Novation’s BassStation II, a US$500 street all-analog monosynth, is already big news. If Korg is bringing back the late 70s/early 80s sound in an analog keyboard, Novation is giving us the early 90s. And since sound is what it’s really all about, we wanted to get a hands-on with the actual sounds of the BassStation […]

Leon Theremin, inventor of the first widely-used electronic musical instrument that bore his name, is now in his own comic book. Now, the plot is a bit … unexpected. Time travel is real and scientist/inventor Leon Theremin just discovered it. The journey from scientist to super spy is shorter than you think. It all starts […]

One highlight of Musikmesse for me was getting to catch up with Jay Smith of Livid Instruments. Base, their touch controller (grid plus touch strips), is even more appealing in person than online. And it seems like it could really sit in a niche in controllers, even with lots of grids out there these days. […]

Livid Instruments is now best known as a “music” controller maker, but the DNA of the company comes from live visuals. Accordingly, the OhmRGB looks a bit like a visual controller – banks of faders on the left and right of a grid, crossfader, and groups of parameter controls all give you a hint that […]

What if you could do more than just consume music as a passive listener? It’s a question that has fascinated musicians ever since the dawn of digital technology. Now, a very big label is releasing an app that provides an answer to that question. Ninja Tune – and, crucially, founder Matt Black of Coldcut – […]

They really are $149.99. And they really are a lot of fun. Korg’s Volca analog Keys synth, Bass synth, and Beats drum synth/drum machine were naturally one of the first stops yesterday. (See our official write-up and images, which just broke the record set by Korg’s own MS-20 mini to become the most popular CDM […]

Squares are gonna fly. That’s what happens when a Novation Launchpad meets a screen meets some mashed-up remixes meets Ableton meets audiovisual triggering. Okay, I have no idea how to describe this, but it does reveal some of the possibilities as conventional AV slice-up technique is applied in a new way, a TV screen merging […]

Nobuyoshi Sano is kind of a mad genius. The writer behind some of the scores for Ridge Racer and Tekken, the talented musician has also turned out some of our favorite mobile music apps, as founder of Japanese dev house Detune. He built the somewhat-ridiculous iYM2151 workstation on iPad, but is best known for the […]

The rumors are true: Korg has not one, but three pint-sized, $150 analog groove boxes – two analog synths and a PCM/analog drum machine. Korg established a bit of a formula with the Monotron and Monotribe: pack some vintage sound and quirky personality into a small box, make it all self-contained (with speaker, batteries, simple […]