Splash alpha test from XY01 on Vimeo. Splash alpha test from XY01 on Vimeo. “Visual synths” go in a slightly different direction from general-purpose tools. They produce visuals generatively in a way that seems more like an instrument. Splash is one new effort to do that, and thanks to the Unity game engine, it boasts […]
Music
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Music Stories December 23, 2025
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Sonic Charge Permut8: All Your Lo-Fi Digital Mangling Effects in One Place
Permut8 is the kind of thing that inspires the dreams of people who love digitally-manipulated sound. From legendary Swedish developer Magnus Lindström (Malström in Reason, MicroTonic), it’s a digital delay gone very, very mad. Think delays, flangers, bit crushing, beat repeating, and “circuit-bent” digital insanity. The core of the idea is a 12-bit digital delay […]
Taking On Controversy, with RA Critics Roundtable, from Pressing Play to Running for the Border
Sometimes, it’s worth pushing pause on overheated blog diatribes and angry Facebook threads. Step away from the computer, you can have a real conversation. Resident Advisor, in the latest installment of their regular Critics roundtable, takes on three hot-button issues with a mix of people able to bring some nuance to the chatter. And since […]
Beck Uses Sheet Music, Illustrations in Place of an Album; Could “Sing it Yourself” Have a Future?
Before recording, there was simply music making. When you wanted to hear music, you had to find some actual living, breathing, fleshy musicians to make it happen. “Live” was the only kind of music. And prior to the record album, the mass publication of sheet music was the disruption that built a music industry. But […]
In Mutemath Projection Mapping, Rabbit Hole Creative Melds Image with Stage Setup
MUTEMATH Stage Projection Mapping from Rabbit Hole Creative on Vimeo. A rectangle behind performers can work. It can fit the content, and the stage picture. It’s just that, very often, it — doesn’t. Projection mapping in the tour for the band Mutemath isn’t just a way to create the illusion of three-dimensionality. It’s also a […]
Mapping Festival Issues 2013 Call for Works; Mapping Festival in Videos
Mapping Festival 2011 – Video documentation trailer from mappingfestival on Vimeo. Mapping Festival 2012 – Teaser from mappingfestival on Vimeo. Mapping Festival is simply one of the highest-quality festival venues for innovative visual work. Beyond just what “mapping” itself would describe, it’s consistently been a terrific filter for what Ilan Katin describes so eloquently in […]
Avid’s Sibelius Scoring Tool Marches On, But Without Its Creators, As Users Protest
As industry giant Avid reorganizes, user fears about the future of popular notation tool Sibelius continue to mount. The chief rival to MakeMusic’s Finale, Sibelius is widely used among composers, musicians, arrangers, engravers, and educators. Those users now fear not a dead Sibelius, sold off to some other party, but an undead tool. In this […]
Philips Thinks We Want a Giant Wave of LED Panels, Controlled By iPad – And They're Correct
LivingSculpture 3D module system from WHITEvoid on Vimeo. Visualism has gone far beyond just projection. Lighting continues to dazzle, blurring the lines between the image, object, pixel, and display, as LED panels produce new three-dimensional forms and animation. In a spectacular project for lighting giant Philips, Berlin-headquarted White Void, the interactive shop led by Christopher […]
Philips Thinks We Want a Giant Wave of LED Panels, Controlled By iPad – And They’re Correct
LivingSculpture 3D module system from WHITEvoid on Vimeo. Visualism has gone far beyond just projection. Lighting continues to dazzle, blurring the lines between the image, object, pixel, and display, as LED panels produce new three-dimensional forms and animation. In a spectacular project for lighting giant Philips, Berlin-headquarted White Void, the interactive shop led by Christopher […]
In Percussive Harmonies, A Record of a Year of Travel – Literally, on a Record [MeeBlip + Location Data]
Photos courtesy the artist. We have data in pictures, we have data in Facebook posts – why not data as music? In the latest data sonification project, the record of travel becomes an oddly-beautiful set of percussive harmonies. And it’s a “record” in every sense: artist and composer Brian House not only composes the data […]