Max 6, showing the new Gen tools for low-level sound creation. Courtesy Cycling ’74. Cycling ’74’s Max 6 is now available. See our previous previews: For Home-brewing Music Tools Graphically, Perhaps the Biggest Single Update Yet [Create Digital Music] In Max 6, Big Banner 3D + Animation Features for Jitter, Alongside Usability Improvements [Create Digital […]

Adding hardware to tablets, as it has with decades of computing technology, can open up new worlds for software and music. It can animate a conventional piano, or provide new physical interfaces for touching music. But let’s not wait for it to happen; let’s get hacking. Following on today’s line of thinking about hardware-augmented touch, […]

In Lit Tree, the design team Kimchi and Chips create dances of light across a potted tree, augmenting the plant life by transforming its leaves into voxels. 3D volumetric projection create clouds of light. In time, it could even impact growth – a kind of bonsai technique with light. Given the work’s relevance both artistically […]

Desmond Dodecahedron has the craziest way of celebrating the season I’ve seen this year: just build a giant Christmas tree from LEGOs, then use visual programming environment Max/MSP and some custom electronics to trigger tunes. Desmond writes: Once I discovered that the word “advent” was actually an abbreviation of “audio event” and the fact that […]

Here’s a truly creative application for 3D printing technology: make elegant, cloud-like letters in foam that drifts off into the blue. It’s suggestive of the kinds of creative use of printing from the digital to the physical that may lie ahead. Thanks to Matt Ganucheau for the link, which, judging from YouTube views, has been […]

NK Berlin is a planetary hub for wild experiments made with music, technology, and electronics. When you can’t be in Berlin soaking it up in person, you can explore the oddities assembled on their MySpace page. A recent workshop by Andrey Smirnov and Guy Van Belle on Theremins led to these unusual videos, playing a […]

Arduino the Cat, Breadboard the Mouse and Cutter the Elephant from hmt on Vimeo. Media artists and design houses around the world: you’ve got nothing on this group of eight to eleven-year old English girls, bravely exploring interaction design, soft toy hacks, and physical computing using the open source Arduino platform to animate cats, mice, […]

We get the “where do I go to learn this stuff” question a lot in the inbox. With Max for Live coming later this year, bringing the powers of Max to Ableton Live, I imagine the hunger for knowledge on that tool will be all the greater. (At the same time, I think the growing […]