USB3 + Apple Update from NI; Your Best Bet — Wait

Native Instruments, whose hardware was some of the first to prompt reader compatibility reports, now has issued a statement. I had hoped for more background on what’s actually going on – we’ll keep pressing vendors to tell us more – but the short-term advice on the MacBook Pro and Air and their USB3-only ports is […]

MIDI Control Platform: One Open Box, Any Notes, Harmonies, and Rhythms [Gallery]

What if you just had a box that crunched MIDI data? In the realm of DIY hardware, ideas tossed aside by the bigger music tech market thrive. And so, we have the MIDI Control Platform, a poplar wood and lasercut-aluminum box with basic controls and a graphic display. It’s a box that does … well, […]

With 'This Exquisite Forest,' Animations That Evolve, Collaboratively

With all this talk about the future of art being in browser windows and such, you might forget to ask the question – why? What will it actually look like? Artist Aaron Koblin has been, perhaps more than any one artist, someone who has pondered what form art made by online crowds might take. His […]

With ‘This Exquisite Forest,’ Animations That Evolve, Collaboratively

With all this talk about the future of art being in browser windows and such, you might forget to ask the question – why? What will it actually look like? Artist Aaron Koblin has been, perhaps more than any one artist, someone who has pondered what form art made by online crowds might take. His […]

Music in the Browser: A Soundtrack from a Crowd, A Keyboard for a Mouse

Slowly but surely, the web audio API creeps toward being something that’s usable in more than one browser at a time. In the meantime, we get a glimpse of how generative music could be a part of what’s to come. It’s a long way from those horrid, looping audio files that plagued the Web in […]

The 150-Button, 4-Deck, Obsessive-Compulsive Traktor Controller: 4TrackTrigger [Gallery]

Oh, sure, other controllers may be sleek and compact. They may have spacious, easy-to-hit controls. But if “pushing buttons” has been controversial, well… some DJs want more buttons to push. Some want something a little over the top. Meet the 4MidiLoop 4TrackTrigger. It’s nothing if not a maximalist DJ controller. And with a build from […]

Touching Beams of Light: An Otherworldly Laser Interaction Prototype

Laser interaction prototype from jayson on Vimeo. Interaction design isn’t just input. Output can transform a simple demo into something that seems to bend reality. Melbourne-based artist Jayson Haebich sends over a laser interaction prototype he’s creating. The results seem like science fiction, as though he’s opening jump gates with his fingers. It’s almost exclusively […]

Pixels, Sublime, as Side-Scrolling Gaming Meets Tabla Music

BARABARIBALL TRAILER from noah on Vimeo. Aesthetics can collide, just like a sprite against a wall – to coin a game phrase. Glitchy digital can live alongside traditional South Asian music. Just watch this oddly-soothing, moving footage of a wonderful-looking side-scrolling game for a window into the creative energy of yet another indie game wonder. […]

Music Performance as Real-Time Special Effect: Kinect Jamming Gets More Futuristic

The V Motion Project from Assembly on Vimeo. It’s all real – in a manner of speaking. And it’s all real-time. But just what is a live performance made with cameras, gestures, and projection? It’s worth watching The V Motion Project and pondering those possibilities, amidst the flashy visual eye candy. It’s certainly optically impressive. […]

Circuit-Modeled Dynamics, Plus One Free Plug-in, From FXpansion

Quietly, FXpansion have been making some well-loved, circuit-modeling instruments in the DCAM series. They may not be a household name, but just ask around artists – producers I know consistently bring up the DCAM name and just talk about it sounding damned good. Now, DCAM turns to processing and not just synths. DCAM Dynamics is […]