Leave it to the DIYer. Alex Pleninger’s name isn’t just marketing. This is one monster of a synth creation, looking and sounding like it was ripped, circuits still humming, from a wrecked UFO. Retro trackball, keyboard? Check. In-built computer display? Check. Makes … a mind-boggling array of sounds? Oh, yes. It’s retro-future goodness, powered by […]

You can see only his fingers and hear his voice, but that’s Wolfgang Palm narrating walk-throughs of his WaveMapper app, seen here last week. And he’s one important guy doing these screencasts. Hamburg-born Wolfgang built synths for Tangerine Dream, and developed ideas in wavetable synthesis and inter-synth communication that would come to impact every digital […]

Projection Mapping thoughts. Telenoika Mapping Workshop from Telenoika on Vimeo. The development of perspective illusion in Europe didn’t come from an individual artist. There was no single breakthrough moment. The refinement of the technique was a collective, communal activity, forged in workshops and apprenticeships. So, it’s fitting that the development of projection media around the […]

If you want to mash on some arcade buttons for your DJ or live set, your perfect hardware may have arrived. Sure, okay – you’ve seen this before. DJ TechTools followed up on their original, DIY-centric Midi Fighter with the swanky-looking Midi Fighter 3D. The industrial design was gorgeous, replacing the homebrewed original with a […]

Here’s digital music of a different variety: the stunningly-modern music of Hungarian composer Bela Bartók, transcribed for four electric guitars. Where’s the computer? Glad you asked: think computer music software (Notion, which looks lovely here), and an iPad and Bluetooth page turner. There’s no way you’re playing this string quartet and turning pages, unless you […]

resolume pack one. from beeple on Vimeo. Beeple is one of the stars of visualist culture, and his packs of motion graphics represent best of the breed. So, download these. Get inspired by them. And by all means, if you use them, use that Creative Commons license to share some of your own original content […]

According to legend, on Christmas Eve animals magically gain the ability to speak. If there’s a similar date for sound-making machines, it may have coincided with the work on the latest of two releases from a Mouse on Mars-curated netlabel. Mouse on Mars have quietly started “Recommended Records” as an online-only outlet of free, full-length […]

So, you want to go beyond conventional, piano-style keys and guitar frets. Even if the ultimate goal is hardware, the touch interface of iOS is a lovely blank canvas on which to experiment. In the latest app, the work of UK-based graphic designer Paul Betowski, the Theremin proves a jumping-off point to other instruments, like […]

Baarregaard & Briem – “Love With You” from Harald Haraldsson on Vimeo. It begins with the hopping groove of a house track, and it’s shot using only light, projection, and an array of empty bookshelves. But somehow in the volumes of those shelves, Icelandic director Harald Haraldsson creates an abstract expressionist composition, rotating in fragmented […]

It looks like it might be some sort of synthesis board game. But the grid above is actually a way of using touch to design new hybrid sounds. And it could appeal to both newcomers and synth die-hards alike. Wolfgang Palm must really like his iPad. The digital synthesis pioneer, the founder of classic maker […]