The ultra-compact but loaded Faderfox controllers have a cult following among lovers of Ableton Live and Traktor DJ. They’re the rare controllers that actually seem to have been designed around software, with smart buttons for triggering Live scenes and clips, a slick X/Y joystick, and the essential knobs and faders just where you want them. […]

Our readers are smarter than your readers. And, erm, this writer, sometimes. Keyboard Magazine, 1985: Recalling music tech from back in the day. I remember that issue. Was surprised to notice that it’s now 21 years old. Crap. *I’m* old. Those were coolest issues with the SoundPages, the little flexible tear-out 45’s. Heh, I think […]

It’s like mastering engineer: the game. Craig Harris has a great review for IGN of the new GBA Bit Generations series in Japan. Soundvoyager has you don headphones and play using your ears: There are various different game styles in Soundvoyager, but they ultimately boil down to “find the center channel.” In one mode, you’re […]

So, you decided to spring for that Intel Mac. And now you’ve got a plug-in that refuses to run, because it’s PowerPC-only, not a Universal Binary for Intel. Sorry, but only plug-ins that have been updated as Universal Binaries will run in a Universal audio host. Fortunately, there’s away around it, and it’s even fully […]

It would be unfair to mention the free Magical 8-bit Plug-in without acknowledging who created it: the insanely talented Japanese chiptune band, YMCK: YMCK Official Site [English] YMCK Events [Japanese] YMCK @ Myspace And, most importantly: YMCK Music Videos @ YouTube Their style is a unique mash-up of the tightly-quantized, hyperactively cheery iconic Nintendo music […]

If you’re anywhere near Manchester, England, you’ll want to clear your schedule for 20-23 July (and thereabouts). The upcoming Futuresonic festival has been all over my inbox, and it looks really cool, especially since it supplements the usual talks and presentations with some very useful free workshops: Futuresonic: Social Technologies Summit The keynote is by […]

Media artist Toshio Iwai continues to develop stunning, fanciful ways of making music. From SONAR, here is Toshio Iwai working live with his Tenori-On music controller, in case you haven’t seen this already: More YouTube goodness after the jump, but let’s skip ahead to the even better news: Toshio Iwai has started a development blog […]

There’s never enough Commodore 64 music. While I’m waiting on my Prophet64 cart to arrive (see previous story), here’s some musical C64 reading (and listening) for you:

I love CME. This Chinese manufacturer came out of nowhere with a new keyboard so overloaded with features and priced so absurdly low, initially some of the staff at Keyboard who saw it at NAMM thought there was some kind of translation error, like they didn’t understand the currency conversion. They’ve come up with bizarre […]