It's one of those electronic music DIY dreams: building drum pads from scratch. Sound on Sound had an article in 1995 that goes through, step by step, how to build a drum pad and trigger system. You'll want to check out the Physical Computing page, too. Anyone want to give this one a try? Hit […]

Weird Music Gadget Week Continues! Engadget and the New York Times are chatting about the League of Electronic Musical Urban Robots' GuitarBot, so I thought I'd add my take. GuitarBot is perhaps best described in sound as an automated, electrified shamisen; it has a very Japanese sound and shudders and shakes fabulously as it plays. […]

monome – the iconic grid and the project that produced it – are having a nice summer. Hardware is being assembled. And even if you’ve got zero money, you can give monome tools a try in the free VCV Rack grid, including on-screen grids, the powerfully programmable teletype module, and more.

Once upon a time in 1979, Pearl – yeah, the drum maker Pearl – made its own drum module. And it’s been sought after ever since, as well as enjoying a nice renaissance thanks to hardware remakes. Now at last, you can get it in plug-in form, with that friendly, playable panel layout. Cost: just a few bucks.

The new generation of MacBook Pro isn’t cheap – but without a doubt, it marks the return of the great Apple flagship notebook. It’s long-haul in every sense of the phrase.

Roland and Rane each have products aimed at Pioneer’s offerings in the computer controller market. Both work with Serato software – but each represents a different approach.

“Pro.” “Creative.” They’re words that are repeated so often in computing it’s easy for some people to forget what they mean. By definition, though, if a “professional” is getting paid for their work, investing in more power to get their work done has a return on investment. And being “creative” on a machine means pushing […]

What’s an ‘app’? For years, it was an uphill battle just getting people to recognize the ability of computers to generate sounds. When Native Instruments was founded in Berlin in 1996, their name was a clue to where they imagined the future going. Propellerhead’s release of ReBirth in 1997 began a concerted effort by the […]

Making Music With Poppy from Pierre Rouanet on Vimeo. It can “learn” to tap its toe and bob its head. And then it can make sounds as you move its arms. It’s a robotic interface for music – a bit like playing with a very smart toy doll. To show off its interactive/interfacing abilities, the […]

The music technology industry continues to pump out things with knobs, and things that sound like the 1970s – sometimes, literally so. And we love them for it. But if you feel dizzy after all this tumbling backwards in time, let us take you on a ride back into the future. It’s the reason we’re […]