2D shooter? Interactive sound sculpture? Why choose one when you can have both? Transcend is an open-source, cross-platform (Mac/Windows build or *nix source), 2D shooter game. Thanks to morphing shapes and what the developer calls a “musical power-up system,” as you shoot your way through the levels you’re simultaneously “assembling an abstract visual collage and […]

Okay, which is scarier — the fact that someone obsessively photographed hundreds of cassette tapes, or that you remember almost each individual design variation and are looking through them, feeling waves of nostalgia for mix tapes past? Cassette Jam ’05 (via Make: Blog See also the somewhat befuddling Project C-90 (see sam bot). I can’t […]

Jordan Kolasinski, a grad student in Music Technology at NYU, reports to CDM on the Music Player Live event here in New York over the weekend. Verdict: not so hot, but Jordan did get the scoop on a fantastic piece of software for improvising and creating songs called RiffWorks (shown), currently Windows-only and bundled with […]

It seems I may have misunderstood the comments of at least one of the experts quoted in Wired.com’s recent story on 8-bit music. (See my original comments and ensuing discussion.) Ethnomusicologist Rene T.A. Lysloff, faculty at the University of California Riverside and author of Music and Technoculture, writes in response; here’s his letter in its […]

Reason running luxurious choirs, orchestras, and multisampled drum kits? Absolutely. Sure, you could run sample libraries in any number of software samplers. But Reason is inexpensive, portable (thanks to ReWire), easy on system resources, and friendly to use (especially with Reason 3’s new features). Soundware libraries like the Sonic Refills series have been out for […]

As I continue this Reasonable Friday, here’s a reader report on how to use Propellerhead Reason live in performance. He’s making use of the terrific Windows-only MIDI tool Peter Tools LiveSet — more on that in an upcoming story. And he’s taking his one-man band to an environmental-activist music festival outside Sydney in gorgeous environs […]

Updated: Skratchworx has a great write-up on the Controller One as well as other neat new PLASA gear. See an in-action video there. Worth buying on its own for music? Naw. But an interesting extra on an otherwise great table. Turntables can slice, chop, juggle, scratch, and make all manner of noise. They can work […]

New York, New York: A wonderful town. Declaring random days for music conferences and — wait, huh? Jailing Game Boy musicians? Let’s deal with the weird news first. Remember how there’s a big 8-bit music concert tomorrow (Saturday) here in Manhattan? Our friends Nullsleep and Bit Shifter from the International Chiptune Resistance concert were arrested […]

Tokyo-based DJ Daito Manabe has devised a unique use for a turntable: he hooked it up to a multiple-PowerBook rig so you can scratch 34 tracks of sound or sit back in a vibrating chaise longue. I asked Daito how this works, and responded in an email that reads a bit like a poetic riddle: […]

Wired News has just stumbled onto 8-bit music a la vintage computers and Game Boys. Christopher Null compiles a terrific set of links in there, including Alexei Shulgin, who covers rock standards on a 386DX. (Via the always-excellent LSDJ mailing list, for users of that Game Boy cartridge — though Nanoloop lovers show up, too.) […]