Control, Play, Edit in Ableton Live from your iPhone with touchAble Mini [Visual Tour]

If touchAble is the most feature-complete means of controlling Ableton Live from the iPad, touchAble mini just became the most powerful means of doing it from the iPhone and iPod touch. Having remote control of your music production software from your phone can be a boon to productivity. You can wander around during a sound […]

A Guitar Amp That Doubles as Home Speaker System: AMPLIFi, with Bluetooth and iOS Integration

Line 6 made a name for themselves by making amps that used digital models to change their sound. AMPLIFi is their latest notion in amps. Instead of just being something guitarists would use in the studio and stage, for the first time it’s an amp system you might want to bring into the home. AMPLIFi […]

Fake a Modular Rig inside Ableton Live with DopeMatrix, Then Play it from a Controller

Are modular rigs too pricey for your budget? Hate the thought of all those patch cords, and wish you could just have everything at the ready on your laptop? DopeMatrix might just be for you. That’s “Dope” as in “Doepfer,” and they aren’t just making something modular-ish here. They’re actually giving you a set of […]

Control Ableton Live, Now from Android, Too: LIVKONTROL for Android, iOS

Android may not have anything approaching the catalog of music software available on iOS. But that shouldn’t mean you can’t find some very useful application for an Android device. I’ve been particularly happy with a second-generation Nexus 7 as a second tablet, for instance. Now, Ableton Live users with an Android phone or tablet they […]

Roland’s Four AIRA Instruments: Now We Know a Lot – Keyboard, Component Analog Modeling, Too

Roland’s AIRA will be public this month, and you can bet CDM will have all the details we can get from the company. But through its various teasers, the picture of AIRA is already pretty clear. The new line reflects a new approach for the company, one that would seem to show, paradoxically, both greater […]

Learn VDMX in Your Skivvies: Online Tutorial on Powerful OS X VJ Tool

There’s nothing like the comfort of your own home. The comfy feel of underwear instead of annoying … clothes. The absence of … other people in the same room. Yes, if you’ve ever dreamt of learning the lovely semi-modular, powerful VJ tool VDMX, now you don’t need to wait until experts in the tool come […]

Robert Henke Hacklab + RA Exchange: Hard Work, Solving Creative Crises, and Lasers

We get to continue the conversation around Robert Henke’s process and his magnum opus laser-show that closed CTM Festival on Sunday. Will Lynch from Resident Advisor joined us in the MusicMakers Hacklab to sit down with Robert. Here, Will talks to Robert about his music, his approach, and how he tackled the challenge of making […]

Inside BeatStep: $99 Step Sequencer and Controller Looks Compact, Versatile [Q+A, Videos]

Every new season brings new music tools. Some of these designs, of course, are splashy and grab headlines. Some just look like no-brainers that will see heavy use in your work. Arturia’s BeatStep stood out at the recent NAMM trade show as just an insanely-great use of a hundred bucks, in a tiny box that […]

Play a Great-Sounding Theremin in Your Web Browser: Distraction of the Day

If you want an explanation for why you’d want to build sophisticated audio into the Web, maybe it’s just because you don’t like fun. Fun is what you get out of this Web Audio Theremin toy, the work of one Luke Phillips of Femur Design. The web audio theremin is a touch friendly & responsive […]

Two Pacemaker – Spotify Screenshots That Show For Serious DJing, Downloads Are Here to Stay

Sometimes, images say it all. Pictured below is what happens when you try to use Pacemaker’s Spotify functionality on the iPad without an Internet connection. Tracks simply don’t play at all. Even though Spotify Premium users have offline access to their tracks when listening one at a time, you won’t be able to DJ that […]