And they say computer technology for music is “disposable.” Csound has a direct lineage to the very first digital audio synthesis ever to run on computers, counting decades of history. It remains an elegant way to make any instrument, event, or musical creation you can imagine, all with a free tool. And now, a Csound […]
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RIP Dax Pierson, Árni Grétar Jóhannesson aka Futuregrapher
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Saying goodbye to 2024 with music and reflections: David’s picks
Music Reviews Stories December 31, 2024
oscillating continuum, Meditative Installation, and AV Work of Ryoichi Kurokawa
oscillating continuum from RYOICHI KUROKAWA on Vimeo. oscillating continuum is an audiovisual haiku, an object creating an sonic architectural object. At first, it appears stunningly minimal, but close up there’s a terrific sense of detail to the glitching soundscapes and accompanying digital waveform visualization. Intricate particles swirl and then suddenly blink into explosions, to be […]
Giorgio Moroder’s Music, Racing Across Your Handheld Browser, Free [Web Tech, Free Track]
Imagine the browser window – on a desktop, a phone, or a tablet – as another canvas for musicians. Hearing Web nerds talk about the latest browser tech may, it may not be immediately clear how that connects to this browser future. But with the addition of features like 3D and network sockets, suddenly you […]
Four Tet Walks Through His Unique Live Rig for Red Bull Music Academy [Video]
Playing with laptops can become performative in conventional ways, just by adding instruments – voice, guitar, live drums, ukelele, or whatever it is you play. But it becomes more mysterious in the hybrid performance media that emerge from “playing” the arrangement directly, manipulating the larger bits of a track in the form of stems and […]
On Hacking the New Kinect
Will the new Kinect be hackable for artists and developers? Some of the best speculation I’ve seen yet actually shows up here in CDM comments. So, it’s worth elevating this to a news story, just in case you missed it. In short, the answer appears to be yes. I’m hopeful in particular for Microsoft’s own […]
The Natural World, in Code: Dan Shiffman Talks Genetic Algorithms
Dan Shiffman @ Kickstarter HQ on Genetic Algorithms on April 2nd from Kickstarter on Vimeo. Creative code may, to most people, be as far from the natural world as possible. But in a purely aesthetic way, finding the connection between natural environment and code expression is the mission of Dan Shiffman’s recent tome. And in […]
Why Mobile Low-Latency is Hard, Explained by Google; Galaxy Nexus Still Musicians’ Android of Choice
Saying your device isn’t as responsive to sound as you’d want is a bit like saying you’re feeling sick to your stomach. The symptom is easy to describe, and everyone would agree it’s not a desirable state. But the fix can be rather complex. And when it comes to engineers who care about music and […]
Touch Music Control Choices: TouchOSC Gives Android, iPhone 5 Proper Love
What once was in the hands of a few early adopter Lemur owners and technologists is now available to the masses: most musicians own some kind of touch device, capable of spawning faders and X/Y controls and buttons and layouts for just about anything they can imagine. And the app that is perhaps best known […]
Biostagog: Fluid Cellular Architecture Combines Mapping, Responsive Interaction [Gallery]
BIOSTAGOG from Platige Image on Vimeo. When futurists dream of fluid architecture, more digital image than brick and mortar, this is one element of what they mean. From Warsaw, Poland comes a project combining algorithmic design, 3D-printed surfaces, and interactive motion turned into projection-mapped image. Yep, that ticks all the buzzword boxes. But the upshot […]
From Spain, Abstract, Ambient Mix and Transcendent Images [Listen, Gallery]
If your ears and spirit need an ambient reboot, you could do worse than this gorgeous, abstract wash of sound pieced together from two wonderful Spanish artists. From bzzzbip, aka multimedia artist Antònia Folguera, and about:blank!, a photographer/filmmaker/artist, comes this project in sonic exchange. Antònia writes: About:Blank! and I exchanged songs via email and dropbox […]