Okay, New Yorkers — let’s get together on this one. Giant synth summits have happened on the West Coast (see CDM report with extensive links), but now DUMBO, Brooklyn can be the host to vintage synth madness: “Bring your ARP 2600s, PAIA 4700s, Moog Modulars, Buchlas, Roland System 100s, Korg MS20s, Octave Kittens, Yamaha CS20s […]

Tangles of cords piling up in your studio? Grab a canvas and a paintbrush: you’ve got a still life in the making. Or so thinks Eric LoPresti, whose work you can see at a show in DUMBO (NYC), in collaboration with a composer and other electronic musicians. Eric’s cord paintings will provide the backdrop to […]

A USB-powered ukulele: strange, you say? Believe it, thanks to the technology from the Brian Moore iGuitar. The iUke ukulele built by Brian Moore for Mac maven Andy Ihnatko is making its rounds on the Web (Boing Boing), but here are some details, just to clarify: It’s audio-only. USB on this device only carries audio […]

Thanks to readers asger, Fer, and Joel/Warpedeye, who send us the latest experimentation in musical instrument controllers. They don’t quite look like the Next Big Thing — but sometimes oddities are just as interesting. First up is The (Untitled) Box which “should theoretically eliminate the keyboard and mouse dance party” for running audio and video. […]

Soft synth overload: it’s a debilitating syndrome where people wander around, unable to recognize loved ones, glazed eyes, muttering incoherently “VST . . . Native Kontraktimpakgutoek. . . polyphony . . . sampledgigabee…..” etc. So, let’s cut to the chase: big sample-playback synth, user skinnable and customizable, and (B3 organ aside) lots of great 80s-digital […]

We welcome back Cris atariboy Pearson, the Melbourne-based musician and plasq developer/artist, for another installment of Dithered is The New Black. He’ll be checking in weekly with great independent music, much of it free, for taking your playlists to new places: Hey all. Welcome back to the second edition for this new column. Thanks for […]

Online music not only offers new opportunities for spreading new independent music, but new music activism as well. I’m really excited to have the chance to pass along this email; some of my favorite Afrobeat artists involved here. Politics aside, it’s music I personally enjoy more than a lot of the Live8 stuff. And getting […]

Now off on my whirlwind travels, including a day in Boston at Macworld Expo. For a glimpse of bloggers complaining about how boring the show is, see TUAW. But say hi if you’re at my session! More on the iUke and other things if I can post . . . then boatloads of content stacked […]

Composer Gary Schyman has a rich, tongue-in-cheek score for the Xbox/PS2 game Destroy All Monsters; his homage to classic scores like The Day The Earth Stood Still earns him an interview on NPR: Schyman on Weekend Edition Plenty of tracks to download; via Theremin World, where you can find reviews, more links, and more sounds […]

Who doesn’t have a kink for vinyl? If you’re plugging in a turntable, you’re going to want to amplify it properly. Unless you want a $500 tube amp, something like the US$60 ART DJ Pre II should fit the bill. Aside from the new name (its predecessor was called the “Phono MicroPRE” but I guess […]