Visualize Music: A Video in Imaginary Worlds, an iPad App, from Herrmutt Lobby

Richard Colvaen – ‘Polimetria’ from Vlek Data on Vimeo. We enter worlds imaginary and realist, visual work in music videos and documentary and iPad user interfaces, today with our Belgian friends from Vlek. At top, a surrealist music video to Richard Volvean’s track “Polimetria.” I try to stay away from Belgian women, myself; they’re always […]

Gameplay, With Your Ears: Meltdown Lets You Squash Monsters Using Binaural Sound

Meltdown – Gameplay from Varun Nair on Vimeo. Crack – that snapping wood might just be something about to eat you! There is likely some evolutionary need for human hearing to be good at localizing sound in space. Whatever the reason, human perception is exceptionally precise when it comes to working out the position from […]

A Warmer Aspect: Follow Vlek From Brussels to Lithuania – And Off The Beat Grid

From Bruxelles to Vilnius. from Vlek Data on Vimeo. If you’re living in a place that makes you feel hot outside, this video – filmed in Belgium and bitter, wintry Vilnius Lithuania – will cool you down. And if you feel cold inside, this music just might warm you up. It’s the fitting companion to […]

Beatsurfing: At Last, a Controller for iPad That Lets You Draw Layouts Onscreen, “Surf” Controls

Beatsurfing – The Organic MIDI Controller Builder – Official Teaser from Vlek Data on Vimeo. There are already some exceptional touch controllers on iOS. But that means it’s doubly time for something new. Even among the best touch apps for iPad, there are some common themes. Layouts, if they’re editable at all, generally require a […]

Get Arturia minimoog-V, Free, Today Only [CET]

If you love that original Minimoog sound, but you’ve run out of space in your flat and money for used bank accounts and don’t like the notion of maintaining pots and oscillators and lifting heavy vintage gear, the Arturia minimoog-V remains a lovely, economical, liftable alternative. It’s the one software plug-in to receive the endorsement […]

Ethics, Business, Compensation, Music: In 98 Words, The Elephant in the Room

The biggest catastrophic event in artists earning a living is not the Internet, and it’s not piracy. It was the advent of recording. Some people got rich. Other working musicians wound up out of a job. If you pay attention to that history, it puts recent changes in a different context and on a different […]

Selling and Promoting Music: When You Come to a Fork in the Road, Take It?

I believe it’s possible to be a responsible business, and to be a responsible consumer. When you’re the business lecturing your consumers on what they should be doing, well, that can produce an awkward situation. Let’s leave it at saying that a certain blog post stating obvious things has resulted in what can best be […]

Animated GIFs, From Ancient Internet History to Modern Digital Fashion

It’s more than nostalgia or retro charm. Somehow, as we reflect on early digital creations through modern filters, we see something oddly new. And so it is with the animated GIF. In an unusually-frenetic video from the USA’s viewer-supported public broadcaster, PBS, you can trace the animated GIF from its early history through some surprisingly-fresh […]

Microsoft Unveils Two Surface Tablets, But Questions Abound: Will They Hold a Tune?

The iPad has proven a tablet can be a powerful tool for music. It’s also been mostly alone. Android-powered tablets have suffered from lackluster audio performance. Compound that with low popularity in the marketplace and fragmented OS updates, and the platform has largely scared music developers away. Android devices also lack the richness of the […]

Dance and Photography Combine Beautifully in Music Video for The Mast

Plenty of music videos resort to the “just shoot a dancer, dancing about” formula. But a video by Haale Gafori for The Mast proves simply transcendent. High-speed photography captures every percussive twitch of the dancer, who explodes clouds of particles (flour?) against a void-like black. It’s elegantly shot and edited, finally interpersing shots that project […]