Now that the rest of our studio has gone digital, the approach to producing score for acoustic instruments has changed, too. Here’s a look at some of my favorite toys and tools for keeping music flowing. You’d have to be a true Luddite to argue that word processors are bad for writing. Blogs, perhaps, sometimes […]

Ever suffered garbled audio on Windows and couldn’t figure out why? Driver settings were likely to blame. Audio on the Mac is now essentially plug and play; I don’t remember the last time I even touched an audio driver setting other than to switch from one device to another (switching between devices also works better […]

Talk about digital technology and music, and people are often skeptical: doesn’t technology get in the way of making music? But technology and music have always been interwined, and even for advanced composers, better understanding the technology of how acoustic instruments work is fundamental to realizing musical ideas. Unfortunately, orchestration books, despite their best intentions, […]

Marc Weidenbaum of Disquiet writes to let us know that free audio is available of the Maker Faire panel on creating instruments: Instrument Panel MP3 and Commentary [Disquiet] Archive.org details and MP3 download Other featured speakers: Krys Bobrowski, Tom Koch (aka univac) and Chachi Jones, and they brought some really cool stuff: Bobrowski brought along […]

It’s the moment of truth: we finally get to see how Intel Macs compare to G5 and G4 Macs when running serious audio software. I got my first opportunity to work with James Galbraith and Macworld Labs to put Apple’s Intel-based Macs through their paces running the new Intel-native Logic Pro 7.2. The results were […]

I’m not always jealous of the Pro Tools platform, but here’s a good reason to be: the Massenburg DesignWorks Hi-Res Parametric EQ, version 2.0 of which started shipping this week. George Massenburg needs no introduction: he’s credited as the creator of the parametric EQ, and makes his own superb (hardware, not software) audio gear as […]

Yes, I know, there are many video production houses working on weddings and corporate videos who aren’t likely to hire Howard Shore to compose the score. (Well, except for the odd Lord of the Rings geeks tying the knot.) So, it makes sense that we’d see yet another software product that promises to generate the […]

Here’s CDM’s resident game composer with the perfect opportunity for lovers of remixing and gaming. Why do I have a feeling that you’ll get disqualified if you mash Halo 2’s music with Animal Crossing or, for you long-time Mac/Bungie geeks out there, Marathon? (Maybe an odd quote from Myth . . . “Casualties.”) -PK Tired […]

Apple announced a 17″ MacBook Pro today, as expected. Aside from a bigger screen and a standard 2.16GHz Core Duo processor, the 17″ MacBook Pro offers a dual-layer DVD burner (missing on the 15″ model), three USB 2.0 ports instead of two, a bigger hard drive, and an additional FireWire 800 port as well as […]

Our first report from the Maker Faire is here, from forums regular Vlad Spears. And best of all, he’s got a Monome of his own, now back in his studio. The verdict? A controller filled with buttons may not seem like much, but this one’s all about the details: The Monome is a deceptively simple […]