Look at Me, I’m Flying: SpaceNavigator Hardware + Blender

While poking around the site of that brilliant GLSL iPad app, among many wonderful goodies (see link below), I found this excellent demo of SpaceNavigator, the 3D control hardware. Got my SpaceNavigator in the mail today. It’s a 6-dof HID that works great with Blender. I threw together this test scene to get to grips […]

More Coding Fun on iPad, Android, Beyond: Play with GLSL's Magical OpenGL Goodness

Want to work on your coding chops, but get away from the slavery of your desk and your laptop? Want to stretch out on the couch – or the cramped confines of a bus or coach plane flight? (Hello, EasyJet!) We saw yesterday how you can work with your iPad and Processing, via Processing.js. Here’s […]

More Coding Fun on iPad, Android, Beyond: Play with GLSL’s Magical OpenGL Goodness

Want to work on your coding chops, but get away from the slavery of your desk and your laptop? Want to stretch out on the couch – or the cramped confines of a bus or coach plane flight? (Hello, EasyJet!) We saw yesterday how you can work with your iPad and Processing, via Processing.js. Here’s […]

The Music of 2011: Kid Kameleon Picks, Om Unit Mix, Techno Mix

We welcome new CDM contributor Matt Earp (Kid Kameleon) with a look back at tracks of 2011 you can queue up now, in 2012. Photo (CC-BY-SA) – and shot at – The Global Lives Project. Make a New Year’s Resolution you can keep: listen to great music every day. After all, providing creative input to […]

Leak the Future: Traktor Controller, Loads of Synths, Livid, Akai, Casio, Nord, and Teaser Tracking

The only good teasers are Malteasers. Photo (CC-BY-SA) Ranma Tim. Guess who’s gotten really bad at keeping a lid on upcoming product announcements? The manufacturers. We’re suddenly utterly awash with teasers. Yes, it seems from intentional leaks to advance campaigns, we’re now destined to see every significant new piece of music gear before we see […]

Exclusive: Metasonix Prototype VCO, the R-55 Thyratron – With Tubes

Metasonix, the maker celebrating the mad science of tubes for making wonderfully-terrible noises, reveals to CDM that next week they’ll unveil a new Voltage Controlled Oscillator. Behold, videos! From top: “A prototype R-55 thyratron VCO is controlled with a Makenoise Rene sequencer, with an R-54 VCO tuned to track along.” “A prototype R-55 thyratron VCO […]

Bitwig Introduces New Production+Performance Studio; Looks a Lot Like Ableton Live

For years, since the launch of Ableton Live, many have waited for a worthy rival, something that combines production and live performance for music users. Live isn’t without alternatives – Renoise, for instance, has earned some fans, though it isn’t necessarily built for live performance. But few provide the same real-time workflows. Bitwig, based in […]

Visual Code Sketching, to Go: Processing on the iPad, iPhone, Coming Soon

Processing has done wonders in popularizing for designers and artists the notion of using code to express visual ideas. Now, what if you didn’t have to fold the hinge of your laptop to explore ideas? What if it were as near as an iPhone or iPad? (Or, I suspect, other platforms, too?) PR0C3551N6 isn’t the […]

For Kids, and Grown-up Kids, Digital Puppetry with Kinect (openFrameworks)

The work by Theo Watson and team has been one of those magical technological revelations that makes people say “oh – that’s what that’s for.” Say computer vision or tracking, or show the typical demo of what these can do with interaction, and eyes glaze over. But make them work as puppetry, and somewhere deep […]

Touch to Control: Usine Learns Music Parameters with the Magic of OSC

Touchable tablets may be all the rage at the CES trade show, showcase to consumer-friendly gadgetry. But quietly, developer Sensomusic has accomplished multi-touch control of an open-ended music system on standard-issue PCs and accessories. They’ve pointed the way to just what this mechanism could be. The latest video isn’t terribly easy to see, but it […]