Look at a music software interface – particularly a tracker-style interface – and you might easily see something resembling a spreadsheet. So, why not gaze into the cells of a spreadsheet and begin to imagine music? Karlsruhe-based electronic artist and programmer Patrick, cappel:nord, had just such a flight of fancy about office software. He explains:

Look past the plug-ins and controllers and hosts that work with controllers and iPads sitting in docks and such. If you like dedicated, analog monosynth hardware, life is actually pretty darned good. Okay, so for those of you without deep pockets, you may not know some of the back story here. Moog’s limited-edition Taurus 3 […]

Looks like an MPC. Should sound like an MPC. But for the first time, something called “MPC” that relies on your computer. Good news or bad news? We’ll know soon enough. The MPC name and MPC legend are as big as ever. But the current products? Not so much. Let’s face it: Akai could use […]

As the sun sets over CDM contributor Matt Ganucheau’s Bay Area home, we gaze back into 2011, with a mix of music you can enjoy through another year. Photo courtesy Mr. Ganucheau. You’re back from (for many) holidays, back online, back at work, facing or embracing a new year. What better time to energize your […]

How do you hear? What do you hear? Coming to agreement about something rooted in perception is by definition a doomed exercise. But that means the best thing to do is not so much to agree as to talk about the music – about what you hear – and not just the labels. Amidst glib […]

CO2 Cube from Obscura Digital on Vimeo. It’s an older project, but no less timely: speaking of Obscura Digital’s work, they’ve also employed projection as a way to illustrate in tangible terms a serious issue. You’ll hear climate scientists speak in terms of metric tons of emissions. But because we can’t see those emissions, and […]

CO2 Cube from Obscura Digital on Vimeo. It’s an older project, but no less timely: speaking of Obscura Digital’s work, they’ve also employed projection as a way to illustrate in tangible terms a serious issue. You’ll hear climate scientists speak in terms of metric tons of emissions. But because we can’t see those emissions, and […]

Look around the room you’re in. Drum your fingers against some of the objects around you. Now imagine that you could turn those touches into any imaginable sound – and all you’d need to play them is a single contact mic. And we’re not talking just simplistic sounds – think expressive, responsive transformation of the […]

Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque Projections from Obscura Digital on Vimeo. Illuminating the facades of United Arab Emirates mosque and historical architecture with extraordinary imagery, Obscura Digital transformed these structures with visuals both decorative and cultural. It’s a visually-rich celebration of Arabic and Emirati culture, and one of the developers – absurdly-prolific artist and geek virtuoso […]

PIXXELPOINT 2011 from aljoša abrahamsberg on Vimeo. Via Aljoša Abrahamsberg, an extended, 30-minute documentary of the PIXXELPOINT media festival reaches us, covering the happenings of this international digital media festival out of Nova Gorica, Slovenia last month. Not all in English, but more than enough English and images to look at. I also love their […]