Nine Inch Nails aren’t the first band to release their tracks in a remix-friendly digital format. If Umixit had their way, you’d see all kinds of music released this way. Umixit ships song with individual isolated tracks; you get 8 tracks by default but can upgrade to 16. Then you can mix and mash using […]

As Mashup . . . Tuesday continues (gotta work on my alliteration and timing here), we bring you the work of the ever-talented DJ Riko. His latest mashup incorporates: English Folk Dance and Song Society – Buffalo Girls Simon & Garfunkel – Cecilia Alanis Morissette – Thank U Malcolm McClaren – Buffalo Gals (a cappella) […]

How did I miss this? The new Ecler NUO4 (“nuo” / 4), reported in a skratchworx exclusive (with no information available anywhere else — Ecler’s DJ division included) is a mixer-control surface hybrid. From what I can get from the photos and limited description, the four knobs in the center are MIDI-assignable, with some additional […]

CDM’s friends at the Fake Science Lab report have a new podcast up, featuring Pink Floyd drummer Nick Mason. As the creators point out, this is one small step for Nick, one giant leap for podcasting — Mason is the first industry figure to weigh in on an indie podcast. He talks about the book, […]

You the readers remain my best resource, so here goes: What are your favorite tools for recording audio from applications that don’t have a recording/render-to-disk facility? I’ve been stunned when I’ve seen Windows users suggest that you wire up a recorder, bounce out through the analog outs on the computer, and then re-record. Nonsense! On […]

Keeping up with acquisitions these days is darn near impossible. We wake up this morning, and Adobe has acquired Macromedia. A few humble suggestions from the digital music / interactivity / VJ side of things (and, no, one of them is NOT "bring back SoundEdit" — you'd be amazed how many times I hear that, […]

Pro Tools 6.9 is now available from Digidesign. As Apple focuses on integration with Final Cut Pro, Avid/Digidesign are counting on the loyalty of studios and video houses to the Avid system; 6.9's major new features have to do with Avid's high-end video products. If you don't have an Avid or ICON D-Command control surface, […]

As CDM continues its hunt for the ultimate studio furniture, here's my favorite reader tip yet: DUAL Furniture in San Francisco has gorgeous custom birchwood furniture designed to your specs. There's the usual DJ furniture — record cabinets and the like — but DUAL wins out for cool hunters with its floating coffins, suspended elegantly […]

Using piezo-electric sensors or specialized drum pads, you can turn acoustic drums into triggers, then convert that signal to MIDI. But why stop there, when your legs are just waiting to be slapped? To use your legs as a trigger, you’ll want a fairly sensitive sensor — standard drum triggers would require you to hit […]

The folks at Elektron have some incredible pattern-based synths/percussion generators (see full product line), if you can afford them (US$1350-1950 list). They’re working on a new Machinedrum, the SPS-1. It’s not a true sampler, but you can load samples onto it via MIDI and soon USB, so as the creators put it “finally you can […]