57 Producers Make One House Track: Hakan Lidbo’s World Record Record, Meaningful Dance Music

You’ll sometimes hear people complain that there are too many producers in the world. Fine. Let’s have them collaborate on finishing tracks, en masse. With that many cooks in the kitchen, though, you’ll want one master chef in charge of the result. So it’s good news that Swedish production guru HÃ¥kan Lidbo takes the helm […]

Video: Machinedrum Meets Analog Four Effects with Dataline – And Yes, Machinedrum Does MIDI

Elektron’s upcoming analog sequencer/synth is also an effects unit, and it was born to do the kind of rhythmic hands-on music manipulation you see here. In the latest video from Elektron superfan and hardware-loving musician MrDataline, we get to see the combination of Elektron’s classic Machinedrum with the just-about-to-be-released Analog Four. And really, this is […]

Classic KORG Polysix, Reimagined for iPad, Becomes All-in-One Workstation

In designing for Apple’s mobiles, KORG has again turned to equipment from their past. Having reinterpreted the ElecTribe and MS-20, their newest target is the versatile, classic Polysix. The 1981 original brought programmable polyphony to keyboard lovers, with analog oscillators, memory storage, six-voice polyphony, and various effects and modulation. For iOS, Korg models that sound […]

Hope: In Piano Gestures and Glitches, a Gorgeous Free Compilation from Japan

kaiwa; from mitsuru shimizu on Vimeo. Quietly melancholic piano gestures and reversed piano hammer strokes collide like waves against glitch-infused rhythms in hope3.0, the output of elementperspective. The “sound & design label” from Osaka weaves together a diverse group of promising Japanese artists, showing in many cases sonic maturity that belies their young average age. […]

Hack Art: How A Discarded BTX Terminal, Found on the Street, Returned to Life

Here, when we talk about salvaging old electronics, we really mean salvaging. The basis of Shechina ex machina by artist and VJ/visualist Kiritan Flux (aka Tobias Frederik Last) was an object found on the street. The way it became a working display again provides a glimpse into how outmoded electronics might live on. The Berlin-based […]

Windows 8 for Desktop Music Making: Faster, No Reason *Not* to Upgrade

“Windows 8,” in Microsoft brand vaguery, can refer to all sorts of technologies, from infamous new sets of colored tiles that mostly confuse users to touch-enabled ultrabooks to tablets to Surface to Surface Pro, from computers that run Intel chips that run traditional Windows software to ones with ARM chips that don’t. In the near […]

Elektron Analog Four Preview: Four Voices, Step Sequencer, All The Trimmings [Video, Audio]

Following its endless teasers and science fiction mini-movies, Swedish machine maker Elektron this week has announced features, specs, and preorder pricing for its Analog Four synth/sequencer, along with some sample sounds and a promo vid. It’s also been immortalized in a wonderful image, above, by artist eBoy. Just in case you needed a version to […]

Glitch: Exquisite Textiles, Made from a Circuit-Bent Point-and-Shoot Camera

As winter’s chill sets in, any self-respecting lover of digital visual distortions will no doubt be curling under the protective warmth of a glitch blanket. New York-based artist Phillip David Stearns, himself a kind of guru of glitch, has produced detailed, organic patterns spun out of camera hacks. Via machine knitting and weaving, complex, non-repeating […]

Rendered Toy Theater: 'Brave New World' Short, Set in Rotating Box

Brave New Old from Adam Wells on Vimeo. In electronic animation, there really are no limits to space or object. The challenge can become, then, grounding motion in the physical. Adam Wells sends CDM his short “Brave New World,” which has been making the festival circuit. It takes a novel approach, setting the action in […]

Rendered Toy Theater: ‘Brave New World’ Short, Set in Rotating Box

Brave New Old from Adam Wells on Vimeo. In electronic animation, there really are no limits to space or object. The challenge can become, then, grounding motion in the physical. Adam Wells sends CDM his short “Brave New World,” which has been making the festival circuit. It takes a novel approach, setting the action in […]