If you’re looking to give your ears one last adventure this weekend, I highly recommend the stream of an upcoming full-length from Joshua Kay and Romulo del Castillo, recording as Phoenecia. On Josh’s Schematic label, the work hits the far reaches of electronic sound design, in an always-satisfying, soundtrack-like tapestry of musical exploration. It has […]

VJs and visual artists remixing video have long simply grabbed what they want, when they want it. But now, the community increasingly faces a choice: will it play by the rules? The payoff could be more than moral good will or karma. If visual artists begin working with Creative Commons-licensed materials, they’ll add the incentive […]

Techno originator Juan Atkins. Now, dance music may finally be coming home properly to stay. Photo (CC-BY-SA) Adrien Mogenet. Any one of us, myself included, may break at any moment into armchair analysis of the music scene. But it’s worth asking an expert. Taste-setting, deeply influential DJs Pete Tong and Gilles Peterson of BBC Radio […]

Preparing for a live gig. Photo (CC-BY) Jaymis Loveday, from whom we do hope to hear again on CDM. Visualist. VJ. Live visuals. Visual performance. Live cinema. Whatever you call it, we want to know what you use. What’s on your screen when you boot your Mac, Windows, or Linux laptop — or iPad or […]

Matt Davis [namethemachine] is seen here with Microsoft’s Kinect computer vision / 3D camera controller, plus – stealing the show – lasers. The lasers in question are a rig by Henry Strange, which allows computer control of laser direction using the DMX protocol. (DMX is a protocol similar to MIDI – though actually a bit […]

While Ableton’s logo is stamped on Novation’s Launchpad and Akai’s APC, there’s a lot to be said for the tried and trusted Faderfox as a controller for Live. The work of one man – German designer Mathias – these controllers run a bit pricier than some of their rivals but deliver great-feeling controls and ultra-compact […]

Photo courtesy Moog Music. The earliest major analog electronic instrument meets laptop, as artist Dorit Chrysler demonstrates the power of her voice and musicianship in the Moog Sound Lab. How it works: To function as a one woman band, Dorit triggers a prerecorded backtrack on her laptop, adding vocals and theremin in real time. At […]

Zoom’s R8 promises to be everything you’d ever want to take with you on the go in one device. If they’ve pulled it off, it could be more invaluable in your backpack than even your computer. The R8 is a little bit of everything: stereo recording, multitrack editing, a 2×2 audio interface, an 8-voice sampler […]

ArKaos is a long-standing name in VJ apps, as one of the tools that defined the genre in the 90s. GrandVJ has been gradually evolving with a more modern foundation, marked by a simple, musical, performance-oriented interface and high-performance playback. Its engine is the same as powers high-end media servers – but at a fraction […]

On Create Digital Motion today, I write about the 1.5 release of ArKaos GrandVJ, the latest version of the popular Mac and Windows VJ tool. The big innovation: insert a VST plug-in into software like Ableton Live, and you can pipe MIDI and audio to your live visuals for easy synchronization and collaboration. You can […]