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.

How does this sound? 8 channel strips, 8 mic preamps (so you can record your whole band with individual drum mics, for instance), motorized faders and buttons, and compatibility with all major Mac and Windows audio tools from Ableton Live to Pro Tools, all for about US$1000 street. Sounds like a great deal, right? That’s […]

It’s a little hard to tell what the DIY synth diagrams over at Music From Outer Space actually produce, since they’ve opted for words like “Wacky Frequency” and “Oddness Cutoff Frequency.” But behind the zaniness is what looks like a very simple synth spec, and a good starter project for those wanting to get busy […]

We get a little ahead of the curve here, with drool-laden coverage of gear that doesn’t actually exist yet. Here’s what’s now shipping: Creamware is back with the second of their mini-hardware synths emulated retro classics. This time, it’s I love the 80s: a Prophet 5 emulation they’re calling the Pro-12; see press release on […]

If you liked the idea of designing your own Mawzer controller online, you’ll love this, too: Algorithmic Arts has free Windows programs for designing your own modular synth layouts. (Via a Music thing link roundup.) Sadly, I’ll have to settle for firing up Reaktor for the soft synth version of this, thus avoiding permanent damage […]

What should keyboards look like in the age of computers? At the high end, we’ve seen futuristic, PC-powered beasts like the Windows-compatible NeKo and Linux-powered Korg OASYS. At the low end, we’ve seen keyboards like the Novation ReMote SL, specially designed to control soft synths. Yamaha and Korg gave their own answers for the mid-range […]