The orchestra might once have seemed the antithesis of rock and electronic and amplified instruments. But now, the lenses of electronic sound and recording can be second nature. Yes, that’s London’s Southbank Royal Festival Hall – and yes, that’s a whole bunch of microphones amidst the music stands, feeding a massively-multichannel mix of the ensemble […]

If the computer can do one thing, it is to vastly expand what a single musician can do live. Whether you rise to that challenge has everything to do with who you are as an individual musician. It’s about the person as much as the machine. Thomas Piper, Jr. is at his absolute best in […]

Sound of Threads from Bertrand Lanthiez on Vimeo. Satisfying multiple senses at once, Paris-based artist Bertrand Lanthiez shares his “Sound of Threads.” It’s a pair of audiovisual installations – and beautiful music – that combines musical elements with frail beams of light across webs of wool and dangling pieces of cloth. The interaction is simple […]

You have to hand it to Apple – people do care about what they’re doing. Interest in how iOS 7 impacts audio performance is proving more dynamic than I imagined. As an addendum to the story earlier today, it’s worth adding just two points for users – and highlighting some code for developers. 1. This […]

We’ve been waiting for the moment at which a post-PC, mobile operating system has equaled a desktop OS for serious music making. Well, that moment has arrived — — in that we get to release a dire warning about an OS update breaking music-making apps. Yes, now iOS 7 shares that dubious distinction of countless […]

We broke the news of the headline Live 9.1 features – dual monitor support, melodic sequencing and automation step sequencing on Push, and high-quality sample rate conversion. CDM may have had the exclusive on this, but it was still surprising to see a point release attract so many readers. The lesson seems clear: a targeted […]

With over a decade in experimental techno (working with the likes of Jamie Lidell and Cristian Vogel), and years more in production, Bill Youngman has earned his veteran ribbons. But this isn’t about the past. This is about what happens when you switch on the machines and make music that can only be heard live […]

Eye Vapor EEG Sonification 1 from Derivative on Vimeo. Smart. Even smart enough to visualize and sonify EEGs. TouchDesigner is not well-known in general circles, even after long-running availability. It’s Windows-only software for specialists. But there’s only one thing you need to know about it: it is consistently used in some of the best work […]

The Bug, indeed. If you could insert Kevin Martin like a data glitch into the music scene and watch the wonderfully-corrupted results, you wouldn’t be too far off. (See the datamoshed music video below for a visual representation.) Under the name The Bug, or as GOD, Techno Animal, Ice, Curse of the Golden Vampire, Pressure, […]

Sometimes, there are designs that seem almost impossibly like an answer to a specific need. Let us illustrate. Wouldn’t it be nice to have a box that you could play, independent of a computer, that just let you mess about with samples directly from an SD card? And wouldn’t it be nice if it had […]