What’s the sound of ten Stylophones buzzing? Truly awful — deliciously so. Answering the question on everyone’s mind, “how could we form a band using nothing but Stylophones, and what timbres would result?”, the Los Angeles-based troupe LA Stylophonic here plays original music for the stylus-controlled electronic instrument. Adding that many Stylophones together produces a […]

If you’re lamenting the demise of the dedicated Lemur display and multi-touch controller – since reincarnated as an iPad app – you might be intrigued by the Emulator. Like the Lemur, the Emulator uses a modular array of touch controls, with more than a casual nod at JazzMutant’s original. Here, though, the touch display is […]

Portrait of the ghost drummer from odaibe on Vimeo. You might not have the chance to reflect on it amidst all the delightful noise, but a drummer is engaged in an elaborate choreography as they play. Bartek Szlachcic a.k.a. odaibe found a way to visualize just that dance digitally, in spare, rotating forms in 3D, […]

You kneed KNAMM knobs. The Metasonix Wretch – photo (CC-BY-SA) Brandon Daniel. I sure hope we can look forward to Metasonix at NAMM – stuff that makes me love NAMM from someone who doesn’t. Trade shows aren’t what they used to be. For those of us who love music technology and the spirit of invention, […]

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 […]