Electronic musicians have known for some time that the ability to get hands-on control can make something feel live – and alive. It’s just as true for real-time control of animation. At last, animation is getting that real-time, performative feel in the newest generation of software. For fans of the 3D tool Cinema4D, that makes […]

It’s like musical survival training. Quick: you’re stuck in a hotel. Can you make some music? Our friend Recue, aka Riku Annala, was unexpectedly being stranded in a hotel and made it into a musical opportunity. The results are damned fine listening. (Thank whatever act of God / airlines prompted this.) You can enjoy the […]

Pure Data is a wonder: a free and open source environment for creating your own musical and multimedia creations with graphical programming, from Miller Puckette, the original creator of Max. You can produce everything from interactive sequencers and drum machines to synths to video performance tools by connecting patch cables visually, and you can run […]

We’ve passed from Record Store Day to Earth Day – and here’s the perfect segue. Having ventured into the woods to find a music release, now we can hear trees transformed, by way of sampling, into catchy rhythms. Our friend Diego Stocco, that evergreen source of creative timbres, now makes everything from trees to beans […]

If you’re heading out into the wilderness to find a record store, why not actually head out into the wilderness – the one with trees – and find music there? Today, a you’ve no doubt heard, is Record Store Day. The official site is a useful resource, today and around the year. Today brings a […]

If you’re trying to tackle visual programming to move your art forward, know this: you’re not alone. And so it is that Mike Todd writes us to share Andrew Benson’s ongoing series of Jitter tutorials. I remember reading Andrew’s tutorials years ago, but the guy just keeps going – “recipe” number 50 for Max/MSP’s matrix/visual […]

On a tremendous three-screen rig at Nantes, France’s new Stereolux venue, Berlin-based u-matic and telematique show off their latest custom Jitter rig. By networking their machines, they’re able to collaborate; Syphon lets them separate the generative tools from the mixer (an increasingly-nice solution on the Mac). The results are geometric and abstract, fitting the Berlin-themed […]

This collection of Instagram photos inspired an ambient compilation at the end of last year – one well worth adding to your listening queue now. Since then, challenges opened to a community on SoundCloud have produced hundreds of terrific tracks – and the latest weekly challenge is on now, with a deadline midnight Monday. Where […]

Just the mention of Italy tickles the art nerves in a lot of us, from its history to its ongoing culture. If that appeals to you, don’t miss this open call for a terrific festival at the beautiful Villa Tittoni Traversi in Desio, Italy (outside Milan). The Kernel Festival will feature digital and visual art, […]

How do you visualize the invisible? How do expose a process with multiple parameters in a way that’s straightforward and musically intuitive? Can messing about with granular sound feel like touching that sound – something untouchable? Music’s ephemeral, unseeable quality, and the ways we approach sound in computer music in similarly abstract ways, are part […]