Once upon a time, musicians made music from the sound content pouring invisibly, inaudibly from the air. The likes of John Cage and Kalrheinz Stockhausen turned the radio into stochastic source and instrument, a means of making music in the now. And now, you can, too, in the latest Eurorack module. Whether you want a […]

Not just a little small and a little inexpensive. A lot little. Malaventura, aka Fernando Garcia Tamajon, sends this wonderful “cheesy pocket techno jam” (spotted via Instagram). The ingredients: a PO-14 from teenage engineering, a monotron Delay from Korg and a talking translator by an unknown brand bought in a fleamarketn Works for me. There’s […]

Well, we might have tried to give that honor to something before (McRorie, Hatebeak the parrot), but… this might top it. There’s just so much. The vacant, turned-on stare of that curly-haired guy. The glowing alligator. The KORG 01/W – oh, that KORG. KORG will never make a keyboard demo quite like this. The script… […]

In the overabundant parade of mixes, you might easily grow weary of the sound-alike monotony of predictably-popular hits inserted back to back in a party-friendly groove. This is not that. The latest from Shapednoise is a mix for FACT that follows in a mold only in that it’s as violently depressing as you’d expect if […]

The electronic musical instrument world is littered with cases of one person, individually solving a problem. This one gets even more specific. There’s some beloved MIDI gear out there that’s just a bear to program. Yes, you can use various knob boxes – but because some of the programming requires archaic System Exclusive messages, prepare […]

You know you’re at peak modular when Moog is reissuing 1970s synths for US$30,000. It wasn’t long ago that people were relegating modular synths to closets, selling them off, and even – really – throwing them in dumpsters. Now, the once-archaic racks of synthesizers connected with patch cords are suddenly cool. Moog rockstar chic aside, […]

One of last month’s more predictable NAMM announcements was, at long last, an update to Novation’s Launchpad line that adds RGB color support and pressure sensitivity. But that means that it’s easier to compare the new Launchpad Pro with the spendier (but also more powerful) Ableton Push. It’s been a few years since the original […]

Maybe it’s because people have started collecting lots of gear. Maybe it’s a shift in how people play live. Maybe it’s just that we’re getting more than enough mileage out of our laptop as the machine for mixing and tracking and recording and mastering and managing our tour and our social network. Whatever the reason, […]

What if any iOS app could talk to any gear, and any gear could talk to any app – none of this stumbling around with wireless, but over good, stable wires and plugs? What if, from your Mac, you could see any app or connected hardware on your iPad or iPhone? And what if on […]

Your iPad could be a perfect step sequencer. Could be, anyway. It’s portable. It’s easy to prop alongside other equipment – the digital equivalent of a music manuscript notebook. It has a long battery life. It can connect to MIDI. And above all, its interface means you can touch the interface directly, which is ideally […]