New Instruments That Matter: Four Examples, Live in SF, Really Do Move Music Forward

Richard Lainhart mans the Haken Continuum at an early installment of our Handmade Music series, back in 2007. Meanwhile, in 2011: among many options, four digital instruments challenge you to practice – really – with expressions that are deep and satisfying. Is there anything genuinely new in digital instruments? Isn’t it just a load of […]

Make Ableton Sing Like a Tuvan Synth, or Bleep like an NES

Zap! Photo (CC-BY-SA) candescence. Ableton has introduced various features to its flagship Live tool over the years, but one of the simplest ideas – combining instruments and effects into accessible Racks – is also one of its most useful. They make those sound controls immediate and functional, and they can be a great way of […]

Displayed On Tubes, Digital-Analog Hybrid Visuals, Reaktor Video Synth

Mickael Le Goff is a DSP developer by day for Native Instruments. By night, he imagines signal as an element of video synthesis, dancing and flickering on tubes. In a new music video for Berlin-based producer Bill Youngman, those skills are put to eerie effect against tubes, as the analog signals fire a lonely oscilloscope […]

A Controller Love Supreme: Beautifully-Crafted Wooden Jazz Controller with Ableton Live

Nick Francis poses with his DIY, wooden controller – good enough for jazz. Photo: Justin Steyer for Seattle’s KPLU radio. In a world of disposable computers and electronics, making something “custom” is an antidote to throwaway hardware, a way of putting one’s own handiwork, care, and attention into the object with which you play music. […]

With Inventions Mechanical and Whimsical, Artist Ranjit Again Tackles an Instrument a Day

Like a fresh ingredient in food, sometimes all you need is a good idea. And whether your work is digital or analog, acoustic or mechanical, compositional or improvisational, sound artist and musician Ranjit Bhatnagar can provide ample inspiration. His best idea: forcing himself to come up with one musical idea a day for a month. […]

Hands-on Installation Making: A Tower of LED Touch Panels

Once upon a time in media art, keeping your “secret sauce” of techniques confidential and proprietary was more or less given. Nowadays, though, collective knowledge about how to make stuff helps everyone improve their craft, and push the media forward – perhaps more in line with mature, traditional art technique. So, I hope we’ll more […]

Otomata, A Generative Online Sequencer; Apps versus Web, Plus SuperCollider Goodies

Behold the power of the Web: composition ideas become a tool, a tool becomes a means for even casual users sharing musical sketches, and a browser toy can be a window into a Turkish sound artist breeding musical DNA like some people breed strains of flowers. Otomata is a simple generative online grid-based sequencer, owing […]

Songs of Peace

Photo (CC-BY) srqpix. We are, as every generation, part of a planetary history that’s bigger than anyone can really comprehend, but of which we’re a part. So, music isn’t terribly good at making specific policy prescriptions, or solving tangible problems, or feeding people – all vitally important things. But nothing can express hope or feeling […]

Sonic Pulp Fiction: The Unsound Festival, Respun as Imaginary Narrative

Silhouetted in a fog, Unsound in 2009. Photo (CC-BY-ND) andrej/asebest. “This sounds crazy. I want to see this. I think I may have to see this to understand what you mean. But I want to see this.” David Dodson, journalist, writer, and electronic musician (“Primus Luta” and, most recently at our Handmade Music series, Concrete […]

Wearables: CuteCircuit Turns Katy Perry into Interactive Digital Scenography; Fashion Visualists

Making Katy Perry extraterrestrial, the work of CuteCircuit. Photo by KatyPix.com Digital visual effects need not be limited to projection. CuteCircuit have been one of a select handful of designers pushing the envelope with wearables. Here, Katy Perry becomes their celebrity canvas, in what I expect will be one of the only-ever appearances of American […]