Going to The Yale School of Music? Here’s some good news: the Associated Press reports that, thanks to an anonymous $100 million donation, advanced music studies will be tuition-free. (via) The 200-student school was already an elite institution; now you can expect it to be more so. Yale isn’t the only institution to have free […]

While we’re on the subject of free, here’s a massive collection of free VST plugins for Mac and Windows: Rocketloop It’s really great to see everything in one place; makes it much easier to navigate to what you need. Unlike some other sites, Rocketloop is perfect for window browsing. You’ll stumble across imaginative synths like […]

Kevin of The Nettles has this quandary about music-synchronized Christmas lights: There’s this Xmas lights video (make sure that you have your sound on): Wizards of Winter [new, better link] Lots of other video links to crazy Christmas light displays [Ed: Updated those links; thanks Afro! -PK] Do you happen to know the origins of […]

If I ran a giant blogging empire like Weblogsinc or Gawker, I’d have to pimp my other sites right now, like “Here’s the hottest news from the Facial Tissues Blog” or something. I’m glad I don’t have such an empire, because instead we can waste productivity looking at this great stuff: Tiny Tot Synth Lovers: […]

GarageSpin has been covering the Digital Entertainment & Media Excellence Awards in the music category. Awards for digital innovation? Great idea! The only problem: the winners make no sense. Motorola’s iRadio wins the radio category, for instance, even though it’s basically marketing at this point — there’s no shipping product. It still managed to beat […]

Online exclusive: Kicking off this week’s guide to holiday gifts, Theresa Orlando joins us from Female Musician.com. Theresa’s site and studio help young female musicians like vocalist Ashley Jewdy (shown) hone their craft and digital studio skills. Theresa brings us some of her favorite picks for musicians, including a book/video on breathing technique for singers, […]

Readers sent in so many ideas for gifts that I’m still digging through them; watch today/tomorrow. But here’s the latest from some of CDM’s favorite sites. And if your favorite gifts didn’t make the cut, there’s still time to email me / hit comments. Music thing Gift Guide (pictured): Just in case your wallet escaped […]

Matrix from the Matrixsynth blog tells us his site (and other Blogger.com sites like Music thing) are down, kaput, inaccessible. I’m having the same issue with their sites. Matrix asked me to pass this along to the rest of you, so here you are.

Audacity is a completely free / open source waveform audio editor for Mac, Windows, and Linux, with robust stereo recording and editing, effects support, and basic multichannel features. It’s a great little program getting more and more exposure; M-Audio has even added it to their podcast bundle. But it has a few rough edges, and […]

Reader Julian Sitkevich sends in some photos from the last NAMM. He proves just how dreamy the Buchla 200e can look in the dark; okay, I’m not any more tempted to shell out $20,000, but nonetheless. After the jump: the key to making soft synths look sexy is to add an Apple Cinema Display.