“Electronic music needs to be wilder” was the challenge issues by Matt Black (NinjaTune, Coldcut) last year at Ableton Loop at a talk I moderated. But maybe this could be interpreted as “into the wild” in a difference sense. At the moment, I’m part of an ongoing series of residencies that takes that in a […]

It’s time to get beyond the geographic bubble – without resorting to narrow expectations of “world music” – and really appreciate the wide-open world of music making in which we now live. To take us there, CDM’s Zuzana Friday talks to Cedrik Fermont, who is evangelical when it comes to breaking apart old stereotypes and […]

The next big Roland product unveiling isn’t at a trade show – it’s on the Internet. At a 24-hour streaming “online musical instruments festival,” the Japanese giant is promising a bunch of new stuff (30+). The date is an auspicious one for the company – September 9, or 909. And sure enough, they’re also calling […]

You can learn a lot from a drummer. The best grooves of all time are meticulously constructed – and understanding them means understanding a lot about rhythm and form. So these are objects worth study. What your Web browser can do is make that study easier – even if you’ve never touched a drum kit. […]

Years ago, when Ableton’s Operator FM synth designed by Robert Henke made its debut, it was a revelation. Its clear panel design and flexible architecture made FM synthesis more accessible to countless Ableton Live users. But now Operator, while still a great go-to instrument, certainly deserves some competition. And that makes Bengal special. The production […]

A funny thing happened on the way to supposedly all inclusive on-demand libraries of music. A lot of the music simply disappeared. Well, Qrates wants to bring it back – and in physical form, too.

Now, it comes in colors. Novation’s Launchpad app has a new UI that shows in colors – and matches colors on connected Launchpad hardware. And with this latest update to the iOS apps from the Blocs team at Novation, you’ve got a more viable option for making music and jamming without the laptop.

A piano keyboard or fretboard is set up with a particular mapping of pitch in mind. But the major advantage of any undifferentiated grid is the ability to work with scales. You can have any tuning and modes you like. A new free update to Novation’s Launchpad Pro adds that functionality to their grid controller […]

You’ve been watching those wild YouTube videos of people performing tunes with hacked floppy drives – most recently Star Wars and Nirvana. Now get those sounds in a sample library for nearly-free donationware.

Eventually, even the most impassioned synth lover gets bored of mixing oscillators together. You need a little spice in your sound life. You need Karplus-Strong synthesis. Commonly associated with physical modeling strings, Karplus-Strong can also be thought of as a flexible feedback system of delayed, filtered noise. Okay, that’s a lot more abstract than imagining […]