Audiovisual artist Mandelbrut, based in Toronto, is doing some stunning work with audio-reactive vectors and intense programmed sounds. We’ll be talking to the artist hopefully next week, but rather than wait, I’d love to put it out to you, our readers. Got questions you’d like to ask? Critical reactions? I hope to do an interview […]

Whether you’re an absolute beginner – or just want to help turn on a friend or bandmate to computer music production – starting at the very beginning is indeed a very good place to start. So, it’s nice to see Ableton’s official channel this month covering the very first steps of working with their flagship […]

Great video and documentation from comes our way from Eric Medine: Documentation of generative visuals applications I built using the Processing platform, ported to the Android OS and run on an HTC Evo. Output is 1080×720 over HDMI to a Vizio LCD display. Although the EVO has an HDMI output for video, the drivers are […]

Renoise 2.7 is now available, following some eight weeks of testing by the community. The update, which the developers describe as “back to the beats” in reference to focusing in this release cycle on musical workflow, delivers plenty of features that make the modern tracker more modern. I wrote about them back in March, with […]

In the never-ending quest to find just the right combination of faders and knobs for piloting your music, here’s a thought: add expansion capabilities. An upgrade to the Block, a grid grid and knob control surface by boutique Texan maker Livid, does just that. And for good measure, they’ve got a short-run iPad dock alternate, […]

Killer app: live HD visual performance. Okay… yeah, we’re crazy. While it’s not relevant to this story, this particular graphic of the Xoom has an interesting feature – the gray areas illustrate thumb range on the form factor. Photo (CC-BY) Nick Butcher. Clear all the tablet hype away, and consider this: if someone told you […]

Apple users may not know the name – FL Studio, formerly Fruity Loops, is a favorite on Windows – but FL is a favorite music making tool of the bedroom computer producer everyman. (Everywoman?) So, its imminent appearance on the iPad tablet is eagerly anticipated, even in the aftermath of GarageBand. Developers Image-Line, an independent […]

Image: mindBuffer. From an Australian curator comes a diverse compilation of “experimental electronica” spanning artists from down under, the United Kingdom, and New Zealand. Selected by artist / Enig-matik founder SUN IN AQUARIUS, it’s some finely-produced, “glitch-tinged” music covering a gamut of personalities, a nice sampling of some of the kind of quality work getting […]

The wonderful, sometimes-inspiring, sometimes-daunting capability of the computer is to make any sound you like. Give someone an open toolbox, and they really limited only by skill and imagination. Graphical modular environment Reaktor by Native Instruments has a reputation for crunchy granular sounds and elaborate, multi-layered glitches, and those are to some of us certainly […]

Ed.: He’s worked to translate classic hardware like the landmark Rutt-Etra to digital media – in that case, working with its original co-creator. He’s been a virtuoso of Mac visual development, building his own tools and working out an innovative way of piping live textures between applications in ways never before possible. And he’s been […]