Sonic Garden: Music from Giant Blobs

How do you get a group of people in Milan to lounge atop, cuddle with, and hump a bunch of soft cone-shaped blobs? Easy: feed a channel of synthetically-generated music to each blob so, as they rock and move, soothing interactive music fills the air. The result, says visitors, ranges from "very comfortable" to "very […]

Lightspace: Disco Dance Floor for Pros

Sure, at MIT building interactive LED-powered disco dance floors is a good way to decorate your dorm and procrastinate. But, Chris O'Shea of pixelsumo reminds me, for the designers at Lightspace, it's serious business. Clearly, the MIT students' DIY project was directly inspired by the Lightspace team that's . . . wait a minute . […]

PSmaX: Mac/Windows Music with PlayStation Controllers

Following up on yesterday's report on using Dance Dance Revolution pads with your computer for music, we've got more on PSmaX from its creator. PSmaX is an applet developed in Max/MSP that lets you hook any PlayStation controller to your Mac or PC via USB. Here's Mike Chames: The input in PSmaX is handled through  […]

Analysis: Prototype Numark iPod DJ Mixer

Details have leaked out about a prototype Numark DJ mixer that can mix two iPods. I know what you're thinking: Wow, what a scoop! Where are the lawyers? Is it a fake? In fact, in a gesture of spectacularly poor industrial secrecy, it seems Numark showed off an early prototype at the Musikmesse show in […]

Numark 5000FX: Tricked-out 5-channel Mixer

Okay, hard-core DJs disappointed by Numark's new iPod DJ prototype: Numark isn't just about Pod-weilding newbies. They've got the tricked-out mixer for the die-hard in you, too. The new 5000FX, also shown at Musikmesse, is an analog-digital hybrid: 5-channel analog mixing meets digital effects and sampling: 35-second sampler Trigger, loop, pitch-bend, crossfade, reverse your sounds […]

What Could You Do With Numark’s iPod Mixer?

What could you do with Numark's prototype iPod mixer, if it were actually built? (photo nabbed by German site WebBeatz) Here are some ideas: Charge and load: With dock connectors, you could power your iPod through the night Sample, scratch: Numark's use of short-length samplers (as on the shipping 5000FX) will demand new chops for […]

New RSS Feed is HERE

We've replaced the default RSS feed, which had formatting issues as many of you have observed, with a new feed that includes live links and HTML formatting (though for photos and commenting, of course, hit the actual site!). Please update your links (default RSS 1.0 feed): http://feeds.feedburner.com/createdigitalmusic For RSS 2.0, Atom, OPML, etc., you'll find […]

Update: PACE Copy Protection and Mac OS X Tiger Are Compatible

If you're planning to upgrade to Mac OS X Tiger when it is released, you'll still need to check with software and hardware vendors to make sure your setup is 10.4-ready, but PACE copy protection, used in many Mac music applications and plugins, won't be an issue. Andrew Kirk of PACE Anti-Piracy tells us: The […]

Mac OS X Tiger: Audio Improvements from Apple

As a cross-platform Windows and Mac user (I really have to be as a writer), I can tell you I really miss Mac OS X's brilliant Core Audio when I'm on Windows. And looking at Apple's updated Core Audio page for Mac OS X Tiger, Core Audio is only getting better: Core Audio file format […]

Mocean: Water as Musical Instrument

Mocean is an interactive installation that uses a tank of water as an interface for sound. Dip your hands in the tank, and the installation whistles and hums. The water doesn't create the sound directly; instead, an array of antique organ pipes resonate above the tank, triggered by a video camera that analyzes pictures of […]