Synths meet monkeys. Photo: Andreas Tilliander. Composer and Swedish dance music maestro Håkan Libdo has been a constant source of experimentation. But his latest project yields zoo-like new adventurousness. Six species of monkeys are equipped with synthesizers to test the question of whether playing a synth is really playing music – or if it’s so […]

Features come and features go. As upgrades go, Traktor 2.5 has plenty to recommend it – plus, it’s free for current Traktor 2 users, meaning you probably don’t need anyone’s advice to try it out. So, then, the question is: will tools mean that the DJ gigs you hear be any different? There’s nothing wrong […]

File another project under “project imagery everywhere.” In the latest illusory technique for merging digital visuals with the physical environment, this uses motors to make the visually-activated object to seem fully virtual. It’s also another example of goodness with vvvv and the ubiquitous “interfacing with the real world” platform, Arduino. (Side note: it was a […]

This may sum up how I feel about this project. It almost certainly embodies how composer Jim Guthrie must have felt, as a who’s who of Japanese game music takes on his work. Photo (of the Tokyo Game Show, natch) (CC-BY) kanegen. Sword & Sworcery, the iPad album-as-game, has gotten plenty of love from this […]

We hear you: amidst the various music doodling tools calibrated for casual taps on a phone screen, you want something you can actually make your own with your own sounds. Here’s one example of that: triqtraq. It’s got the “tap it on the bus to improvise a pattern” feel of some of the apps we’ve […]

Photo: Chris Stack. Obscure and famous, people touch us in creative ways, ways that reverberate in patterns that reach clarity at odd times. With just such a story, our last entry in Bob Moog’s birthday this week, from Moog Music veteran and experimentalsynth.com artist Chris Stack: Driving a truck into the night, headed to Nashville […]

You’re not, in fact, a lonely bedroom musician with no friends. You’ve got friends. You’ve got collaborators. You’ve got audio and visual artists who want to play with your laptop with sync piped between you, and yet wireless synchronization for laptop performance has often been an elusive ideal. Here, in spectacular fashion, you can see […]

To close out today’s celebration of Dr. Robert Moog’s birthday, here’s a letter that captures an extraordinary moment in time. It’s a reminder, too, that we also live in extraordinary times today, moments that we can appreciate for their potential, without the benefit of hindsight. Today or tomorrow is the birthday of some new electronic […]

Toy theater moves from the epic facade of a grand performance space to something scaled, in human terms, to miniature. Projection mapping can do the same thing. Just ask artist Tonner Vi. As writer Erica Gonsales has chronicled for The Creators Project, the Colombian artist has though small – egg crate small. The results can […]

Let’s get this out of the way: musicians are not a “niche” group. Recording has done some damage to the popular practice of live music, but still, you’ll find an astonishing number of people play instruments and sing. (New pop culture phenomena like Glee, the Guitar Hero/Rock Band games, and the resurgent TV talent show […]