Behind the scenes: Before the Moog analog synth allowed patching together music with knobs and telephone switchboard cables, Delia Derbyshire (shown) and assistant Dick Mills started with a simple score by Ron Grainer and pieced together one of the most recognizable TV tunes of all time using individual sound modules, razor blades, an enormous amount […]

We start our live coverage from Miami's WMC (Winter Music Conference) — more reports through the weekend and into next week! CDM's Eldorado is on the scene. -Ed. Miami — One of the most interesting parts of the electronic music revolution is the digital convergence. An industry once steeped in vinyl is gradually turning to […]

The Art Interface Device (AID) is a microprocessor platform for interfacing with sensors, motors, and electronic devices. If installation art doesn't turn you on, this could work just as well for building interactive electronic instruments. Best of all, the hardware design itself is open source / GPL, so you can just download the plans and […]

Miniorgan.com is a fantastic collection of peculiar music toys and (as the name implies) miniature organs, primarily from the 70s and 80s, the creation of Eric from Germany. Read up, enjoy, research, then hit eBay and may the best music toy fan win. That is, if Eric hasn't gotten them already: this is his personal […]

James Polanco of Fake Science writes us to tell about his new podcast, the Fake Science Lab Report. The show features new music (Creative Commons-licensed) and coverage of digital music technology and industry trends. On the current show: an NPR vet's plan for Technopop, a proposed show that would cover the impact of tech on […]

Stephen Schleicher has a great tutorial at Digital Media Net for recreating those slick moving arrows in Apple's iPod Shuffle Ad. Basically, you need Adobe After Effects and a working knowledge of paths. See Stephen's site for more AE tutorial goodness. Tutorial Part I Tutorial Part II Which brings up an interesting question — how […]

Suffering from effects overload? Effects, effects everywhere and never quite the one you need? Check out Ronin, the new multi-effects rack from Audio Damage. The idea is to combine everything you might need into a single, "bucket brigade" package for analog-style delays, chorusing, flanging, and destruction, with: Synced delays with pitch, infinite loop, reverse, feedback […]

Creating the ultimate workspace for digital music creation isn't easy. You need the right mood — available liquor cabinet and copious candles lining the piano is always a good start. And you need a great desk and office chair. Right now, I'm thinking about finding a great new, ergonomic chair — see Joy of Tech's […]

Josh Spear writes CDM to point out the Optek Fretlight Guitar. (see Josh's story) It connects to your computer via a single USB cable (pay attention, Gibson) and includes light-up frets to teach you how to play. Light-up teaching frets are a little corny (I'm resisting making a guitar player joke here), but how about […]

Mike from GarageSpin points us to a big story from Microsoft: they've launched a new community site "for the global electronic artist" called Crossfader. It's in beta form, so there's not much there yet, though the focus is clearly on DJs and electronica. There's a section called "The Knowledge" that will eventually have information on […]