Electronic instruments really are becoming like folk instruments. US$42 now buys you a small board that you can touch directly, one that’s immediate and from which anyone can coax sounds. You can jam with it, pocket it; it’s affordable and direct and playable. And it all fits in a plastic cassette tape box. The re-released […]

It’s all been done. Or maybe not. Synthesis may not have so many unseen shores – unknown, wild beaches where you can plunk a flag in the ground and shout “I claim this for Spain!” or something to that effect. Instead, we find nuances of sonic possibility in details. We’re building on those colonies. And […]

At 350 pounds (159 kg), the original Mellotron is not an easy instrument to acquire … or lift. But its 8-second tapes helped define a classic sound – Strawberry Fields, forever. Sample house UVI have been doing a lot of nice work lately – including some real rarities like the prepared piano at Paris research […]

What an extraordinary time of transformation it’s been in music instruments – one which has coincided unintentionally with the development of this site. When the Little Phatty first hit the market in 2006, it really was a very different era. While Moog Music had already shipped the Voyager and brought back Bob Moog’s name to […]

Beamz by Flo 2 Minute Commercial from Static Free Films.com on Vimeo. Update: See the video on the official Beamz by Flo Rida site, as apparently the creators don’t believe the old adage “no press is bad press.” (The Internet: Making Fun of Beamz Videos since 2008. See the earlier video below.) I am regularly […]

Rutt Etra Meets Kinect from i.m. klif on Vimeo. There’s a beautiful fusion of analog and digital imagery in comments on yesterday’s story on easy Kinect software solutions. “Post digital” gets bandied about, yes, but really this to me is the perfect example of focusing on the materials of a project without any particular regard […]

While we wait for Microsoft to send the new Kinect – yes, we’re on the list for one here at CDM HQ – there’s still plenty to be done with the current generation of Kinect. And it’s likely that you’ll find even more of these on the cheap when there’s new hardware out there. The […]

There’s talking, there’s showing, and there’s doing. And there’s listening, too – but we’ll get to that in a moment. When female:pressure put some numbers behind the relative absence of women in festivals, the long-running discussion about the role of females in the scene was accelerated. Suddenly, the entire music press seemed to be talking […]

In the latest megarich DJ – electronics manufacturer collaboration, we find Dutch giant Philips with Armin van Buren. (In fact, you might begin to wonder if these guys are just competing over the Forbes highest-paid DJs list.) This time, what you get is an all-in-one iPad dock with DJ control surface with speaker. That in […]

Serato DJ With DVS is Here from Serato on Vimeo. Let’s not mince words: Serato’s DJ offerings had gotten confusing, and updates and compatibility lagged. This week, the company has changed the tune: there’s one Serato to support everything, and it’s coming soon. For controller users, that means being ready to go in October, thanks […]