Gaming + Music: Guitar Hero

Our friend Josh Randall at game developer Harmonix sends along his latest: Guitar Hero Guitar Game for PS2 The game comes with a guitar PS2 controller. We’re not allowed to see photos yet, but it’ll look like a guitar with “fret” and “strum” controls. Music includes Red Hot Chili Peppers, David Bowie, Boston, The Donnas, […]

Info Wanted: Webcor Music Machine (Karaoke FM Radio Synth?!)

Okay, synth sleuths. Here’s a puzzler for you from composer/producer Fer Isella. He’s got a mysterious instrument called the Webcor Music Machine he retrieved from a backyard sale, but can’t find out anything about it: It’s really amazing sounding. It’s called “The Music Machine” by Webcor. It’s got organ section, rhythm section, tape player and […]

Gaming + Music: More on Xbox 360's Groundbreaking Visualizer

Legendary game developer Jeff Minter, the Llamasoft founder behind vintage classics like Tempest 2k, has had musical visualizers on the brain for some time. Now, he wants to take “retina-searing” visuals with music to the next left with Microsoft’s new Xbox 360 console. His latest light synth, Neon, will even be bundled with the machine. […]

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 […]