But, on the upside, we’ll be huge in Japan. Yes, just to be clear, this is Hatsune Miku, who is actually a software vocal algorithm, not an actual singer, playing live in front of throngs of fans. Enjoy that stomp box while you can. It may… kill you in your sleep, strangling you with your […]

You’re not hallucinating. This is a stomp box that adds a Japanese robot woman singing along as you play. If you’ve heard the now-popular Vocaloid effect, this is that, in a stompbox. Just how Japanese is this product? Let us count the ways. First, let’s just quote the product text: Hatsune Miku sings when you […]

Ableton alone can’t take you mobile, apart from bringing your MacBook running Live on the bus. But now KORG is ready to take your Ableton Live work on the road. Apart from adding native Live set export to their electribe and electribe sampler, the new versions of KORG’s iOS apps Gadget and iKaossilator do export, […]

Few pieces of music hardware ever have had the impact that KORG’s electribe series has. And there was a time when playing live almost equated to showing up with this gear. Today, KORG has a genuinely new generation of that hardware, long awaited by fans. The engines under the hood are new, finally taking the […]

The KORG volca sample is a fun-looking sample “sequencer” – it can play back, modify, and mangle pre-recorded samples in a step sequencer. But it requires a dedicated iOS app to do the actual sampling. That makes for a mixed bag, straight out of the gate. As KORG says: “The new volca lets you recapture […]

Akai’s Rhythm Wolf looks good. And its US$199 price impressed. But when we finally heard some noises out of it back in July, many were disappointed. And, as so often happens with music gear, we’ve mostly following a non-functioning unit at Musikmesse (certainly unfinished and possibly even damaged at the show). A new $200 drum […]

Jesse Abayomi, Ableton Product Specialist, is one heck of a virtuoso Push player. And you can learn something from him, too. Performance technology doesn’t always add to performance, it’s true. But when the machine and human are in sync, it’s beautiful. People can develop their musical chops and machine control chops at once – improve […]

As if Amsterdam Dance Event, the electronic music mecca of Europe and the world’s largest festival of its kind, weren’t packed enough already – there’s more. Tucked inside the festival we’ve got five days of programming devoted to spatial audio, on the 4DSOUND system. As part of ADE Sound Academy, itself focusing on threads between […]

That NI is making a keyboard to provide access to its Komplete line of production tools should surprise no one. And not just because of numerous leaks – it’s the next logical step for the Berlin software developer. After all, NI has an entire line of hardware that makes access to Traktor easier for DJing. […]

You’ve seen the leaks; now here’s the official announcement. Native Instruments is releasing an update to its Komplete suite of production tools (including Massive, Kontakt, Absynth, Reaktor, and others). And while the software update is largely composed of some (nice) new instruments, the banner news here is hardware. As NI has done with its DJ […]