Bhoreal: RGB Grid as Open Source Hardware – Kit or Ready-Made, Wired or Wireless

We are Bhoreal from MID New Media Design on Vimeo. Grids are suddenly everywhere – in music control, but also in visuals and art. And they’re lighting up in RGB. But Bhoreal promises to do some things other grids aren’t. Whereas the monome is a truly beautiful, handmade and rare object, its rarity – by […]

Ableton Live to Lights: Hacking Max for Live to an LED Wall For a Brilliant Display

I like Drums. And Bass. from DJ Autom8 on Vimeo. Finally, laptop music need no longer be lit by some bad club lights and the glow of your MacBook display. Things are getting really interesting. Just ask Jonathan Thompson, a student who hacked Max for Live into an LED wall and got a blindingly-bright display […]

Novation’s Launchpad S: Brighter, Faster, Driverless, Friendlier with Other Apps [Artist How-to]

Novation’s Launchpad may have begun its life focused mainly on controlling Ableton Live. But a new update, while not radically different from the original, is more flexible, working with more software and more operating systems – including the iPad. It’s also brighter and refreshes faster than the original. Updated – for a newer Launchpad, check […]

Fractals, Bots, Nodes, and Patternists: Onyx Ashanti’s Cyborg Music Meets the Ensemble [Guest Post]

Get ready: from one more-than-human musical cyborg, a robotic horde of beatjazz artists. Onyx Ashanti isn’t satisfied just augmenting his own body and musical expression with 3D-printed, sensor-laden prostheses. He’s extending that solo performance with bots that crawl around and gesture for feedback, then – inspired by the organic beauty of fractal geometry – is […]

3D Light Painting How-To: iPad + Open Tools + LEGOs with Mickael Le Goff

Monark teaser (How to do 3D light-painting) from Mickael Le Goff on Vimeo. When photography meets generative visuals, where real-for-real techniques come together with digital imagery, some special things can happen. Take the surprisingly-effective technique of 3D light painting. If you don’t closely follow our sister music site, you may have missed NI’s Monark synth. […]

Freehand Playable Circles, in Any Tuning, on iPad: New Orphion Editor

Design is the art of compromise. And so, as the touch tablet asks you to sacrifice some things – velocity sensitivity, physical separation, tactile feedback – it gives back the ability to produce freeform interfaces. The iPad’s downside is that it is a piece of undifferentiated glass; its upside is that that glass can transform […]

Loss for Words: Noah Pred’s Stuttering Vocal Beats, in Video, Release of the Day

From a completely different musical pole, it’s nice to follow up Jelena Glazova’s thoughts about vocals, poetry, and Dada with a dance track, Noah Pred’s “Loss for Words.” Transplanted from Toronto to Berlin, Thoughtless Music’s Noah Pred has helmed one of the smarter dance labels out there, channeling energies to and from the German capital […]

Voice as Surface and Artifact, in the Experimental Drone Music of Jelena Glazova [Listen]

Experimental noise art, drone music, and other forms – whatever you might call them – can unquestionably be an acquired taste. Absent the normal landmarks of harmonic and rhythmic structure, they raise questions about just what makes form – and accordingly, as a listener you can be lost in a unpleasantly-formless mass. But in the […]

Laura Ramirez in Rhythms of Light and Color, Live Visual Projects Worldwide [Reel of the Day]

The art of visualizing from Optikal Ink Lab on Vimeo. Among superstar VJs, one favorite is Bogotá, Colombia-based Laura Ramirez, aka Optika VJ. We’ve seen her monumental Space Invader mapping; here, she’s back with a wrap of a variety of projects. I don’t want to project (ahem) too much on the scene, but I have […]

Resolume's New Hardware Controller is a Joke, But Why Not Make it Real?

New Resolume Controller with Video Buttons from Resolume on Vimeo. In the world of technology, as improbable moves to real, concocting an April Fools joke is suddenly a new challenge. But maybe imagining the absurd, or even imagining a joke, is a good creative exercise. Whatever the deeper reason, I have to say looking at […]