Writing code for music may still seem a remote notion to the vast majority of even geekier digital musicians, but as exemplified by the language Overtone, it looks very different than coding once did. Whereas sound code was once a type-and-render affair, new coding environments focus on live coding. They use elegant, lightweight modern languages […]

Okay, I think this may be some of the best / worst promotional marketing I’ve seen for music software. It runs something like this: Do you want to be just like Jamie Lidell? The answer is as close as the iTunes App Store and your portable device. Just download Native Instruments’ iMaschine app to your […]

Montreal-based Damian Taylor, music director and engineer for Björk, is the subject of an epic interview on cycling74.com, spanning music, life in Montreal, working with Björk and what makes her special, and what patching in Max/MSP can mean compositionally and creatively. Damian has some especially nice reflections on what having an open-ended music environment can […]

Touch on devices like the iPad is functional, but limited in its expression – there’s no pressure or tactile feedback. That’s why we’ve enthusiastically followed Randy Jones’ “continuous capacitive sensing” technology on the Soundplane for some time. Sensing pressure, it behaves more like an acoustic instrument might – that is, if such an acoustic instrument […]

Photo (CC-BY) Mo Riza. Thoughts on Steve Jobs’ departure on Create Digital Music: Bicycles for the Mind See also my thoughts from August – for anyone concerned for the future of Apple, I still believe that leaving behind a company that can go on in his absence may be Jobs’ latest accomplishment as a leader. […]

Just before I got the news tonight, I was riding a newly-purchased bicycle over Berlin’s Eisenbrücke, and thinking again about the way Steve Jobs described the computer – as a bicycle for the mind. It was something about feeling effortless speed, all from something that needs no fuel, that made it hit me. I can […]

Drink up — just not too much, or your playing could wind up a tad … jittery. Photo (CC-BY) Lali Masriera). Let’s get together and play music. The Morning Music & Coffee Consumption series, an informal gathering of artists, aims to do just that. The assumption about digital music production may be very different – […]

Wireframe tools are all the rage, but you have to take particular note of the design work done by Adobe Proto – partly because they’re an industry heavyweight, but also because the app itself is generally cool. (Why Adobe then insists on dry presentations of cool apps, I have no idea. Anyone want to do […]

You’ll know live visualism has arrived when visualists regularly “headline” the way music does. But if you’re tired of waiting, look no further than Western Pennsylvania, where Pittsburgh’s spectacular Via Festival this week is doing it right. See what they’re doing for a great example of what’s possible when visualists and musicians meet — and, […]

You’ll know live visualism has arrived when visualists regularly “headline” the way music does. But if you’re tired of waiting, look no further than Western Pennsylvania, where Pittsburgh’s spectacular Via Festival this week is doing it right. See what they’re doing for a great example of what’s possible when visualists and musicians meet — and, […]