We’ve seen boxes that claim to sync everything you have to everything else you have. But the E-RM multiclock claims to do it even with a computer as the clock source – without jittering. Just announced, the multiclock is the follow-up to the midiclock+, the clever MIDI sync box introduced by Berlin’s boutique E-RM Erfindungsbüro […]
Music
RIP Dax Pierson, Árni Grétar Jóhannesson aka Futuregrapher
Music January 6, 2025
Lists aside, these 2024 albums are personal must-listens
Music Reviews Stories December 31, 2024
Jazzy Jeff, Shiftee Show Us Turntable as a Musical Instrument
Serato and Native Instruments may have a fierce rivalry when it comes to tools. But at the end of the day, the leading DJ vendors exist for one reason: they’re there to support musicians. And I do mean musicians. Watching new routines from Jazzy Jeff and Shiftee, you really see the turntable emerge as a […]
Bach Played on Tubes Will Remind You That Acoustic is Fun
I must admit to knowing neither the term tubes musicaux, nor “boomwhackers.” We’re on the eve of the Musikmesse trade show, which for music technology sites means time spent largely in Hall 5.1 – the bit dedicated to electronic stuff and “DJs.” But that’s no reason to ignore the possibilities afforded by acoustic sound. So […]
Envelop Wants to Make an Ambisonic 3D Venue and Tools
3D, spatialized sound is some part of the future of listening – both privately and in public performances. But the question is, how? Right now, there are various competing formats, most of them proprietary in some way. There are cinema formats (hello, Dolby), meant mainly for theaters. There are research installations, such as those in […]
Get Inspired with Excerpts of Ableton’s Making Music Book
Following our interview with author Dennis DeSantis, we can start your weekend with some sage advice from his book Making Music. While published by Ableton, this isn’t an Ableton book. It lies as the boundary of software and music, at the contact points of creativity in the tool. For a CDM exclusive excerpt, I wanted […]
Non-Oblique Strategies: Author on the Discipline of Making Music
The blank screen. The half-finished project. The project that wants to be done. We talk a lot about machines and plug-ins, dials and patch cords, tools and techniques. But the reality is, the most essential moments of the process go beyond that. They’re the moments when we switch on that central technology of our brain […]
Q+A: How the THX Deep Note Creator Remade His Iconic Sound
How do you improve upon a sound that is already shorthand for noises that melt audiences’ faces off? And how do you revisit sound code decades after the machines that ran it are scrapped? We get a chance to find out, as the man behind the THX “Deep Note” sound talks about its history and […]
Roland Confirms AIRA Modular Next Week, Shows Revealing Picture
Roland apparently doesn’t want to leave too much to the imagination – or online leaks. Now, it’s official. Roland has posted a teaser image to their AIRA site. It’s marked with the catch phrase “Start Patching,” plus “Frankfurt Musikmesse 2015” (next week’s industry trade show here in Germany). So, we know a lot for sure […]
Tell Us About Yourself For a Chance at $2500 in Free Brainworx Plug-ins
CDM quietly turned ten years old last year. And that means it’s time to get a fresh picture of who you are. We need to know who’s reading, what you do, what you want to see on the site, and what devices we need to target. So, we’ll ask a couple of short questions – […]
Traktor Kontrol D2 with Color Display is Official, Costs US$499
Native Instruments’ Traktor Kontrol D2 deck was all but revealed at WMC, but now we’re finding out more clearly how everything comes together. And we know the price: the unit is US$499 (499€ / £429), even with that nice color display. (If NI is getting their part cost down, I wonder if we might soon […]