By now, you’ve likely heard about the eye-popping, three-dimensional architectural live visuals for Amon Tobin’s immersively-transmedia tour ISAM LIVE. It’s clearly a new high water mark in live audiovisual experience. So, how were the visuals done, and who did them? Derivative, the developers and visual collective behind the Touch Designer software that powered the show, […]

Lovers of the grid for music control now get to reenact the scene in MGM’s The Wizard of Oz, stepping out of the world of black and white into one of color. The OhmRGB, the latest controller from Austin, Texas-based controller and custom hardware shop Livid Instruments, adds multicolor LEDs behind its array of controls. […]

Watch the full episode. See more loopdiver: The Journey of a Dance. In a recent documentary, US public-supported broadcaster PBS profiles Troika Ranch, the landmark New York dance company that fuses technology and movement. The collaboration of Dawn Stoppiello and Mark Coniglio, Troika has long been influential in finding ways of working with media. Coniglio’s […]

Nicolas JaarGet More: Nicolas Jaar, MTV Hive A few decades is a short time in the history of instruments. But something magical is happening: the electronic instrument, the computer, is finally easily shifting into performance scenarios, into improvisation, and into bands. (The performance features Livid’s Ohm64 and Ableton Live, with sax, guitar, and drums, at […]

Amidst the many examples of virtuoso finger drumming and pad performance on YouTube, here’s a potentially-inspiring jam produced by artist Teezva for Vestax. We must have missed this video in the NAMM deluge of last year, but it perhaps remains worth posting. It’s doubly so, as I still haven’t seen any of Vestax’s PAD-One hardware […]

Normally, you hear my voice in words on the screen, so here instead – courtesy the talented video crews at Toronto’s NXNE – is me communicating on camera, prior to a talk on tablets, music, and design. The conversation is one I find myself having with a lot of people these days offline, away from […]

In a world where videos can be afterthoughts, branding and promotion only, the label Ghostly International and founding artist Matthew Dear have been a beacon for real design. So, it’s little surprise that the new video for Matthew Dear’s “Slowdance” off Black City has taken time, and treats viewers to sumptuously-considered layers of texture. Put […]

In a world where videos can be afterthoughts, branding and promotion only, the label Ghostly International and founding artist Matthew Dear have been a beacon for real design. So, it’s little surprise that the new video for Matthew Dear’s “Slowdance” off Black City has taken time, and treats viewers to sumptuously-considered layers of texture. Put […]

In DAWs, there are the familiar names – MOTU DP, Pro Tools, SONAR, Ableton Live, Cubase, Apple Logic. All have functionality to recommend them – hence their longevity. But then, there’s one upstart that continues to win over fans: Reaper. Its developers actually advertise that its upgrades are evolutionary, not revolutionary – which may come […]

When musical traditions meet, handled by people with real mastery of their technique, wonderful things can happen. That can be true of master instrument builders, for one. I got a chance to hear the sounds of the Moog Lap Steel Guitar in June while meeting with the folks from Moog Music. It’s an incredibly-delicious instrument, […]