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, […]

“Panzer” is beyond any mobile studio you’ve ever seen. It’s basically a tank with speakers and a cockpit containing beat-making gear. (Mackie mixer, Roland sampler, Akai MPC, Korg KAOSS, as near as I can see, plus … the machinery to drive the tank.) From the description: Minidumper, Holz, Stahl, Kunstharz, Glasfaser, Audioequipment, Sound 2011 And […]

If you just want to fire up Renoise, the modern tracker/music production app, and not worry about the fact that its innards are hackable, you can. But for a reason why you might at least want to explore customization of this music tool, give the video above a look. It starts sleepy and slow … […]

Hard at work at Music Hack Day Montréal. Ed.: Hacking Web databases to search sounds, remixing tools to automatically create dub tunes, cameras to sequence and analyze images in new ways, Montréal hackers have been busy. Trevor Knight writes from the event with full coverage from Canada, latest outpost of this global music coding phenomenon: […]

You’ve seen a musician or two, no doubt, jamming away on a Moog synthesizer. But German band KARAT’s keyboardist Thomas Kurzhals really tears into it. Chris Stack, formerly of Moog and now producing the Experimental Synth series we cover with some regularity, shot this video interview / performance set, and tells us: I don’t think […]