I’ve managed to acquire a Wii remote — tricky commodity to find these days — and have gotten it up and working with both Windows and Mac. Here’s another quick teaser: Mac users are going to be in for a tougher ride as far as live music and visual control, as the BlueSoleil Bluetooth software […]

The world is off and running with the Nintendo Wii Remote for music. You’ll recall I hoped publicly on CDM this device would work for music from the day of Nintendo’s announcement (like many of you), and I’m pleasantly surprised to say everything got a whole lot easier as Nintendo chose a commonly-used Bluetooth chip […]

We’re not going to be satisfied until every touch controller in the house is functioning as an X/Y pad for music. Nintendo DS? Check. Wacom tablet? Tablet PC? Claro que si. So what’s up with your Palm? That stylus isn’t doing anything. miniMusic has the hookup: AxisPad miniMusic [Product Page] Interestingly, the X/Y pad here […]

There are no limits to the new forms the once bargain-priced Casio SK-1 synthesizer can take, transformed by circuit bending. But whereas most circuit-bending involves hacks with wires, bending superstar Gijs Gieskes goes further, by building a large mechanical apperatus to trigger the bent sounds. Gijs sent this link last week and I didn’t get […]

Like a psychotic Muppephone for Nintendo lovers, the 12-Pikachu Orchestra is a performance instrument assembled from an unholy number of circuit-bent Pikachu toys. Found on the circuit bending authority GetLoFi, via flickr, though sadly there are no video or sound clips yet. If you can imagine this single Pikachu mayhem multiplied a dozen times, you […]

Sony PSP users: turned off by new-fangled graphical drum machines and wireless Ableton Live controllers? Want to kick it oldskool with a tracker? Check out PSPSeq, which has now matured to version 1.0 (from 0.2). Here’s what’s new: editable parameters on instruments customizable instrument groupings multiple loops/song sequence tap tempo multiple audio presets, new generators/fx […]

The blogosphere this week is all abuzz about the supposedly desire-inducing Upravlator. The awkwardly-named hardware comes from Art Lebedev, the mysterious designer who first promised the Optimus Keyboard, a unique “design concept” with tiny color displays under each key. That indeed sounds cool, but instead, after months of delays and promises, the shipping product turned […]

We saw wireless MIDI and mouse control via the Sony PSP, the creation of media artist and hacker Rob King. Now Rob writes to say he’s finished the first release of his software for controlling Ableton Live directly from PSP, and it’s available as a free download. PLAYLIVE IS HERE [Rob King’s E-mu.org] The Ableton […]

Portable game consoles are fantastic things: do-all media players and mini-computers that are actually fun to use, small enough to carry, with powerful capabilities for just a couple hundred dollars. For computer musicians, they’re versatile devices that fit well into music setups, whether sequencing instruments or feeding videos to a projector. There’s only one problem: […]