Best Widgets for Music: Roundup in Review

Overwhelmed as I am by the absurd number of widgets for Macs and Windows that whizzed through the site over the past days? Me, too. Here’s a look back to keep it all straight: Part I: For Konfabulator — onetonnemusic roundup, drum pad/pattern machine; For Dashboard: Guitar Chords, Oblique Strategies, Symphonic for iTunes Part II: […]

The Res: Multiplayer Mac Music with 6 NES Controllers [Updated]

Getting people uninhibited enough to sit down and play with game controllers: easy. (Well, among geeks, anyway) Getting them to play music together: hard. So, the solution by Benjamin Gaulon, aka Recyclism: hook some NES controllers into a Mac running Max/MSP and let them play that way. Hit the project section to find videos of […]

Keyboard Lite: Novation ReMOTE LE + Bass Plugin

Novation’s hardware feels fantastic, and it’s finally shipping in quantity. Harmony Central reports Novation is packing some of the best things about the company’s high-end keyboards into a lighter, smaller, cheaper LE 25-key keyboard to be shown at AES here in NYC, and shipping next month. The design looks great, totally clean, with everything I […]

Jitter 1.5 + Max/MSP 4.5.5: Major New Features Analyzed (Win/Mac)

We’ve been waiting for this for some time, and it’s finally here — a huge upgrade to Jitter, the data processing, realtime 3D/2D/video graphics powerhouse. Along the way, though, is a nifty upgrade for Max die-hards with lots of cool stuff hiding behind a 4.5.5 version upgrade. I can’t wait to get my hands on […]

Apple’s New Mouse: Good for Music?

So it turns out Apple can deal with a two-button mouse — so long as those buttons aren’t invisible. Meet Apple’s Mighty Mouse, peculiarly named after a cartoon. (Note to Apple: why not Danger Mouse? He’s the quickest! He’s the best! Etc.) So why is this mouse useful to musicians? Because Apple may finally have […]

Finale Notation Software: Update for Mac Fixes Preference-destroying Bug

Last week, we saw that Finale 2006 can hose certain files stored in the Application Support folder of your library — that’s not just your Finale preferences, but even things like your Apple Address Book. I’ve just gotten a link to an online updater; run this prior to the Finale 2006 upgrade, and you’re saved. […]

Pro Digital Recorders with SMPTE Sync for Video Production

Portable digital recording is great — import is as simple as dragging files to your hard drive, they’re mobile, they’re non-linear, and they write to increasingly cheap storage formats like CompactFlash. But what about synchronization for video applications? I have found one portable field recorder that’s CompactFlash-based, records up to 192kHz, and optionally can be […]

Korg Kaptivator VJ Video Sampler Unveiled; Hands-on Impressions

Korg has formally unveiled the Korg Kaptivator, as seen here on CDM

Useful Widgets Pt. III: Konfabulator (Mac/Win) Strikes Back

So, your appetite for musically-useful widgets to run on Dashboard (OS X Tiger only) and Konfabulator (Mac/Windows) still isn’t satisfied? Fear not: Adrian Anders writes in with four more, all for Konfabulator — so Windows users aren’t left out of the fun. (All these widgets are cross-platform.) Guitar Tuner: Nice graphics and both standard and […]

Useful Widgets Pt. IV: More Mac Widgets for Musicians

The musical widget madness continues. powermac99 from iCompositions points out his Dashboard Widgets site. Like Apple’s, it’s beautifully organized and easy to navigate — too bad Konfabulator’s site is overwhelming. (Maybe that’ll change with Yahoo.) I’ve been hunting around that site finding still more widgets: CountBPM is my favorite BPM counter yet: click or keyboard […]