A Synth Finds a LEGO-Brick Home; Do You LEGO Your Projects?

Snap, snap… LEGO bricks are at some point irresistible for making a synth housing. Our friends at DE:BUG point to a LEGO-built, circuit-bending synth. And the imaginary toy world of LEGO find their way into this instrumental housing. Creator freeformdelusion writes: ClearTone Synth with LFO inside a nice lego project box with a house, dog, […]

Cool Yule: Iceland’s Bedroom Community Spins Wintry, Eclectic Releases [Listen]

It’s easy to be bleak about new music releases, the vast quantities of new work spreading before you in their sameness like a blizzard – plenty of particles, but all a white wash. When feelings like that hit you – or the depressed mood that might strike during midwinter in the far reaches of the […]

2012 in Music Videos: 35 Videos, Eight Minutes – Go!

2012 Music Video Mashup from Renier Mouthaan on Vimeo. I want my music television. Someone spiked my egg nog, and I had the craziest dream. I dreamt all the major music videos of 2012 somehow ran end to end in a blur. And what a year it was – Korean pop and Elijah Wood’s arm […]

Cool Yule: Smart Austrian Ambient Electronica Album, Benefits Homeless

Call it experimental electro, ambient house… whatever the genre, Parque is smart, chilled-out music from Vienna. Full of cinematic cross-cuts and sharply-contrasted sound design, the EP “Amerika” is bathed in pleasantly-mellow melancholy. It’s only a debut, but an impressive one. The love and time put into production shines through. We’re pleased to introduce CDM reader […]

Cool Yule: Toy Company’s Free 8-bit/Lo-Fi Christmas Album, from Montreal

Whether you’re unwrapping presents or not, we’re spending these twenty four hours unwrapping some beautiful musical gifts: have a Yule that’s cool with fine, free/donationware releases. First in the queue… If unimaginative holiday music on endless repeat has given you the winter blues, the fine folks of Toy Company have the cure. The Montreal-based collective […]

From a Charlie Brown Christmas Tree, Endless Synthy Sonic Variations: Free Ableton Pack

At this time of year, we come together, hearts aglow, and celebrate the simple pleasure of how much fun field recording and sampling can be in sound design. Or something like that. If you want a broader or more religious message, I’m sure you’ll find no shortage elsewhere. Having successfully weathered Armageddon (whew!), our friend […]

Pinball Pianola: Pinball Game Meets a Piano in a Wild Constructed Instrument

Pinball Pianola from Lucas Abela on Vimeo. The mechanical and kinetic collide – literally – with the sonic, in a devilishly-inventive hybrid instrument that cross-breeds a pinball table with a piano. Australian artist Lucas Abela is joining us next month as part of CTM Festival: The Golden Age. In the meantime, he shares this work. […]

Flocking Forms of Strings, in New Visual Performance Set to Ligeti's Music

Partituira – Ligeti – {Excerpts} from Abstract Birds on Vimeo. In the visual etude “Partitura-Ligeti,” dense constructions of abstract three-dimensional shapes fold in on one another, as if the lines of the score’s staff have become living muscular tissue, materializing into an architecture of musical form that quivers and bends. Shapes and particles flock like […]

Flocking Forms of Strings, in New Visual Performance Set to Ligeti’s Music

Partituira – Ligeti – {Excerpts} from Abstract Birds on Vimeo. In the visual etude “Partitura-Ligeti,” dense constructions of abstract three-dimensional shapes fold in on one another, as if the lines of the score’s staff have become living muscular tissue, materializing into an architecture of musical form that quivers and bends. Shapes and particles flock like […]

Software Instruments, Freed From Sampler Formats: SFZ, Free Sounds, Free Sample Player

“Free As In Free Me From Proprietary Formats.” If you’re ready to explore sounds – as a novice sampler user or as an advanced sound developer – SFZ brings tidings of great joy. When they move from defining mere sounds or samples to describing whole instruments, sound designers need file formats. The problem has been […]