Intricacy, Organic Form, and Perception Games: Jennifer Steinkamp’s 3D Animations

Steinkamp’s organic 3D projections, up close, as constructed in pixels. Image (CC-BY) Mike Linksvayer. Visualist/VJ and motion graphics artist Annapurna returns to CDM – see her kick-off post in which she talks about her own work. In a medium where too often people are interested only in the newest thing, the latest Vimeo upload, devoid […]

Good Listening: Chris Randall’s ‘Particulate’ Pulses with Obsessively-Constructed Sound, Apple II Nostalgia

Chris Randall’s Apple IIc display shows off the elementary beauty of alphaSyntauri. Photo (CC-BY-NC) Chris Randall, via Flickr. Global availability of music may not have silenced the usual gripes about musical quality and diversity, even if they should. But the Web is providing a place for people to share music with other music-making enthusiasts, sharing […]

Image-Line Unveils Additive Harmor Synth, Beta of Fruity Loops for Mac – via WINE

Didier Dambrin, FL Studio’s original creator, has a new synth entitled Harmor that looks like one to watch. There’s a beautiful crop of new synthesizers this season that could have you yearning for a winter spent with long nights somewhere deep in the Northern Hemisphere, producing new music – see also, to name just one, […]

Rumors Mounting for Imminent Logic Pro X, a la Final Cut Pro X; No-Brainer Speculation

I generally avoid commenting on Apple rumors, lest I find a severed horse head atop my MacBook Pro, but this one seems simply to be obvious. Apple took a radical approach to Final Cut Pro X (and Motion), giving them full overhauls and new UIs, 64-bit support, and distribution through the online Mac App Store […]

Amon Tobin Soliciting Fan Videos

Amon Tobin and company are soliciting fan videos for inclusion in a Ninja Tune DVD box set and for streaming online. Quick description: We are collecting fan made videos of Amon’s work for an upcoming DVD release. Please submit your videos here and review the “Terms” within the forum: vimeo.com/​groups/​106265/​forumthread:244568 Deadline for the project is […]

Reader Mail: Another Demo of the Analog Drum Machine, Tempest

Can’t get enough of the upcoming drum machine, Tempest, by Roger Linn and Dave Smith? Reader Josh Decker sends in this video by Josh’s friend Rob Baker, aka Redivider, tearing up the machine as a performance instrument. Also, follow the comment thread on our previous post for some follow-up from Dave Smith Instruments to reader […]

Dodecahedronists, Unite: An Audiovisual Controller, Gestures and Polyhedra, Open Hardware

I love this controller, but I think we should keep it Platonic. Solid. Sorry, geometry humor. See, the controller in question is constructed as a convex regular polyhedron, such that all its faces are themselves congruent regular polygons meeting at each vertex, and … uh, never mind. Above, a stunningly gorgeous video from Polish media […]

Grabbing Invisible Sounds with Magical Gloves: Open Gestures, But with Sound and Feel Feedback

You might imagine sound in space, or dream up gestures that traverse unexplored sonic territory. But actually building it is another matter. Kinect – following a long line of computer vision applications and spatial sensors – lets movement and gestures produce sound. The challenge of such instruments has long been that learning to play them […]

Good Listening: Heathered Pearls Mixes, from Helmsman of Moodgadget

This week holds for me lots to talk about on CDM, lots to teach, lots to make – and for many of our readers, it’s an action-packed week coming back from summer vacation and/or a long weekend. So, let’s start it off right with some good music. Jakub Alexander is a Brooklyn-based DJ whose work […]

Music Band, Animated: Wondrous Projection Mapping Makes Instruments Canvas

Beyond the immediate, and fleeting, novelty of seeing images fitted perfectly to three-dimensional objects, you need something to actually watch. Here, new work from Melbourne-based artist Chris Staring is splendidly fanciful: a band of assembled musical instruments is immersed in animation, a bit like walking into Toontown in Roger Rabbit. In fact, speaking of Disney, […]