Is DJ Sasha's custom MAVEN controller, as plugged in promotions for the artist, built from a free open-source DIY kit? (Sasha uses this custom hardware to control Ableton Live on his iMac G5 during gigs.) MIDIbox users are speculating the MAVEN is based on the MIDIbox platform in a forum discussion. MIDIbox is a hardware […]
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iPianos ’05: 5 Mac Grand Pianos, $55
Post Musical Instruments has won acclaim for its piano sampling banks; now US$55 buys you iPianos '05, five of its piano samples for use in Apple's GarageBand and Logic (Express and Pro) — a major upgrade from the instrument that comes in the box. That's PMI's Bosendorfer 290, Yamaha C7, Steinway D and the EMPEROR […]
OS X Tiger Coming; How’s Audio Doing? (and Windows?)
Apple's Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger should be out very soon; eWeek reports shipping is likely by mid-month or end-of-month at latest. So far, the only major application CDM knows to be compatible with Tiger is Ableton Live 4.11, which introduced compatibility tweaks versus 4.1. We're still waiting on a long-promised update to Apple Logic […]
Moog, Prophet Clones: From Software to Hardware
Our coverage of the new Creamware Moog/Prophecy-5 hardware continues with a look at the previous Creamware offering . . . You thought all hardware was going to be transitioning to software plug-in? Think again. By using hardware DSP chips, Creamware has been able to create perfect emulations of original Minimoog and Prophet-5 hardware. The original […]
Memory (Free): Sample and Loop with P5 Data Glove (Win)
Good news: White Noise Audio Software's free Memory plug-in lets you sample loops of audio in real-time, adjusting both loop length and filter cutoff for some crazy live loop-playing. Did I mention it's free? Insanely great news: You can control this mayhem using a $20-30 P5 Data Glove game controller. I leave it up to […]
NoteGraphica: Draw Your Own Waves (Win)
Boring bits: Windows VSTi, 8-voice polyphony, two oscillators plus one noise generator, eight envelopes, 1 filter, 2 LFOs, built-in delay/chorus FX — all important, but you've seen it before. Cool bits: You can drawn in your wave shapes, and it's free. Now has NoteGraphica got your attention?
Nintendo, Interactive Artists — Whither the Stylus?
Convincing people to embrace new control methods is hard. Just ask Nintendo. Sure, here at CDM we talk about making music with a graphic tablet input, sock puppets — you love that. But the gaming market is conservative; many still don't get the inclusion of a stylus on the Nintendo DS. And that, friends, has […]
Tabletop, Block-Based Music Making: The List
There's been an explosion of so-called "tangible interfaces" for music: the basic scenario is, there's a table, possibly with projections, and little blocks or objects or projected thingies you can play around with and move to produce sound. (Tangible = something physical you can move or touch, as opposed to an interface that's intangible, like […]
Creamware’s Minimax, Profit-5: Analog Sounds in Cheap Packages
As the industry trends toward digital sound and plug-ins (or so we were told), we increasingly have . . . wha? More hardware emulating old analog classics? And now at prices under US$1000? Believe it. Creamware has previewed two new hardware boxes, the Minimax ASB and Profit-5 ASB. They don't mention the Minimoog or Prophet-5 […]
SxSW: Trick Out Your iPod Video
Reader Chad points out that, among video coverage of the likes of Al Franken and Luke/Owen Wilson, you can watch random video clips of our 'How to Trick Out Your iPod' panel (hi QT / lo QT) Edited in, how shall we say, an unusual way — mostly random bits of me talking and curiously […]