Review: DJ Shortee How-To DJ DVDs

DJ Eldorado is back with a guest review of instructional DVDs that aim to teach you how to DJ — and to his surprise, given the challenge of teaching DJing, he’s got only good things to say. Drop the iPods and learn real vinyl and computer programs like Final Scratch: can these show you the […]

Soft Synth Road Watch: Vince Jones Plays Logic Onstage

Who said computer performance has to be a dude sitting behind a screen tweaking arcane software setups? As we saw Friday, you can hide your computer in a rig and play guitars and keyboards. David Levy reports for Apple.com that keyboardist Vince Jones totes a PowerBook onstage for playing keyboard soft synths, courtesy the sampler […]

Hypersense Complex: Gestural Gloves for Music

Flex sensors are fab: these cheap strips send varying voltages when you bend them, seen in use in projects like Eric Singer’s sonic banana (basically, a bendable tube for triggering sounds). The trick is turning that flex data into something useful. Hypersense Complex is a three-person collaborative working on new musical interfaces, and they’ve been […]

Challenge: Rack-Mounted, MIDI-Capable Nintendo NES

While we’re busy rack-mounting Mac Minis, how about a vintage Nintendo Entertainment System (NES)? If you analyze these photos closely enough (via Make), you should be able to do what this fellow did and cram your eBayed NES into a 1U rack mount. (It ought to go really nice next to your rack-mounted synths or […]

DIY Multi-Touch Interfaces and Other Futuristic Tricks

Via Pixelsumo comes a fantastic lineup of links to futuristic interfaces for music, etc. If you were impressed by Cycling 74’s new Lemur touchscreen, with the power to let you touch multiple points on a pad simultaneously for controlling music/sound/etc., Jeff Han has built his own. His Frustrated Total Internal Reflection project may sound like […]

DitNB 3: Indie Music Roundup — Loving Albums, Disco, Freebasing, Podcasts

CDM’s resident expert in indie music Atariboy is back with still more selections from the world of indie music. Get those headphones ready. -PK Here we are again. The third installment of dithered is the new black, albeit, 3 weeks late 😛 I like albums. I like the end to end experience instead of just […]

Wanted: Ether Music 2005 Theremin Festival Reports

Any of you lucky enough to be in North Carolina this weekend for the huge Ether Music Festival, entirely devoted to Theremin music, please drop me a line. (See previous report.) I’d love to post photos and show reports here, even casual show impressions. Music Thing has a quick initial report from Jason from Theremin […]

Hands-on with Native Instruments Guitar Rig (w/ Sound Samples)

CDM welcomes guest reviewer Pierce Case, who shares his experiences with Native Instruments hardware/software combo for Mac and PC, Guitar Rig. In a first for CDM, we’ve also got sound samples for you to hear. So will Guitar Rig make you replace amps and pedals with software? See what Pierce thinks. (And unlike me, he […]

Rack-Mounted Mac Mini Keyboard/Guitar Rig with LCD (Part I)

Christopher Scheidel has created an impressive Mac Mini-based rig for playing keyboards and guitars. He’s documented the whole process at his site Heavylift. There’s a lot to be learned there about how to do it yourself (including taking advantage of cheap LCDs for display), but here are the basic specs: Hardware: Apple Mac Mini 1.2G […]

Mr. Magoo’s Foot Controller: Giant-Numbered MIDI for Your Feet

Stumbling around for the right foot pedal? Prostage hears you with their giant new foot pedals. (via Synthtopia) Looks like fine kit: all-metal, no plastic, delay-tap, LCD on some models (various alternatives) and GIANT LETTERS AND NUMBERS for the vision impaired. Their continuous controller pedal looks especially nice for sending volume to organs or other […]