Beats Bits Atoms: Fish Play with Cameras, Paint and Pixels and Light Become Sculpture

â—¥ BEATS, BITS, ATOMS from â—¥ panGenerator on Vimeo. Call it post-digital, call it tangible. But whatever you call it, there’s new work that skirts boundaries between the sculptural and the virtual, integrating physical media in ways that surprise and delight. In the latest projects of Polish-based collective panGenerator, shown recently in a solo show […]

Android, High-Performance Audio in 4.1, and What it Means – Plus libpd Goodness, Today

It’s called “Jelly Bean.” But a 4.1 version of Android might also be called, at last, a version of Android musicians will find tasty. (Those last versions were a bit more of the disgusting variety from Bertie Bott’s Every Flavor Beans; this is a bit more Jelly Belly.) Photo (CC-BY-SA) Hermann Kaser. Android devices may, […]

Pop-Up Video: Tesla, Synesthetic Hallucination, and Augmented Book Science

Nikola Tesla in Sound and Light from Marco Tempest on Vimeo. Digitally-enhanced magician Marco Tempest is back, here with a poignant message about the magic of science – the leaps of faith, and leaps of showmanship, required to turn scientific imagination into reality. Any opportunity to celebrate genius scientist Nikola Tesla, unjustly unsung relative to […]

MeeBlip Open Synth: Read Reviews, Hear It, See It

CDM, working with Reflex Audio in Canada, makes hardware. We would love for you to have it, so we’re doing two things. Through Sunday night, 11:59 PM North American Mountain time, we’re shipping our flagship synth for free. And, oh yeah, we’ll also start talking more about it. The sale is now over, but thanks […]

Reason Rack Extensions: What’s Good for Developers Might Be Good for Users, Too

Reason remains one of those tools that a whole lot of people use. So, the decision by Propellerhead to allow developer access to the Rack, the virtual array of modules in which you make sound, has been one of the fastest-trending music making stories of 2012. But it’s also big news for a wider audience: […]

Beats for Eva: Production Goodies Help One Woman Fight Cancer

Facing a health crisis, whether your own or a loved one’s, can be a serious challenge. It can make music making seem a remote activity. But here’s a case in which music production talent, the power to put together loops and tools, can help fight for someone’s health. What’s unique about this is that just […]

120 MB Picks Up Where MTV Experimental Vids Left Off [Berlin Launch Party + CDM, Videos]

It may be hard to recall, but back in its heyday, MTV was a champion of experimental audiovisuals, one that pushed the artwork further and spread new ideas, virally, to hungry creative masses. But no need to be nostalgic. We have seen the new MTV, and it’s the Internet. Pulling from YouTube, Network Awesome’s latest […]

Music Developer on Windows 8: A Leap Forward for Desktops; A Leap Backward for Metro, WinRT?

Steven Sinofsky showing Windows 8 last year. Photo (CC-BY) BUILDWindows. There’s good news and bad news on Windows 8 for music making. If you’re using Windows on a conventional, Intel PC, running conventional, desktop Windows apps, the news is really all good – really good. It’s still early days, but Windows 8 promises to be […]

Cinder, Smarter with Shapes and Timelines and Samples, Could Make Flash Jealous [Creative Coding]

A Golden Clock from Red Paper Heart on Vimeo. The Company, Bring To Light NYC from Andrea Cuius on Vimeo. Creative coding has blossomed into a full-fledged movement for getting expressive with screens, sound, and media. While much software remains a commercial, proprietary activity, these tools have demonstrated what a collective, free model can do. […]

Camp America Releases a CD Encased in LEGO Blocks [Album Pick]

A paper cover is one option if you’re looking for ways of making music releases physical and tangible. But Steven Cowley went to something a bit more unusual. A release of his one-man project Camp America comes with a bag containing 125 LEGO pieces, and instructions for building the case. Steven writes us as he […]