“Handmade music” has now been taken up by groups in cities around the world, without any central organization. It’s an open celebration of experimentation in music making and sound. Here, we get a look at the event series we’ve been running here in New York that helped spawn those others. Part of what I like […]

Get your dancing boots on. Striped footware spotted recently at Austin’s hip rooftop lounge Lanai, where we’ll be with Academik Records Friday night. Photo (CC-BY) Cameron Russell. Next week, as the South by Southwest Music Festival descends on Austin, Texas, I’m pleased CDM gets to be involved in a few terrific independent events. No badges, […]

Gameduino is a DIY game platform built on a shield for the Arduino. It’s open source hardware (BSD and, for the code, GPL). Okay, that’s fairly cool. But what makes this project special is that this inexpensive board (a $50 donation buys you one) has hardware that’s capable enough to be interesting, as seen in […]

Gameduino is a DIY game platform built on a shield for the Arduino. It’s open source hardware (BSD and, for the code, GPL). Okay, that’s fairly cool. But what makes this project special is that this inexpensive board (a $50 donation buys you one) has hardware that’s capable enough to be interesting, as seen in […]

Perhaps it’s something of an irony, here on a site that heralds shiny technology, but there is a longing among many musicians to return to something raw and unvarnished in music. There’s discontentment in the ranks of the techno-futurists, enough to sow the seeds of rebellions. If that feeling could be given a voice, Anika […]

This was pretty much inevitable. A/V duo Eclectic Method (“UK via Brooklyn”) have worked their magic with a Charlie Sheen remix. (Assuming they still work in Sony Vegas for their tight edits.) What happens when you mix audio and visuals, as we so often advocate here on this site? Bi-winning. Sound and image. You win […]

Live visualists and electronic musicians still explore how to make the computer a live performance instrument. But going one step further, fused visuals and sound can become the real-time, dynamic substance of a performance. Artist Idiron (aka Gilbert) writes to share his technique for live audiovisuals. It’s a ground-up, handcrafted process that begins with raw […]

I always knew Sony was actually trying to kill me. With all this talk of serious matters, programming, and such, it seemed the right time for a diversion. No further comment. The project is the work of Sheep Films.

John Keston of Audio Cookbook sends in a fascinating project: he’s producing one sound each day from a different synthesizer. Sounds like a great way to build up a library of sounds. He writes: On January 5, 2011 I started a new project on AudioCookbook.org called “One Synthesizer Sound Every Day”. It’s in the vein […]

Tablet? Check. HDMI output? Check. Mixer? Fail. Apple’s new Digital AV Adapter, announced today [see Apple Store link], is pretty darned near perfect for the iPad performer. It might just be better news for the readers of this site than the iPad itself. At US$39, it includes both HDMI and USB ports – meaning you […]