Ben Dove’s String Thing is a cello-like instrument with four metal bars that can be struck or stroked. Like a fretless instrument, pitch is continuous. Building String Thing: Laser Pointers and Vibrating Rods: What’s great about the String Thing is two-fold: first, it’s an ingenious design, and second, Ben rigorously documents how he did it, […]

Indie ringtones? `Bout time. (What do you mean, this Jessica Simpson ringtone ain’t cool?) Jivjiv let’s anyone with art or music create their own cellphone wallpaper and ringtone store. A la cafepress, you even set your own prices. The stores are free; you just wait and collect your cut. You’ll need an Internet-enabled phone to […]

In celebration of tonight’s monthly Eyewash party here in NYC, CDM brings you a day of VJ coverage. And yes, I’ll be on tonight, so New Yawkas, stop by and say hi. To get things rolling, we’ve got a letter (cue the Official Mailbag Theme Song). Wally writes: I saw that you are going to […]

I’d be remiss on VJ Day if I didn’t point to some great sources of VJ information. Above all, the greatest out there is the terrific Website VJ Central. Think of it a bit like the EM411 of VJing; you’ll find discussion boards, articles, news (both of the product and event variety), calls for VJs, […]

As musicians, these kinds of features sound familiar: “Four effects layers per channel , larger clip bank, integrated MIDI templates, effects triggers, clip sequencer, easy-to-use LFOs, new effects and parameters.” Some kind of new sampler/synth, maybe? Actually, it’s the new features in the upgrade to the VJ app, Livid Union 1.5, for Mac OS X. […]

Not one but two major upgrades hit the Mac VJ market this month. Aside from Livid Union 1.5, there’s Modul8 V2. Some serious power features: there’s audio input triggering as well as standard MIDI learn, a preview panel, special techniques for saving your set without taking a performance hit, and tons of special filters and […]

Thanks to everyone who’s writing in about VJ Day. It’s funny, conventional wisdom is that musicians don’t care about VJing, but here among the hip technorati of CDM, of course, things are different. And with VJing moving out of the “psychedelia” area into a range of aesthetics and styles, I expect you’ll hear more soon. […]

Cris from plasq writes us with a link to a fascinating interview featuring Clint Bajakian, Senior Music Supervisor for Sony Computer Entertainment of America. Winner of 2003 Game Audio Network Guild awards for Best Interactive Score and Music of the Year , Clint has been doing audio in the game industry for over 13 years. […]

Chris of Pixelsumo alerts us to the Beatbox “physical programmable drum machine” at the RCA show in the UK. (see additional commentary at MusicThing) So, is this the future of drum machines? Of course not. An Akai-style sampler has a physical interface, too, and it’s more usable than these. But after a slow start, watch […]

Remember the golden age of HyperCard, when we dreamed of software as something users would create themselves, interactively? The folks at Sibelius, the notation software company, have come up with an Xtra for Macromedia Director MX/2004 that lets you add a full-featured custom sequencer / score editor to your Director apps. You can record from […]