It’s been a while since I looked at widgets for music applications, but here’s a new one, and it might be enough to make me switch back to Dashboard from Konfabulator: BigBlueLounge Dashboard Widget The widget includes a keyboard with built-in sounds (though no MIDI sending, sadly), tap tempo, and three calculators. You can calculate […]

Kevin says it all: Haven’t you always wanted to be a sexy Japanese lead keyboard virtuoso heading her own fusion power trio? Haven’t you always wanted to be Hiromi? I expect some of you would settle for being the bass player. Watch as Hiromi tears away a grand and a Nord synth, simultaneously: For more […]

We’ve been watching Wusikstation for some time; it’s a lovely, gigantic soft synth for Windows that benefits from a devoted community. Version 3 was promised back in February, and now it’s here — or most of it, as there are still new v3 features that won’t appear until a point-one update: Full details from KVR […]

The UK Sony PlayStation site has posted Josh Randall’s keynote at the Cybersonica arts fest in London. Josh Randall, a sometimes CDM reader (still out there, Josh?), is Creative Director of Harmonix, the groundbreaking game shop that created Guitar Hero and other interactive music games like Amplitude, Frequency (pictured), and (soon) Guitar Hero II. Interview […]

I hate ending on sour notes. So, instead, let’s look at some positive opportunities for music distribution. Indie labels and music makers alike on this site I know have no love for Digital Rights Management, but let’s look at some alternatives, from Mozilla-based iTunes alternatives to music on sticks (and reasons to dump iTunes).

Cory Doctorow of Boing Boing responds here to my commentary on platform-agnostic music listening. On a basic level, I’m not saying anything different than what Cory originally did: Windows DRM is broken and frustrates customers, and the MTP connection cripples Windows Media devices by limiting interoperability. (Try plugging a recent MTP device into a Mac […]

My first MP3 player, an original Creative Labs Nomad (one of the first MP3 players), was simple to operate. I took MP3s I’d ripped and dropped them on the device like a drive. So, what’s happened since then? Now music players have grown much more complex, deeply tied to Digital Rights Management. Some new Windows […]

Quartz Composer is a fantastic tool for interactive visuals, and it’s free with Mac OS X (you’ll need to install the developer tools). With MIDI and audio inputs, you can hook custom visuals up to your musical performance. But the program has some limitations: mapping MIDI is generally slow and arduous because of limited MIDI […]

Poor Monome, with just 64 buttons. Back in the 90s, Nicholas Fournel (who just sent us his MIDI tablet software) built a massive plexiglass touch-screen instrument called the Semekrys. Two of them were sensitive to a 1000×1000 grid. (Okay, not quite the same as 64 buttons, but then this is transparent and looks absurdly cool […]

Whether you’re a graphics artist wanting to make music in new ways or just trying to rationalize the purchase of a shiny new Wacom tablet, graphics tablets are worth a look for music control. They’re highly sensitive, intuitive instruments, and they’re fairly cheap (US$100 and up). We’ve talked about doing this before, but new and […]