Japan Banning, or Not Banning, Vintage Tech; Protesting with Famicoms

Matrixsynth and Music thing have continued their coverage of Japan’s hated new PSE law, set to go in effect April 1, which would ban sales and purchase of used equipment that fails strict electrical certification — read, all that vintage game and music gear you love so much. Trying to follow this story is more […]

Manage your Mac and PC Plug-ins: PlugAdmin

Plug-ins are great, and they’re a nightmare. They’re great because you have access to literally tens of thousands of virtual sound making and processing devices, from costly works of art to bizarre free toys. They’re a nightmare because the plug-ins in the latter category — the odd free plug-in you just downloaded — can crash […]

Mobile Music: Tracker for Nintendo DS, DS Homebrew Music Roundup

Music creation in your pocket — and a little Metroid Hunters to boot? Believe it. The Nintendo DS is taking off as a platform for homebrewed music creation. First glimpsed via comments here, Tobw has launched his NitroTracker for Nintendo DS. Based on tracker-style sequencers of old, NitroTrack is a sophisticated mobile composition tool, with […]

Why I (Still) Love Soundtrack Pro for Sound Design; Soundtrack for Intel

Soundtrack Pro 1.03 finally feels about perfect. The software itself aside, here’s why it matters to me — and why its transition to Intel will be different from its pro brethren. Standalone audio editors can save tremendous amounts of time, preparing samples for instruments, batch processing recordings, fixing problematic audio, and generally letting you focus […]

Music Software Memory Lane: Vintage IIGS Apps (And 80s-Chic Covers)

From the commentary on historical music software interfaces prompted by the colored bars of the Music Animation Machine, you won’t want to miss this: The Apple IIGS Anachronistic Application Ring: Creative Aural Applications

Rack Rig: Pro Flight Case for G5 Tower, Good Enough for Sting

Sticking your desktop machine into a flight case doesn’t require a PC. You knew some high-end Mac audio customers would come up with something. Mike Salera writes us from the pro audio department at the legendary NYC Mac shop Tekserve. He’s got just the solution: We recommend the folks at Nashville Custom Cases, who offer […]

Cakewalk DAW Labs Tests High-End PCs (Racked, Laptop, and Otherwise)

Bless Cakewalk. While most of the music software business lags behind on the latest computer tech, these guys are out on the bleeding edge. They’re one of the first developers in any product category (not just music) to take advantage of the 64-bit edition of Windows. And they’ve been busily testing all the high-end PC […]

Moog Solar: Move Along, Nothing to See Here

Moog fever is now officially out of control. As anxious Moog fans wait for the announcement of — some new synth — March 29, they’ll take any tiny crumb suggesting details of the new instrument. Even when it’s wrong. Case in point: the Moog Solar, which sites like Gearjunkies have been declaring “the new Moog”. […]

Rack Rig: Rackable Cases for PCs + LCD = Dream Music Rig?

Wallace Winfrey follows up on last week’s story on rackable PCs for music with more tips for building your own PC case. Add a 64-bit AMD CPU and a PCIe audio interface, and you’ve got a serious performance beast for audio production. The case/power supply maker Antec has a couple of rack-mount enclosures targeted at […]

The Beatbox-Input Sampler/Remixer: sCrAmBlEd?HaCkZ! (Could You Build It?)

Blog haze: it’s the dimmed state of consciousness that comes from reading too many blog entries about such and such a remix creative commons resampled installation art piece about intellectual prop . . . there, see I’ve already fallen asleep. But wait, this is really, truly, incredibly cool. If you don’t believe me, just watch […]