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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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, […]