Tablet or phone or touch-enabled desktop computer – now it doesn’t matter. A free tool called (for the moment) Nexus lets you make any browser a canvas for music. iOS, Android, Windows, Mac – if the browser is there, your creations become omni-platform. Shown at the NIME (New Interfaces for Musical Expression) conference in London […]

It’s called Max for Cats. But you don’t play it with a laser pointer and your feline friend. (Note to self: project idea.) The latest from sonic mastermind Christian Kleine, Ensemble and DiGiTAL are in fact terrifically-rich string and digital synthesizers, respectively, for Ableton Live and Max for Live. Getting to know their creator is […]

This shouldn’t work. A video full of lasers, mountain ranges inexplicably floating through space, and endless shots of cats should seem a cloying, annoying play for eyeballs. And yet … Can’t … take my eyes … away … somehow. (And I’m a dog person, darnit.) Thank Immo König. The solo director / motion graphics house […]

“Bastl” is Czech slang that’s roughly equivalent to the maker culture or DIY. And now, from the makers of the glitchy, odd, and wonderful world of Standuino, comes a new granular sampler, a follow-up to a terrific earlier kit. The Bastl crew are showing off the microGranny 2.0 among lots of other new gear here […]

Music is transformed by context, by instrumentation and space and setting. With amplified music, thinking about content alone isn’t enough. Visualists now work with projection mapping and lighting constructions and lasers and the like. It seems electronic musicians as a scene may benefit from thinking more about speakers. We saw recently 4DSOUND, an immersive architectural […]

This habit of wanting to separate tools from “music” is surely a curious one. Instrument construction has always gone hand in hand with musicianship, a conversation between player and builder. It has defined the possibilities of performance. And now, tools embed in them structural ideas, compositional ideas, the imagination of what a work is about. […]

Robotkid, aka Josh Randall, is the veteran former Creative Director at Harmonix who regularly infused VJ and real-time visual aesthetics into the company’s games (Beatles Rock Band, VibRibbon, etc.). Now, he’s gone to LA, where his passion for the most fantastically colorful trips of the past is feeding new visual fancies. And they’re too good […]

Utter brilliance to wind up our week: Berlin techno legend Ben Klock gets the infamous audio-redub “shreds” treatment on YouTube, normally reserved for rock bands. It helps if you’ve watched the live streams of Boiler Room, the multi-city Internet-broadcast, invite-only dance party that turns the cameras on DJs and audience alike. But even if you […]

Beamz by Flo 2 Minute Commercial from Static Free Films.com on Vimeo. Update: See the video on the official Beamz by Flo Rida site, as apparently the creators don’t believe the old adage “no press is bad press.” (The Internet: Making Fun of Beamz Videos since 2008. See the earlier video below.) I am regularly […]

A color grid you can carry in one hand, with physical controls and full RGB – and the option of wireless and batteries, so you can walk around while adjusting lights or projection? Oh, and it’s modifiable, available fully made or as a kit, and completely open source hardware? Yeah, that sounds about perfect. On […]