When it comes to playing a hand-built Fence Bass and recording it live, there aren’t hard and fast rules or techniques you have to follow. But musician, composer, and sound designer Diego Stocco can certainly make the mysterious timbres of his exotic instruments into evocative atmospheres. In “Dustland,” the performance and effects are all recorded […]
Music
In Tbilisi, music is on pause because democracy is on the line
Music Stories October 25, 2024
In music video, Lebanese duo Rust captures emotions of “Diaspora”
Music October 11, 2024
Meet the Beep-It Optical Theremin, and Learn Lessons in Product Development from its Creator
What happens when you try to make bleeping and beeping a business? Meet the Beep-It, a simple but addictive optical theremin, and a fun noisemaking impulse buy for sonic enthusiasts. Then, if you’ve ever fancied developing a new idea into a product, learn a little bit about the path of its creator. We hear a […]
The Circus of Lost Souls: Breakdown of a Narrative Audiovisual Piece, in Max for Live
[vimeo width=”640″ height=”300″]http://vimeo.com/20111796[/vimeo] Last week, guest writer Momo proposed a set of semantics and abstraction for making audiovisual collaboration more expressive – starting with ideas as fundamental as describing a kick beat. Now, he returns to show us what he actually means in his work, element by element. -Ed. This is the current version of […]
The Artist on Your Playlist: James Blake’s Haunting Voice Owns the Internet
When I asked what albums readers were loving early in 2011, England-based James Blake’s full-length stood out in numerous reader comments. If you haven’t already seen him plugged on radio and online – and at least some of you haven’t yet – it’s a perfect time to check him out, with the full-length this week […]
Onyx Wants to Make Himself Into Helmeted, Wearable-Music-Tech Tron, With Your Help
A helmet and hand units make up the TRON performance system for a style of music artist Onyx Ashanti calls “beatjazz.” And he’s well on his way to making a reality. All images courtesy the artist. Onyx Ashanti is insane – in the special, essential way that makes certain brilliant musicians. An experienced busker, having […]
Mobile Character Animation, Made on iPhone
Benjamin Rabe, iOS touch artist and avowed fingerpainter, makes a simple but very cute experiment using touch apps. I like this, not so much for the novelty of doing this on iPhones and things, as for the potential it demonstrates in fun, little touch apps as artistic tools. Now I’ll really be pleased when you […]
Octatrack Hands-on Videos Begin to Appear, Featuring New Elektron Super-Sampler in Action
Elektron’s Octatrack sampler is shipping to producer’s hands, bringing this multitrack, time-stretching, step-sequenced, modulation-packing digital sampling hardware to real-world music-making. The results make comparisons like “Ableton in a box” seem pretty fair – and give you more an idea of what the thing does than Elektron’s bizarre (and wonderful) short science fiction film, which seemed […]
Eat or Be Eaten: More Wonderful Animation from Mirai Mizue
After a delicious multi-course meal of short alphabetic animations earlier this week, here’s more of the charming and inventive work of Japanese animator Mirai Mizue. At top: Various scenes of predation. All creatures have to eat each other in order in order to survive. His first professional work. A complete version is included in [MIRAI […]
Cheap Tape Saturation Hack: Delicious Distortion with a Tape-to-CD Adapter
What a lovely coincidence that tape, originally a recording medium, works beautifully for distortion and saturation. Whatever the reason, tape saturation is a popular effect. If you want subtle, pristine saturation, there are various meticulous models of high-quality studio equipment. That was one topic in our interview earlier this week with Universal Audio’s Dr. David […]
$10 a Month, Open Access? Topspin Web Artist Stores Could Get Huge Quick; Artist Examples
Strap in – this may be one heck of a ride. Photo (CC-BY) François Rejeté, of Coney Island’s Topspin (perhaps part inspiration)? Like the aspiring artists themselves, there’s an abundance of Web services with big dreams of stardom. Most will fall into obscurity, and wading through them is a big chore. And then, love them […]