Electronic Music History: Birth of the Drum Machine

Tom Whitwell at MusicThing points to an incredible eBay find — an original Wurlitzer Sideman, the first commercially-available drum machine, just as I’m editing an electronic music history chapter that mentions it. Ironically, the most important contribution in the history of the Sideman was probably ANNOYING future Korg co-founder Tadashi Osanai. To tell the story […]

GURU: Perfect Software Drum Machine?

Based on the spec list for GURU, due at the end of May, it sounds like the folks at FXpansion may have heard our drum machine wish list: Integrated, advanced step sequencer Automatically (or manually) slice and map audio to extract kick, snare, hat, etc. out of audio Full audio (WAV/AIFF/REX) and MIDI loop import […]

Cube 2 Morphing Synth

Virsyn’s Cube synth was already a far-out morphing additive synth instrument. (It’s called a “Cube” because you can morph between four different sounds using envelopes or live MIDI control.) With Cube 2, you can now directly access and draw filters on the spectrum, a la MetaSynth. Powerful new resynthesis techniques improve the sound quality and […]

Waiting for Logic 7.1, Tiger

Jeremy writes us to tell us Logic 7.1 may be delayed until as late as May 20; original estimates from the Apple Store had it shipping today (April 29). Take this with a grain of salt, though: Apple Store shipping reports have been known to be a little erratic from time to time. Here at […]

Pizza Synth for Windows (No, literally — pizza!)

Silliest. Interface. Ever. Well, sure, we’ve seen instrument interfaces with difficult-to-discern controls and labels — my favorite labeling being on the Buchla synth’s

Quantazelle: Producer-Designer-Musician Extraordinaire

I’m obviously getting too much sleep. Are you? Quantazelle (aka Liz McLean Knight of Chicago), designer and creator of MIDI jewelry as mentioned yesterday, must not be. She’s: a talented IDM musician/producer (take a listen — good stuff!) creator/editor of the electronic music zine Modsquare owner of the jewelry company Zella founder, manager, and designer […]

OS X Tiger + Music: SPECIAL REPORT

Keep checking this page! Constant updates! To keep up-to-date with new features, compatibility reports, and other news regarding Mac OS X Tiger 10.4, this report will updated continuously. Drop us a line if you’ve got a tip! Remember, a lot of class-compliant USB hardware should just plug-and-play. -PK Click ‘read more’ for the full report.

Circuit Bending in NYC

If you’re in NYC, you definitely won’t want to miss the Bent festival of circuit-bending music at The Tank on 42nd Street. Each day of the festival this week features workshops on how to warp common electronics from Walkmans to Game Boys into new musical instruments, and concerts of many of the leading musical practitioners […]

Keyboards with Eyeballs, Circuit Bending Info and Book

Pioneering circuit bender Reed Ghazala has originated such oddball creations as the brilliant Aleatron keyboards (shown). Once innocent low-end Casios and the like, Reed’s circuit-bent mutants generate aleatoric music as you play them and, of course, look like they escaped some odd extradimensional alien music factory. Check out Reed’s instrument sales gallery and bent sound […]

Performing Live with Nintendo DS and ElectroPlankton

What, Nintendo, a video game company? Naw, CDM continues to gather more and more evidence that what Nintendo really wants to be is interactive performance artists. IGN reports last month Nintendo even staged a live interactive exhibit and music performance in Japan to launch the upcoming Nintendo DS game ElectroPlankton. (Articles, photos, and videos at […]