In an array of triangles forming trees and snowflakes, a festive holiday geometric pattern turns into a musical playset. It’s a free browser toy from Ableton, in celebration of the holidays, and a nice little diversion. Looks like someone had fun during a hackday or something. Of course, this is also momentous as we’ve never […]

Apple’s tablet has grown in popularity partly as a sketchpad for doing less, and focusing more. A clean slate for music, it’s also a clean slate for software design. Or, that’s its potential. But while the iPad has become a platform for extraordinary instruments and controllers, for many of us it hasn’t yet become a […]

Technology has done a strange thing to musicians: it’s turned us all into, well, loners. It didn’t used to be this way. Musicians on instruments ranging from folk ensembles to symphony orchestras are able to join up and keep time with one another. So why not do the same with tech? Ableton’s new Link technology promises […]

CDM quietly turned eleven years old this year (after humble beginnings). But it’s not where we’ve been I want to share – it’s where we’re going. And that begins with a new site design and server infrastructure. You’ve been absolutely extraordinary in your support as readers and, more than that, a community, as we’ve grown over the […]

IRCAM is Paris’ legendary research center. It’s the place where the original Max was born, and it’s still a hub for some of the brightest minds in sound in the world. IRCAMAX 2 is a new set of effects and instruments for Max for Live. And it does some amazing stuff – though maybe the […]

Tablets and laptops, cars and trucks, iPads and MacBooks and Surface and things that have “Pro” at the end of them and don’t… enough. Let’s ask a simpler question. What would be a music app that would make you want an iPad Pro? Well, the first potential answer is djay Pro. It’s a new version […]

It makes some people cringe each December as much as the appearance of WHAM! and Paul McCartney (oh, “Wonderful Christmastime”). It’s the end of year lists in electronic music. I have no particular problem with them, except that they’re limited in what they tell us. We get surveys that allow people to learn what the […]

Record releases are old and tired. So are jewelry. Let’s solve this: with a wearable 8-bit necklace and pendant that takes audio input and turns it into weird visualizations – of course. DU-QVJ is a collaboration between Detroit Underground, the fantastic tastefully strange label, with Russian engineer Alexander Zolotov. Add a tiny battery, plug in […]

Culture can be a different construction in our inter-connected age. We can draw on traditions from a distant past – or imagine a distant future. We can more easily connect with the people around us, or the people on the other corner of the world. So, as I host CDM’s fourth Hacklab with CTM Festival […]

patten has gone from CD-R releases to Warp, remaining anonymous all the while. But these secretive artists told us about where they find inspiration.