Cybersonica Video: Fabulous Sound Art Lets You "Play" with Music

Cybersonica turns a gallery space into an interactive playground, filled with sound art installations that mine the power of fun in art. Curator Chris O’Shea sends this professionally-produced documentation video from the hip Phonica record store in London: Cybersonica & Encompass Sonic Art Exhibition [YouTube] Among the delights inside: suspended disco satellites controlled by Korg […]

Moog Space Jam II: Jordan Rudess + Richard Lainhart, Free and Live on the Radio and Web

Two master electronic performers, Jordan Rudess (also of Dream Theater) and CDM regular Richard Lainhart, are teaming up for an evening of music, performance, and discussion, broadcast live worldwide (and over Ye Olde Radio, if you happen to be in the Hudson Valley of New York). These are two really unbelievable musicians, composers, producers, and […]

Fanciful Dream Synthesizer, Imagined in Animation

Tired of looking at knobs with labels like “oscillator” and “filter”? Wish you could build an “ultimate instrument” that did what you want? Normally, we’d give you practical ideas like building it in Max/MSP or Reaktor or Pd, but you could also just go and make an imaginary instrument in an animated video: The Ultimate […]

Ableton Live + Logic 7.2.1 + ReWire + Intel Mac Hands-On: It Works, It Rocks, More Ableton Forum Speed Tests

As reported here last week, Apple’s 7.2.1 update to Logic Pro and Express adds ReWire support to Intel Macs. Logic 7.2 also revamped the way ReWire works on all machines, so it’ll benefit all Logic users, not just Intel Mac owners. But the addition of ReWire means you can now fire up a Core Solo […]

Free, Geotagged Sound Samples from Around the World

While on the topic of locating yourself using sound, I’d be remiss if I didn’t point to Freesound, the fantastic community sound library (currently pushing some 17,000+ Creative Commons-licensed samples). If you’re not yet familar with Freesound, you can broadcast your recordings to the planet, free for use in music worldwide, and pull recordings without […]

TranzPort Wireless Music Remotes, in the Wild, with Turntables and Theremins

Any other industry, and a manufacturer Website with nothing but user stories about a product would be just another marketing ploy. But this is the music and audio tech industry, and, frankly, we love our tech toys and use them in interesting ways. It’s little surprise, then, that the Wires Suck! Website, dedicated to Frontier’s […]

Mapping and Location with Sound

Follow your ears! Yes, there was a time when aural senses were vital to location and geography. In the spirit of resurrecting that spirit, Spencer Kiser’s projects look at new ways of mapping using sound. Full details on his thesis page, but in brief: Sound maps: Field recordings in Forest Hills, Queens (outside Manhattan) are […]

More Mactel Music Software Coming; Intel-Native Copy Protection Clears the Way

PACE Anti-Piracy announced today that InterLok 5.4 for Mac will support both Intel-native and Universal binaries. What did I just say? Let’s translate that to English: if you’ve been waiting for music software to go Intel-native on Mac, one major hurdle was just cleared. PACE provides the copy protection in a broad range of Mac […]

Music Tech, Sans Mice: Cybersonica 06 Presents Fanciful Sonic Art

Cybersonica is underway in London, bringing with it wild, new sound art. Organizer Chris O’Shea puts it this way: The works selected . . . move beyond the ‘screen, keyboard, mouse scenario’ and respond to physical input, proximity, sound, kinetics, elapsed time and the surrounding environment. Check out the preview videos, photos, and descriptions at […]

Flickr Fun: Historical RCA Synth, Explained

Speaking of 20th Century spirits, Matrixsynth sends us a photoset of rare images from the demonstration album put out by RCA for their Mark II synthesizer. We’ve looked at the Mark II on this site before; it’s a little like the Model T of electronic synthesis: RCA Mark II Demonstration Record What I especially love […]