Nintendo has done it again with its wireless control for the upcoming Revolution console: it’s a design that’s different, exciting, and, well, potentially confusing at the same time. I’ll steer clear of what this means for gaming, but it does show some clear promise as a glimpse of the future of digital musical instruments: Wireless: […]

Pointing and hand gestures: they’re powerful means of interracting, and make sense for music. The only problem is having to be tied to a desk in a performance, as with a mouse. Nintendo’s upcoming controller shows promise for what interractions could be like in the not-too-distant future (if other tech companies follow their lead). But […]

Software alone is a painful way to VJ, without something to trigger and control clips and effects. Livid’s Tactic hardware had the right idea, with buttons for clips, faders and knobs for layering and effects, and even a built-in LCD — plus a lovely polished-wood case. (No cheap plastic here.) But it also had a […]

“For me, it’s like a music video,” says Holly. “What I do has more to do with go-go dancing than a DJ. I am the video equivalent of a go-go dancer.” My story on NYC VJ Holly Daggers (of Eyewash fame) is now available online from Keyboard Magazine: VJ Holly Daggers: Go-Go Music Videos Go […]

Let’s talk about vintage keys. No, not Minimoogs and Roland Junos. I mean really vintage keys: 17th and 18th Century clavichords. Assuming you don’t work at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, why not turn to our friends at Post Musical Instruments (PMI) for some sample libraries: PMI Clavichords (New from PMI; US$55) PMI Historic Keyboards […]

While on the subject of Post Musical Instruments and Post Pianos, here’s a glimpse of Post’s custom Post Piano, a piano-computer hybrid. Now pretty much anyone can prop a Tablet PC on their keyboard controller and go to town with samples, and Michel Post admits to CDM that “the PostPiano was never a commercial success, […]

Music thing gets the scoop on a particularly interesting eBay find. Remember the giant piano keyboard from the 1988 Tom Hanks movie Big? Now that the movie has been made into a musical, it’s given blokes in the UK an excuse to build their own giant keyboard. Despite the Music thing mention, the eBay auction […]

Software alone is a painful way to VJ, without something to trigger and control clips and effects. Livid’s Tactic hardware had the right idea, with buttons for clips, faders and knobs for layering and effects, and even a built-in LCD — plus a lovely polished-wood case. (No cheap plastic here.) But it also had a […]

If you haven’t yet seen commentary on this at Music Thing or (originally) WWMNA, David Merrill of the MIT Media Lab has a project for controlling guitar effects with his face. (It’s not new, incidentally — dates to 2003, and you can look forward to more of this sort of thing at the annual New […]

It’s the Nintendo synth that never was: a music keyboard accessories for the NES built as part of a 1984 prototype called the Nintendo Advanced Video System (AVS). Best features: a space sound and rhumba button. The one and only model is here in NYC at Rockefeller Center’s Nintendo World Store, which features various one-of-a-kind […]