CDM Spring Break!

Yes, CDM will be taking a brief broadcast break Friday April 22 through Monday April 25 as I’m on the road. I’ll be back Tuesday with several special reports, though, including the latest interactive wizardry from New York’s Studio IMC show at the Chelsea Art Museum. See you then!

Ergodex DX-1 Keyboard: Custom Keystroke Heaven?

The Ergodex DX-1 keyboard is a custom keyboard for adding up to 25 macro-powered keystrokes in any arrangement you like. Engadget, Music Thing, and Gizmodo are all talking about it. I’ve found out some more details that will be important to musicians: It’s Windows-only. Ergodex are “investigating” Mac or Linux support, their marketing person told […]

Dream DJ Furniture, Pt. III

The turntable tables keep rolling in. Gizmodo has an entry from the Milan Furniture Fair which is beautifully crafted, though for some reason I imagine it surrounded by shag carpeting. Probably just me, but we’ll never know — no link to the designer. Todd Campbell writes CDM with

Inside NIN’s Studio on Audiohead

As readers pointed out, I got things a bit wrong on what Trent Reznor uses in the studio: it’s not a matter of Pro Tools OR Logic. It’s Pro Tools AND Logic AND Reaktor and Absynth and Traktor and GRM Tools and three Macs and three interfaces (with high-end HD Digi hardware) and a Minimoog […]

More on Mawzer: Modular, Custom Control Surface

We had an early look last week at the upcoming Mawzer Control Surface, a modular box that lets you combine faders, knobs, and controls via plug-and-play modules to form whatever control box you can imagine. Since then, the Mawzer folks have gradually been feeding us more details. Finally we have a high-res image to drool […]

Make:Blog on Hacked Nintendo Controllers for Music

Color me lazy. I'm perfectly willing to settle for a software solution that lets you hook up PS2 controllers via USB to music, like PSmaX. Not Jeff Hoefs: he had to use Nintendo PowerGloves, PowerPads (mats), and Uforce controllers (infrared), which meant digging into a little DIY serial-to-MIDI conversion and assembly code (see MAKE:Blog for […]

Mashing Nine Inch Nails in GarageBand; NIN Doesn’t Use Logic

I’ve been playing with the Nine Inch Nails track (reported by many, many sites in the last few days: NIN made their new single available in GarageBand 2.0 format). I have to say, this is a lot of fun. To me, the song sounds better with more tracks muted: the lesson here is, all of […]

Remix-Friendly Songs in the Near Future?

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 […]

Mad Mashup: Buffalo Gals Girls Cecilia

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) […]

Ecler NUO4 Combines Mixer, MIDI Control

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 […]