Sleight of Hand with Screens, iPod Magic, and Marco's Ruminations on the Power of Deception

Techno-wizardry and eye candy aside, make no mistake: as artists, we engage every day the essence of truth and deception. So, while magician Marco Tempest’s hands are fleet, his magician-trained choreography slick, and his coordinated mobile screens impressive, it’s the message behind the medium that’s most poignant. To me, at least, Marco has something to […]

Sleight of Hand with Screens, iPod Magic, and Marco’s Ruminations on the Power of Deception

Techno-wizardry and eye candy aside, make no mistake: as artists, we engage every day the essence of truth and deception. So, while magician Marco Tempest’s hands are fleet, his magician-trained choreography slick, and his coordinated mobile screens impressive, it’s the message behind the medium that’s most poignant. To me, at least, Marco has something to […]

An Orchestra of Lightbulbs Makes a Canopy for Theatrical Performance, in Cinder Code

Drawing from historical lightbulbs, powered by creative code (the open source, C++ tool Cinder), “So… I was at a party last night” is a symphony in responsive electric lights. The reactive portion is relatively simple – sound analysis switches lights off and on in clusters – but the objects themselves move to the fore. The […]

A Glimpse of the Soundplane Controller, Innovative Tactile Multi-Touch, in the Lab; Call to Action

Alder Soundplane prototype with blanks of reclaimed redwood and Doug Fir. Photo by Randy Jones; used by permission. On tablets, on displays, multi-touch control these days is calibrated largely as a software interface – more Starship Enterprise panel than violin. As such, it works well for production tools and exploring compositional ideas. But it falls […]

Madrona’s Randy Jones on Aalto Soft Synth, Designing a New Instrument, Small Makers

Patching together unique sounds on the classic Buchla 100 was an impetus for a new software instrument by Randy Jones – just released for Windows. Photo (CC-BY) guiltyx/roll_initiative. Software can easily enough emulate, down to each knob and patch cord, a vintage synthesizer. But can a genuinely new software synth incorporate the ideas about instrument […]

An Eclectic Mix of Sounds for Joplin, MO Recovery, as Charity Compilations Gain Momentum

CDM regular Zaxx Davros sends word of a new, sprawling compilation to benefit Joplin, Missouri in the aftermath of that town’s devastating tornado. Charity compilations seem to be growing in number, but perhaps that in itself is worth mentioning. As social networks and (ahem) blogs spread, increasingly crowd-stimulated micro-donations drive charity. One-click giving is no […]

Comaduster: Scrape – Audiovisual Work, Made from Macro Photography

Seen at Mutek, Comaduster’s piece “Scrape” is a sumptuous, sensual photographic feast of macro imagery. Amidst audiovisual work that has tended to narrow aesthetic bands like minimalism or slick 3D futurism, I find work like this stimulating as a suggestion of the kind of explorations to come. With digital media wide-open by design, there’s really […]

Not Quite Sibelius for iPad, but Avid Scorch Could Become an iTunes of Notation

Let’s get this out of the way first: if you’re looking for a tool for composing and editing scores on your iPad, Avid Scorch isn’t it — not yet, at least. But as a score reader, Scorch could be a glimpse of a future in which tablets create a new marketplace and exchange for notated […]

Les Paul Google Doodle Gives Us… Google Homepage, The Song, by Tim Exile

Electronic musician, vocalist, and inventor Tim Exile is back; while the Google Doodle today of an interactive Les Paul inspired lots of people to invest some time fiddling and hacking, in Tim’s case, it inspired a whole song. And, to my knowledge, it’s the first time the homepage of Google got its own ode. Bet […]

Les Paul Google Doodle, Animated – and Scripted with SuperCollider

Electric guitar pioneer Les Paul is one of the all-time greats in music instrument invention, so the guy clearly deserves an animated Google Doodle of his creation that you can play. Strum chords, pluck with the mouse, and even record phrases on Google’s homepage. (See video, above.) Since Google Doodles are archived – and since […]