CDM has received several anonymous reports about the Music Player feature of Microsoft’s upcoming Xbox 360. In short, Microsoft’s new custom music feature is so aggressive, you can elect never to hear the music written for your game. Xbox Player is On All the Time The Music Player plays “gamer-initiated music,” streaming from a device […]

Sorry for the light news day, but I’ll be back next week with lots more coverage, shifting from game systems to how to use game hardware in your own music, more on interactive musical clothing, and other goodies! In the meantime, here’s my next project: -PK How does a musician go from classical pianist to […]

Microsoft is touting its upcoming game console, the Xbox 360, as a game console with media-sync extras. Microsoft won’t let the Xbox compete with Media Center PC platform; there’s no TV tuner, for instance, so apparently you’re supposed to spend another couple of grand on a Media Center PC. But the new game system will […]

Chris O’Shea points us to Ben Hanbury’s project Recycle TV, which combines an old TV set (well, actually, he substituted a picture of one for ease), a Max/MSP patch, and Eric Singer’s real world-to-MIDI interface, the MidiTron. Via copyrighted and open source clips, you can mix together musical phrases constructed from miliseconds-long clips. The beats […]

Last year’s Moogfest was one of the hottest tickets of the year for lovers of analog synths. It’s back. Honoring Bob Moog and his amazing instruments, Moogfest is a massive musical mash featuring top keyboardists and synthesists led by musical director Jason Miles, the keyboardist – composer – producer who’s work can be heard on […]

One of the hottest pieces of hardware gear covered at CDM (at least according to our hit counts on CDM’s original report) is now shipping. M-Audio’s Trigger Finger, a USB/MIDI control surface with 16 pressure-sensitive drum pads, 4 faders, and 8 knobs, is in stock at major outlets. I’ve tried it, and it feels great. […]

In college, I had access to a studio (where I later taught for a year), with a crazy collection of vintage instruments: ARP, ElectroComp, Moog Modular, Buchla 100 Series, Minimoog, and Memory Moog. You could even cross-patch between Buchla and Moog. Did it help with music making? Er . . . sure. At least it […]

Graphics, schmaphics. The future of gaming not only looks better — it sounds a lot better, too. Talk to any game composer or sound designer, and you’ll hear a lot of excitement about the amount of creativity they can exert with games. So how does the next generation compare? Amidst all the PS3 vs. Xbox […]

Games Week continues with the introduction of a new regular column by sound designer and game composer W. Brent Latta. First up, Brent introduces game music as an art form and ideas about how to listen to it. It’s fitting that Brent would launch his first column with a tribute to why the NES is […]

Last month, we looked at M-Audio’s new hardware control surface for Apple GarageBand, iControl. (see iControl analysis and information on supported applications) So, where is it? Shipping “real soon now,” apparently; several merchants are showing it on back-order, shipping in 7-14 days, or simply unavailable. Music123 is taking iControl pre-orders for shipment estimated on June […]