a Universal Binary for Intel. Sorry, but only plug-ins that have been updated as Universal Binaries will run in a Universal audio host. Fortunately, there’s away around it, and it’s even fully […]

As we continue physical modeling month, here’s a free piece of software that lets you create music and sound (and visuals) using real-world physics: pmpd, free external for Pd Johan Strandell writes: It’s not physical modeling in the usual sense; pmpd simulates things like friction, acceleration/deacceleration etc.; i.e., more useful for control of parameters rather […]

Roland Stewart of Trinity Audio Devices writes in to clear up a number of the questions we had about their upcoming portable Linux-based audio recorder. While the device is a bit pricey, with a list expected at US$999, it will certainly do things other devices can’t: it’s a full-blown computer, but without the power consumption […]

The NAMM trade show brings together the biggest gathering of manufacturers of musical instruments and technology twice a year. Summer isn’t quite as big as the massive winter show in Anaheim, but you can still bet on plenty of new product announcements as the show rolls into sweltering Austin, Texas. I’ve decided not to go […]

If you’re wondering how your audio interface is performing on Windows with ASIO drivers, CEntrance has released a free utility that measures latency. Latency is the delay in transit as an audio signal performs a trip through your interface. Looks handy, and you know what this means: time to post some Windows driver/interface benchmarks! Measure […]

Ah, musical parrots. While I continue to obsess over Hatebeak, the heavy metal parrot, here’s a video that claims to show a beatboxing parrot: At first, I thought this might be faked, but it does appear to be the real thing, and having known a few parrots, these birds will do far stranger things vocally. […]